According to Defence Minister Richard Marles, securing Australia’s fuel supply is of the utmost strategic importance. And it it is one of the reasons we ‘have to’ buy $368 billion worth of submarines. Yet, our fuel reserves are dwindling, so what’s the scam?
Defence Minister Richard Marles spent Sunday morning on ABC’s Insiders responding to David Speers’s questions on the Strategic Defence Review and, in particular, the reduction in our strategic warning times and the risks our nation faces over the next three years
He talked about “the biggest conventional military build-up that the world has seen since the end of the second world war,” and about us being “much more reliant upon our economic connection with the world”. He then went on to say that “the threat is not that we are about to be invaded, but our exposure to economic coercion and to coercion from an adversary is greater and the potential for that coercion going forwards is much more significant, and that’s where the threat lies, and that’s why we need to re-posture for that.”
He gave a direct example of the threat – our fuel supplies. “Most of our liquid fuels now, almost all come from overseas … most comes now from just one country, and that’s Singapore.”
Recent FOI data shows have 22 days of diesel fuel reserve in-country, last June we quietly sold off 1.7 million barrels of fuel reserves we had stored in the US’ Strategic Fuel Reserve and all most all of our fuel supplies come from the East Asian tinderbox to our north. The authors of Strategic Defence Review proposed government establish a National Fuel Council, which it failed to agree to.

Provided via FOI Request
Our government’s solution to the three-year threat the Minister has so clearly spelt out, and one that would shut down our economy and society in under a month, is to spend $368 billion on nuclear submarines, the first of which will not arrive in three years, or six, or even nine.
Meanwhile, the Chinese, who know that they are extremely vulnerable to the bulk of their energy and trade flowing through the Malacca Straits have been building ports in Myanmar, pipelines from Russia and has just announced a new high speed train system that will run from Pakistan’s Gwadar port to the Chinese city of Kashgar – all bypassing the western controlled Singapore Straits. It’s strategically well thought out and will not just contribute to their Defence Force resilience, but to their economy as well.
Sitting back and comparing the adopted approaches, the only words to describe our government’s response is ‘first class strategic incompetence’. Although, to be fair, US and UK industry will do well out of AUKUS. That’s the scam.
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Rex Patrick is a former Senator for South Australia and earlier a submariner in the armed forces. Best known as an anti-corruption and transparency crusader, Rex is running for the Senate on the Lambie Network ticket next year - www.transparencywarrior.com.au.