Former prime minister Scott Morrison says China’s rapid military build-up was at “the top of the list” of factors driving the AUKUS nuclear submarine deal he brokered in deep secrecy with the United States and the United Kingdom.

Eighteen months after he announced “AUKUS is born”, Mr Morrison agreed in an interview with 7.30 that he may well be described as “the father” of the agreement.

The former leader explained what led the United States to finally share its nuclear submarine secrets with Australia — the only country to be entrusted with the propulsion technology, since the United Kingdom in 1958. 

“We needed to acquire something that, as you said, no previous government had been able to do,” Mr Morrison said.

“That’s not a reflection on those previous governments. The answer had always been ‘no’ and it’d be ‘no’ to everybody that had asked for this, not just Australia.”

Asked if China’s rapid military expansion had prompted the United States to say yes, Mr Morrison said: “It was a combination of events but that was certainly at the top of the list.”

“There had been since 2016, even in that short period of time, a very significant shift in the strategic situation in the Indo-Pacific,” he said.

That shift in the Indo-Pacific region, Mr Morrison claimed, had implications for the diesel-powered submarines Australia had agreed to purchase from the French Naval Group.

Under the AUKUS deal, Australia is set to buy between three and five Virginia-class nuclear-powered submarines from the US before building another eight SSN-AUKUS boats with a British design and US weapons systems.

Having recently described AUKUS to The Australian as the most closely guarded secret since World War II, the former PM was asked if he had kept the plan from most of his national security cabinet for nearly a year.

“It is true, other than the defence minister and the foreign minister,” Mr Morrison said.

“Linda Reynolds was the original defence minister and then Marise Payne of course, I brought into that circle, and then obviously Peter Dutton when he became defence minister.

“It was really on a ‘who needed to know’ [basis] because it was a progressive approach.”

The former prime minister said he had been the one driving the AUKUS agreement to expand beyond nuclear-powered submarines to include technologies such as quantum computing, artificial intelligence, undersea drones and hypersonic missiles.

“It became very clear to me that we don’t want to have to go and do this every single time we’re trying to jointly develop a capability,” he said.

“Why not all be in the same room at the same time?”

Mr Morrison said that in 2021, as he was considering whether to push forward with the nuclear submarine plan, he was not contemplating a potential war with China to be fought alongside the US. 

“It was more about contemplating a situation that we would prevent such an outcome,” he said.

Robodebt scheme

Mr Morrison was also asked about Robodebt, the failed scheme that was meant to collect Centrelink debts. 

A royal commission, due to release its findings this year, has probed the question of when senior bureaucrats and ministers first learned the scheme was likely illegal.

Mr Morrison, who had announced the introduction of Robodebt as social services minister, was asked by 7.30 when exactly he was advised of the scheme’s illegality.

“Not until I was prime minister when I was told about it, and then shut it down,” he said.

Former human services minister Stuart Robert told the royal commission this month that he had defended the scheme as a “dutiful cabinet minister” even after he came to hold a “massive personal misgiving” about it. 

Asked if cabinet solidarity extended to misleading the public, Mr Morrison said: “Well you’d have to raise that with Stuart.”

“Do you accept now that it was both illegal and immoral?” 7.30 host Sarah Ferguson asked.

“I believe that certainly the legality of the issue has been settled and had that been raised with the government at the time Robodebt would never have happened,” Mr Morrison said.

Asked again if he would describe it as immoral, Mr Morrison said: “I think the idea of ensuring the taxpayers money which is paid is done properly is the principal. And I think that principle is right. But clearly how this was executed, on an industrial scale, failed that test.”

Pressed a final time on whether the term “immoral” was a reasonable term, the former PM said, “the outcome was very different from what was intended.”

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