Key events
Catie McLeod
Turnbull expresses doubts Australia will ever get US-made submarines
Former Liberal prime minister Malcolm Turnbull roundly criticised the Aukus deal, saying it would “very likely” end up with Australia “having no submarines”.
Turnbull also appeared on ABC 7.30 last night, where he disputed Richard Marles’ claim earlier on the program that the rate of production in the US of Virginia-class submarines was increasing. Turnbull said:
That’s not true. The latest numbers given to the congress by the navy on 11 March this year was that the rate of production is 1.1 per annum.
They need to get to two by 2028 to be able to meet their own requirements, and to 2.33 to meet their own plus Australia’s.
And they have not been able to lift production rates despite the expenditure of over $10 billion over the last six or seven years. So they’ve got a real problem there.
Taylor says ‘very high price to pay’ if Aukus goes awry
Shadow defence minister Angus Taylor said he remains concerned Australia could pay a “very high price” if something goes south with the Aukus deal and the country loses out on nuclear-powered submarines. He spoke to RN Breakfast this morning:
There would be a very high price to pay if something were to go wrong with Aukus because we must have peace in our region and Aukus is crucial to that.
Taylor went on to again advocate for more spending on defence, saying “peace in our region is something that needs to be invested in”.
We don’t need rhetoric, we need readiness. We need sovereign capability. We need agility. And we need the people to be able to support that. And Labor’s falling short on all of those fronts.
Authorities ‘urgently following up’ to see if any Australians affected by Air India crash
Air India confirmed the nationalities of passengers onboard the aircraft that crashed in Ahmedabad yesterday.
The 242 people onboard included two pilots and 10 cabin crew. The passengers included 217 adults, 11 children and two infants, according to Reuters.
Of them, 169 were Indian nationals, 53 were Britons, seven Portuguese and one Canadian, Air India said. Multiple people died on the ground at the site of the plane’s crash.
There was one survivor, a Briton.
The Department of Foreign Affairs said last night it was “urgently following up” to determine if any Australians were affected by the incident.
The Guardian has reached out for more information this morning.
Catie McLeod
Marles again says ‘completely appropriate’ for US to review Aukus
The deputy prime minister, Richard Marles, downplayed the potential for the Trump administration’s Aukus review to jeopardise the trilateral security agreement.
Marles, who is also the defence minister, was questioned about the future of the nuclear-powered submarine deal on the ABC’s 7.30 last night, after the US defence department announced a 30-day review of the agreement.
Marles mainly stuck to his talking points during the interview, even as host Sarah Ferguson put pressure on him over whether the US has the capacity to construct enough conventional submarines to fulfil its end of the Aukus arrangement, even before Australia is due to start building nuclear-powered vessels of its own.
Ferguson said the Pentagon’s undersecretary of defence for policy, Elbridge Colby, had doubts about Aukus and the US’s ability to produce enough submarines to service its own navy. She noted the US had never been able to produce more than one conventional Virginia-class submarine a year, when it would need to produce two a year to enable them to be made available to Australia.
Marles insisted the challenges were “well known”, saying:
We need to get to that point in the early 2030s. That’s the time frame. Right now, we are confident that we can meet that. And we are seeing real progress – increases in both production and sustainment – associated with what we’re doing with Aukus and what the Americans themselves are doing.
That’s what is set out in the agreement that we already have with the United States, which forms part of the treaty that we now have between the US and the UK.
I think it’s completely appropriate for this administration to have a look at all of the facts and figures around that.
Albanese sets off for G7 meeting in Canada
Tom McIlroy
Anthony Albanese is leaving Canberra this morning to attend the G7 leaders’ summit in Canada early next week, a trip that will include stops in Fiji and the United States. A meeting with US president Donald Trump could take place on the sidelines of the meeting in Kananaskis – but it is yet to be officially locked in.
The prime minister of Canada, Mark Carney, and the leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the European Union will also be at the summit.
On Friday, Albanese will meet in Nadi with his Fijian counterpart, Sitiveni Rabuka, for talks on climate change and regional security in Nadi. In Seattle over the weekend he will meet with business leaders to discuss technology and artificial intelligence.
Once in Canada early next week, Albanese will participate in G7 discussions on global energy, critical minerals, secure supply chains and infrastructure. The prime minister said:
Visiting Fiji so soon after the election is a deliberate decision to reinforce my government’s Pacific priorities and to exchange views with my dear friend prime minister Rabuka, a respected Pacific statesman.
I am honoured to be invited by prime minister Carney to attend the G7 leaders’ summit in Alberta as a key partner.
I look forward to working productively with world leaders to discuss how we tackle some of the most challenging issues facing Australia, our region and the world
Welcome
Good morning, Nick Visser here to guide you through today’s breaking news. Here’s what’s on the cards this morning:
Prime minister Anthony Albanese will leave Canberra this morning en route to the G7 meeting in Canada early next week. The trip will include stops in Fiji and the US, with all eyes on a potential sideline meeting with Donald Trump, although nothing has been confirmed.
The Department of Foreign Affairs expressed condolences to those affected by the Air India crash in the city of Ahmedabad last night. The Australian high commission and consulate general are “urgently following up” with local authorities to determine if any Australians were affected.
Defence minister Richard Marles again downplayed the US review of the Aukus submarine deal, telling the ABC last night he believes it is “completely appropriate” for the Trump administration to look into it.
Stick with us.
