Gareth Evans describes Aukus to be among Australia’s worst foreign policy decisions

Aukus will prove to be one of the worst defence and foreign policy decisions ever made by an Australian government and is only being permitted by Donald Trump in order to destroy Chinese nuclear threats to the US mainland, former foreign affairs minister Gareth Evans says.

In evidence to an independent public inquiry into the $368bn nuclear agreement with the US and UK on Thursday, Evans, a cabinet minister in the Hawke and Keating governments, warned the transfer and construction of submarines to Australia from the early 2030s is effectively only an extension of the American military fleet. He says a future US administration would not come to Australia’s aid in the event of an “existential attack” and would only assist in a military conflict if its own assets on Australian soil are threatened.

Evans also calls the government’s expected price tag for the deal “wholly speculative” and says the US views the submarines as primarily supplementary assets, effectively embedded into US military command, for the task of finding, tracking, attacking and destroying Chinese submarines seen as posing a risk to the US mainland.

Thursday’s first hearing of the public inquiry – which is not a parliamentary process and is being backed by trade unions and the Australian Peace and Security Forum – will be led by commissioners including the former Labor minister Peter Garrett and former defence boss Chris Barrie. The foreign minister, Penny Wong, said on Thursday she and the defence minister, Richard Marles, had discussed Aukus with their UK counterparts in regular talks overnight. Labor is pushing back on criticism of the plan, including from its own MPs, before the party’s national conference in Adelaide next month.