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Anthony Albanese has pledged his government’s unwavering support for the trilateral AUKUS security pact amid rising discontent among left-wing unions and his Labor Party’s rank and file.

Ahead of a showdown over AUKUS at this weekend’s Victorian Labor state conference, and another at the ALP national conference in August, the prime minister said the members were entitled to their views, but the government was not for turning.

“The Labor Party is a democratic party, and it’s one in which people engage in debates, and what we do is we broadcast them live. We’ll continue to do that,” he said of the impending conference skirmishes.

“There are people who have different views in the Labor Party. They’re entitled to put them forward.

“But the view of my government is very, very clear, and is unwavering in its support for AUKUS, in its support for issues about our national security and about our interests in the defence of this nation.

“AUKUS is an important part of that and our government is unwavering in that.”

Opposition defence spokesman Andrew Hastie said the ongoing internal unrest sent a poor signal more broadly.

“How is the prime minister going to deliver AUKUS when he can’t even rally his own tribe behind it?” he said.

“The prime minister needs to drag the ALP out of the nuclear disarmament mindset of the 1980s and into the present moment. Our US and UK partners are watching closely. We can’t let them down.

“Authoritarian powers are on the move, and we need to show strength.”

As reported on Thursday by The Australian Financial Review, a motion to be put at the Victorian conference by the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union condemns the government’s embrace of AUKUS on multiple fronts.

It expresses “profound” disappointment over the government’s decision to embrace the security pact between Australia, the United States and the UK, and to spend up to $368 billion on nuclear-powered, conventionally armed submarines.

It notes the criticism of AUKUS that has been levelled by Labor elders Paul Keating and Gareth Evans, claims AUKUS “infringes on Australia’s independent and free” defence and foreign policy, questions the government’s claims about the thousands of jobs that will be created, expresses alarm at “the staggering cost”, and shares the ACTU’s view that Australia should have a nuclear-free defence policy.

 

The deal will “create thousands of jobs in the UK in the decades ahead”, the government said.


The motion follows a boilover at the Queensland state conference a fortnight ago at which a right-backed motion congratulating the Albanese government over AUKUS was heavily defeated.

Factional bosses will ensure that any motion at the national conference in Brisbane in August will not pass, so as not to humiliate Mr Albanese at the party’s signature event, which will double as a launchpad towards the next federal election.

But former Victorian federal Labor MP Michael Danby said he was concerned that the party’s Socialist Left, which is the most opposed to AUKUS, may cut a deal that would involve the passage of policy proposals hostile towards Israel.

He told Sky News the Socialist Left “will be suffering from a conflict of disloyalties because they either have to defend their prime minister and foreign minister who are in favour of AUKUS, or oppose it”, he said.

“The assurances that have been given to the Jewish community on Israel may be thrown under the bus to secure their support for AUKUS in Brisbane,” he said.

 

Source: Rank-and-file revolt won’t affect AUKUS support: PM

 

 

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