Albanese’s allies work to kill off anti-AUKUS push before Labor conference

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s allies are scrambling to put a lid on an anti-AUKUS grassroots Labor move that threatens to complicate a US probe into the submarine pact.

The party’s Victorian Left faction, led by minister Andrew Giles and who back the prime minister, are lobbying behind the scenes to water down a motion submitted by the anti-US Labor Against War to Labor’s state conference on Saturday that slams US President Donald Trump and demands the government “withdraw” from AUKUS.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Minister for Skills and Training Andrew Giles.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

The push comes at a time when the Pentagon is reviewing the $360 billion nuclear deal and the US Navy is concerned the country is not building enough nuclear submarines to sell any to Australia in the 2030s without a dramatic increase in production.

Australian officials are emphasising to the US that AUKUS gives it a more powerful military position in the Indo-Pacific to persuade it to stay committed to the deal, but the push from rank-and-file Labor members highlights discomfort in the party about closer ties with the US military.

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Powerbrokers loyal to Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles in the Victoria Right faction are trying to kill off debate on AUKUS entirely, according to sources in both factions who asked to remain anonymous because talks about the Left faction-dominated Victorian Labor conference were private.

“There is a general view in the membership that AUKUS is a crock of shit,” one senior party figure said, “but we’re all going along with it because it’s like a federal version of the Suburban Rail Loop that we can’t ditch.”

The loop is an expensive Victorian infrastructure project announced with little scrutiny. Since 2018, it has provoked fierce criticism from transport academics and Labor’s political opponents, but the state Labor government attributes its thumping election wins to the project.

Spokespeople for Giles and Marles declined to comment. Labor Against War, which does not have significant institutional backing in the party, was contacted for comment.

Former foreign minister Bob Carr, a frequent critic of the nuclear submarine pact signed by the Morrison government, said the Labor conference was entitled to debate it given “it is so colossally expensive that it’s crowding out other options for the defence of this continent”.

“It is going to leave us almost certainly without a sovereign submarine capacity as the Collins class boast are retired,” he said.

Carr previously served as the director of the Australia-China Relations Institute and holds more moderate views on the threat posed by China than Australian defence officials, as expressed in the landmark Defence Strategic Review. The only federal Labor member who has raised public concern about AUKUS is Fremantle MP Josh Wilson.

Marles said on July 26, at an AUKUS treaty signing with UK counterparts, that AUKUS will create 20,000 jobs in Australia and “deliver is the biggest leap in Australia’s military capability, really, since the formation of the navy back in 1913”.

Labor’s state conference is not as significant as the national version, which backed AUKUS after a bruising debate during the last parliamentary term. However, a sharply worded anti-AUKUS motion could cause US officials to question the governing party’s commitment to the pact.

The current motion states that Trump is a “demagogue” who is a “danger to peace and security”.

Conference motions do not bind governments.

A key point of contention in the AUKUS motion is whether to use a word such as “withdraw”. Discussions are under way about whether the wording can be toned down to cause less conflict, according to sources familiar with the negotiations.

“The question will come down to whether the AUKUS opponents are willing to adjust the language sufficiently to avoid embarrassing the government,” one source said.

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Wording can be altered as late as Saturday morning when delegates from Labor’s Left will meet and decide on the final form of each motion before taking it to conference. Resolutions could also be merged or pulled up to this point.

Marles will be the most senior party figure at the event over the weekend because Albanese is at the Garma festival in the Northern Territory.

Duelling motions related to Israel and Gaza are also expected to be debated at the conference.

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