Under the AUKUS deal, Australia last year began making a series of multi-billion-dollar payments to the United States and United Kingdom to help boost submarine industrial production in both nations.
Earlier this year, the government made a $768 million down-payment to the US as part of an overall pledge of $4.7 billion, to help secure the transfer of second-hand Virginia-class submarines here in the 2030s.
Australia is also scheduled to pay $4.6 billion to the UK to help support the eventual construction of a new SSN-AUKUS fleet, but the government and defence have been reluctant to admit these contributions have a no-refund clause if the submarines do not arrive.
That is not the only sunk cost. As Greens senator David Shoebridge points out, Australia is also "spending $1.7 billion of taxpayers' money to build a US nuclear submarine base that will be operational by 2027 just off Perth".
Stephen Dziedzic does a terrific analysis of the position..
its a high risk gamble working out the cost of Aus withdrawing. as I wrote at the time of the contract release, we have no out. the yanks or the UK can dissolve the relationship, but not Aus.
so really sailorgirl is spot on in the financial sense.
we can only hope that Trump prefers to chuck the whole deal instead of draining us dry for 30 years.
