Finally an article on the issue.
I put an important piece of highlighted information in, that was in the broadcast interview, but was omitted from this transcript, most unusual.
If you listen to the actual interview, it wasn't until just before the AUKUS announcement, that the UK and U.S agreed to let us have the nuclear subs, then Morrison told Macron they were looking at alternatives as there had been dramas with the French contract and by the time they arrived in 2038 they would be useless.
I guess now the media will try and scuttle the nuclear sub deal, then they have a new headline, it is all so predictable.
Scott Morrison cited the text messages as proof that he gave President Emmanuel Macron fair warning the deal would be dumped.
From the article:
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has hit back in his extraordinary row with President Emmanuel Macron over claims that he lied about a $90 billion submarine contract, citing secret text messages as proof that he gave the French leader fair warning the deal would be dumped.
One day after Mr Macron accused him on camera of lying about the deal, Mr Morrison revealed more details about their private talks to justify the way he cancelled the contract and formed a submarine alliance with the United States and the United Kingdom.
“This was a highly secure decision, a highly secure announcement, over which we had held these things incredibly tightly, not just for many months but in Australia’s case for more than a year,” Mr Morrison said.
“It was my obligation to advise him of that directly. He was clearly aware over some months that there were concerns, and they were responding to those concerns.
“We had correspondence and other messaging during that period. And we decided, in Australia’s interest, not to go ahead.”
Mr Morrison said the search for an alternative had been under way with the Australian Defence Force for 18 months, but intensified when Naval Group of France failed to meet a deadline for part of the project last year.
“We were supposed to have gone through the Scope Two projects gate the previous December and those marks were missed,” he said. “Ironically, had that been achieved, then quite likely all of this would have been moot.
“That opened up a further opportunity for us to pursue our alternative, which I did, in Australia’s interest, and I make no apology for it.”
Mr Morrison said he discussed the alliance with Mr Biden and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson at the G7 summit in Cornwall in June this year
( where it was actually finally agreed Australia would gain access to US/UK submarines) and had dinner with Mr Macron several days later in Paris where he told him Australia was considering alternatives to the Attack-class submarines meant to be built by Naval Group.
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“At our dinner I gave the opportunity for the French to respond to the matters I had raised and that took place over the next few months,” Mr Morrison said.
“Now, we eventually formed the view that we would agree to disagree and the Attack-class submarine would not meet our requirements and we decided, finally, only in the days before the announcement of the AUKUS arrangement
(when the US and UK agreed they would let Australia have their nuclear submarine technology and going forward with that decision on nuclear submarines, was that decision finally made.
“And that occurred at the same time that I could be assured that we had a clear path forward for a nuclear submarine.
“I was not going to leave Australia stranded between two projects.”
Mr Morrison defended his handling of the affair by saying Australia was able to secure access to nuclear submarine technology possessed by only two other countries, the US and the UK.
The technology fits a nuclear reactor to a submarine without needing replacement or additional nuclear fuel during decades of service, a vital difference with the French model because it means Australia would not need a civil nuclear industry to maintain the vessel.
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Mr Morrison noted that Mr Macron sent a French admiral to Australia after the dinner in Paris and the French defence industry mobilised to try to save the deal, proof in his view that the French knew the contract could be cancelled.
“There was a three-month period when the issues that had been raised were being discussed between French and Australian officials and the Naval Group,” he said.
“There’s no easy way to say to a contractor that you are going to not proceed through the next gate of the contract.”