Murray Olds: Australian correspondent on the costs associated with Australia's AUKUS subs going up

Australia's AUKUS deal is facing additional pressures as the US is calling for an increase in defence spending.

The US and the United Kingdom have both launched reviews into the multi-billion-dollar submarine deal amid production and tariff-based concerns. 

Australian correspondent Murray Olds says costs have already blown out to over $400 billion and counting.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
International correspondence with ends and eye insurance peace of mind
for New Zealand business. Well that's out of Australia's Marriol's izz.
He correspondent. He mus, afternoon, do you have that? Would
you call it a draw? Look? I could earn his
stomach the first half of it. I turned off. I mean, please,
you know, it's like please, I couldn't. I couldn't bear it.

(00:20):
I mean, neither stuffed up, neither was able to dominate.
The rival plans for fixing the housing crisis. I mean
cost of living is still the number one issue here.
And these rival plans for fixing housing, trying to help
young people into their first home, labor offering low deposits
and building brand new homes that will be reserved for
first home buyers. The opposition policy to allow young people

(00:43):
to access the superannuation to buy a home. Peter Dutton
opened and closed by using the liner you're better off
now than you were three years ago. The unce is
probably no and albanize, he said. In times of strife,
trust the mob you've got rather than the clowns on
the other side. You get this sense that Peter Dutton
and in the Opposition really haven't. Either they haven't hit first

(01:05):
gear top gear yet or they've got nothing else to
give because the whole opposition campaign has really been a
bit haphazard, a lack of any policy detail. You've got
big question marks have for Peter Dutton in terms. Well,
he admitted in the debate last night he got it
wrong by verbaling the Indonesian president about these You know,

(01:26):
the Russian planes may be based in Papua, and you
know you had the policy flip flop on, you know,
working from home and sacking public servants. You just get
the sense that people are saying, you know what, we
are in trouble times and the other mob really doesn't
look as though it's ready to govern. It's I mean
the countdowns on May the third is the election and
the oppositions running out of time to try and get

(01:49):
a bit of momentum. How much is ORC is going
to cost? Oh god knows. I mean it was three
hundred and seventy eight billion dollars that when it was signed.
Now we're already at four hundred billion and counting. And
it's a very interesting study here. I mean, these are submarines.
The first is not supposed to get here until in
the twenty thirties, the last of them not until the
twenty sixties, and we're already spending money hand over. If

(02:11):
there's so much money. There's been a study app by
a military think tank over here that says, basically, what's
happening the huge spend on these nuclear submarines that are
yet to be designed, never mind built and then delivered.
We haven't got the cruise for the existing submarines. We've
gotten our old school. The whole orchestra budget for submarines

(02:33):
is distorting the rest of the defense spend. Donald Trump's
there in Washington demanding allies up there spending on defense.
Australia is shoveling money across to the United States for
these submarines. And what that's doing, according to this defense
think tank, it is taking capacity away from arguably the
strike arm of what Australia's got to offer, and that's
the air force, all sorts of aerial ordinance is it's

(02:57):
being invented. Every year, there's something new to spend money on.
Drones are the big thing. Of course, we're looking at
that in Europe right now, aren't we. And so the
argument is, are we spending too much the Greens over
here for the election campaign, either or saying bloody no
we're not. We should can aucus now. It's just a
waste of money we may never ever see a benefit.

(03:17):
Yeah interesting, Hey, thanks very much Mauz really appreciated, as
Murray Old's Australia corresponds. For more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive,
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