AUKUS repositioned, not cancelled. Same workforce, same shipyards, same partnerships — redirected output. Hundreds of unmanned coastal-defence platforms, dual-use vessels, Sovereign Defence Manufacturing under the SBC umbrella. Internal strength as deterrence.
The full strategic case is set out in MMA Memo 18 — Defence Through Nation Building. The short version is on this page.
Around 99% of Australia’s import and export tonnage moves by sea, through chokepoints thousands of kilometres from the Australian coast. The Red Sea case is the clearest demonstration of what this actually means: from late 2023, Houthi forces in Yemen — operating consumer-grade drones, cheap anti-ship missiles, and modest sea-borne unmanned vessels — closed the Bab el-Mandeb / Suez route to roughly 60–70% of container traffic, and have kept it closed despite sustained naval intervention by the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union, and a multinational coalition. The Strait of Hormuz tells the same story at lower intensity. If the combined naval power of the West cannot reopen these lanes against a non-state actor at short range from their nearest bases, the proposition that eight Australian submarines based in Western Australia, arriving over two decades from the 2040s, will meaningfully contribute to shipping-lane security is not a serious one.
Australia’s coastline is 35,000 km. Its EEZ is more than 8 million km². Even a fleet of dozens of crewed surface combatants and submarines cannot be everywhere at once. Genuine continental coverage requires either an unaffordably large force or a fundamentally different posture: mass unmanned systems that can be deployed cheaply at scale, are persistent, and are difficult to defeat through attrition. The Ukrainian use of unmanned surface and subsurface vessels in the Black Sea is the template — relatively low-cost platforms, produced in volume, delivering strategic effect against far more expensive crewed adversaries.
Even if eight nuclear submarines were the right answer to Australian coastal defence — and they are not — the AUKUS programme as currently structured leaves Australia critically dependent on foreign supply chains for nuclear propulsion technology, specialised steel, advanced electronics, and the maintenance ecosystem the boats will require for their fifty-year service lives. Sovereign capability that depends on foreign suppliers for its most critical components is not sovereign capability. It is licensed capability with extra steps.
None of this is an argument that Australia should not have submarines, or should not have AUKUS. It is an argument that the structure of AUKUS — what it builds, where, with what, and for what purpose — is the wrong fit for the strategic situation Australia is actually in.
AUKUS has already built an enormous amount of value that nobody should walk away from: the workforce, the funding commitments, the shipyard infrastructure, the supplier relationships, the security partnerships with the United Kingdom and the United States. What needs to change is the output of all this capacity.
The most important repositioning is the shift from a small fleet of large crewed nuclear submarines to a large fleet of small-to-medium unmanned underwater vehicles. The technology is already substantially proven — AUKUS Pillar 2 already covers autonomous systems, and Anduril’s Ghost Shark, developed in partnership with the RAN, is the working example of the class. The proposition is to scale this dramatically: mass-produce unmanned coastal and seabed defence platforms in Australia, with Australian-manufactured components, and field them in numbers measured in hundreds rather than in eights. The submarine programme’s skills — pressure-hull engineering, naval architecture, underwater acoustics, autonomous systems integration — map directly onto this new mission.
Shipbuilding capacity that is not building submarines does not have to sit idle. Australia will need, over the next two decades, a substantial fleet of cable-laying vessels, pipeline vessels, and offshore construction ships to install the subsea infrastructure that connects the SBC continental network to the Asia-Pacific region, and to support the substantial offshore wind and gas resource that surrounds the continent. These vessels are dual-use by nature: a cable-laying ship is also a strategic asset in any future contingency. AUKUS shipyards can build them. The output is commercially valuable in peacetime and strategically valuable in any future contingency.
The most consequential repositioning is the one that touches the rest of the platform. Sovereign Defence Manufacturing — a manufacturing programme under the Sovereign Build Corporation umbrella — produces onshore in Australia the materials and components that both the SBC and the repositioned defence base require: transmission cables, steel pipes, high-voltage infrastructure, composite materials, specialised electronics, naval architecture components, unmanned-systems sub-assemblies. The programme is dimensioned around dual-use demand: SBC needs ten million tonnes of steel pipe for water and gas pipelines; the unmanned-systems programme needs pressure-hull steel for hundreds of UUVs. Both demand bases can be served by the same Australian steel mill running at industrial scale, which would not be commercially viable for either demand base alone. The same logic applies to cables, composites, and high-voltage substation gear. Civilian infrastructure demand and the repositioned defence demand together justify the sovereign manufacturing base that neither could justify on its own.
China is Australia’s largest two-way trading partner by a significant margin — approximately $300 billion in annual trade, or roughly 24–28% of Australia’s total trade. Iron ore, LNG, education, agriculture, services — the bilateral relationship is the single largest contributor to Australia’s current account, to GST receipts, to state-government royalty income, and to a large share of regional Australian employment. A defence policy that treats this relationship as a problem to be managed adversarially is a defence policy that materially impoverishes the country it claims to defend. The MMP position is that constructive engagement with China — alongside Japan, South Korea, the European Union, the United States, the United Kingdom, India, and ASEAN — is part of the defence policy, not a distraction from it. Economic interdependence has historically promoted peace far more reliably than military deterrence has.
Inside that interdependent global frame, what makes a country harder to coerce is its internal strength — the things it does not need to import, the things it can do for itself if the trading system temporarily fails. Australia’s list of strategic dependencies is uncomfortable: refined liquid fuels (around 90% imported), pharmaceuticals (more than 90% imported), critical industrial inputs (cables, transformers, steel pipe, electronics, ammunition components), and a substantial share of the consumer-electronics supply chain. These are dependencies that no submarine fleet can remediate. They can only be remediated by building the manufacturing base at home. Sovereign manufacturing is sovereign defence, expressed through the medium of the industrial base rather than the medium of the rifle range.
The MMP platform proposes that Australia become the infrastructural anchor of the Asia-Pacific community of nations: subsea cables for power, data, and energy; offshore wind interconnection; gas and hydrogen pipelines where geography permits; trusted data and compute infrastructure for the region. A country whose physical infrastructure is necessary to its neighbours’ prosperity is structurally hard to isolate — on the European-Union model of integration deep enough that conflict becomes structurally unattractive. Australia’s natural role in the region is as a uniter and bridge-builder: trusted across multiple alignments, infrastructurally central, strategically invested in regional stability.
The sections above set out the strategic case for the AUKUS repositioning, in alignment with MMA Memo 18. The sections that follow are the MMP-specific operational policies that would deliver it — the political and institutional changes a Moral Majority Party government would make in its first term.
Australia formally declares strategic neutrality — a constitutional provision requiring a full referendum to overturn. No Prime Minister commits Australian forces to foreign conflict without the explicit consent of the Australian people through a parliamentary vote. The historical comparison is Switzerland, which has held a posture of armed neutrality since 1815 and has not been invaded in over two centuries. We choose the same path.
The primary Army investment. Every member is a qualified tradesperson and drone operator. Builds SBC corridors in a public-private fusion model alongside private contractors — sovereign capability, corporate efficiency. Peacetime: builds Australia. Emergency: flood, fire, and cyclone response within 72 hours. Combat-capable, combat-ready. The most economically productive defence force in the country’s history.
Three-sphere drone systems built and operated in Australia: mass-produced unmanned underwater vehicles (sea — the Ghost Shark class, scaled to hundreds), autonomous aerial systems for rapid deployment within hours to any point in Australia (air), and ground drone networks operated from remote positions along every northern and western approach (land). No foreign-built platforms. No foreign-dependent systems. The sea programme is the centre of mass — it is the direct deliverable of the AUKUS repositioning.
MMP builds a 90-day strategic fuel reserve from Australian crude on Australian soil before any export contract. Geelong and Lytton refineries kept open. Carbon levy removed from both from Day 1. Australian biofuels mandate. Fuel sovereignty is defence sovereignty. The seven-letter formal correspondence series under the Liquid Fuel Emergency Act 1984 documents the basis for the immediate emergency declaration.
Border Force merges with the Navy under unified military command — ending the split between civilian border enforcement and military maritime defence. One command. One chain of authority. One response. A fleet of small, fast vessels patrols Australia’s 35,000 km of coastline, augmented by the mass unmanned platforms from the AUKUS repositioning. Drone coverage from remotely positioned stations along every approach. No vessel gets through unmonitored.
The SAS is retained, expanded, and restructured. Eight barracks, permanently based in every state and territory — not concentrated at Campbell Barracks in Perth. Fast deployment to any point in Australia within hours. Counter-terrorism, maritime security, hostage rescue. The SAS does not need to be large. It needs to be everywhere and fast. Both conditions met.
Australian sovereign satellites serve a dual role: civilian communications for all Australians, and a dedicated defence layer that no foreign government or corporation can cut. Every SAS barracks, Border Force vessel, remote drone position, and SBC corridor operates on sovereign comms. Space is the new high ground. Australia owns its own.
Six tracks from age 18: Engineer Corps (military construction and disaster response), Health & Care (Country Care Communities, regional hospitals), Green Corps (billion trees, conservation), Teaching (regional schools), Community Service (welfare, disability), and Innovation & Technology (ANAI, CSIRO, defence tech). 75% minimum wage. Nationally recognised qualifications. Not conscription — paid, skilled, two-year service that feeds Engineer Corps, drone operators, and cyber specialists.
Australia’s first line of defence is a relationship, not a weapon. A dedicated Diplomatic Corps works across the Asian community of nations to build neutrality agreements, resource-sharing frameworks, mutual non-aggression arrangements, and the infrastructure-connector programmes set out above. ASEAN engagement deepened. Trade not contingent on military alliance. Australia as the trusted bridge-builder in the region.
ASD rebuilt as a genuinely sovereign capability. Australia forms its own independent threat assessments. Cyber defence of critical infrastructure: power grid, water systems, banking, communications. No automatic adoption of foreign intelligence assessments. We use our own eyes.
No Australian defence land, base, or strategic asset is sold, leased, or transferred to any foreign government or corporation under MMP. The Darwin Port lease to a foreign-owned operator on a 99-year term is the template for what never happens again. Sovereign territory is not a commercial asset. Defence land held in perpetuity. Any existing arrangement that compromises sovereign control is reviewed and unwound.
Every dollar of the 3% GDP defence commitment is spent on Australian capability, employing Australians, building the manufacturing base. The Engineer Corps, the mass unmanned platforms, Sovereign Defence Manufacturing under the SBC umbrella, and the Asia-Pacific connector programme are the primary investments. The same 3% as today — differently directed.
| Current — Forward Defence Posture | MMP — Internal Strength Posture |
|---|---|
| $268–368B for 3–5 nuclear submarines arriving in the 2040s — the wrong tool for continental coastal defence | $268–368B repositioned — same workforce, hundreds of unmanned coastal platforms + dual-use vessels + Sovereign Defence Manufacturing |
| AUKUS Pillar 1 — eight crewed submarines, dependent on foreign supply chains for hulls, propulsion, electronics, maintenance | AUKUS Pillar 2 scaled — mass-produced unmanned platforms (Ghost Shark class), built in Australia, with Australian components |
| Defence procurement largely imported — cables, steel pipe, electronics, ammunition components from foreign suppliers | Sovereign Defence Manufacturing under SBC umbrella — civilian + defence demand justifies the steel mill, the cable plant, the composite line |
| Defence posture built around adversarial decoupling from a $300B trading relationship with China | Constructive engagement across Asia — trade is part of the defence policy, not in tension with it |
| 90% of refined fuel imported, 28 days of strategic reserve — defence force exposed within weeks of any major disruption | 90-day physical fuel reserve on Australian soil before any export contract |
| No formal neutrality. Prime Minister commits forces to foreign wars by executive decision. Iraq 2003 the template. | Strategic neutrality — constitutional provision. No forward deployment without referendum and parliamentary vote. |
| Air Force structured for international operations — not rapid domestic deployment | Air Force structured for rapid deployment anywhere in Australia within hours + autonomous aerial systems |
| No independent intelligence — we went to war in Iraq on intelligence we could not verify | Independent intelligence — Australia assesses its own threats with its own eyes |
| Army structured for Middle East wars — no drone specialisation, no SAS network across states | Engineer Corps + Land Force + drone-operator pipeline — structured to defend Australia and build it |
| No pipeline into defence manufacturing or Land Force capability | National Service feeds Engineer Corps, drone operators, cyber specialists across six tracks |
| Border Force — separate civilian agency, large ships, slow response, split command | Border Force merged with Navy — unified command, small fast vessels, drone network |
| No sovereign satellite comms — dependent on foreign satellites for all operations | Australian sovereign satellites — dual role: civilian comms + dedicated defence layer |
| Defence land sold and leased to foreign governments — Darwin Port 99-year lease the template | No defence land sales. Ever. Sovereign territory held in perpetuity for Australians. |
The full strategic case is set out in MMA Memo 18, the canonical defence-policy document of the trilogy. The memo covers the shipping-lane analysis, the scale problem, the supply-chain exposure problem, the AUKUS repositioning in detail, the dual-use Sovereign Defence Manufacturing dimensioning, the Asia-Pacific connector argument, and citations to primary sources. Read the full memo on MMA →