Former Labor prime minister Paul Keating says Australia's new security deal with the United States and United Kingdom is the worst international decision since conscription.
In a scathing statement released before his appearance at the National Press Club, Mr Keating called Prime Minister Anthony Albanese "accommodating" and said he was relying on "seriously unwise" Defence Minister Richard Marles and Foreign Minister Penny Wong.
Mr Keating said the Albanese government had adopted the foreign policy of the former Liberal government without thinking about its implications for Australia's sovereignty.
"In an arrangement concocted on the English coast at Cornwall by Scott Morrison, Boris Johnson ... and Joe Biden, Australia is locking in its next half century in Asia as subordinate to the United States," he said.
The former prime minister criticised Mr Morrison's decision to walk away from a French submarine deal.
"What Anthony Albanese has done this week is screwed into place the last shackle in the long chain which the Americans have laid out to contain China," he said.
"We are now part of a containment policy against China."
The massive price tag of up to $368 billion was also questioned by Mr Keating.
"The marginal benefit to Australia's own defences is minimal while the cost is maximal, indeed off the scale," he said.
"The proposal is irrational in every dimension and an affront to public administration."
Mr Albanese announced details of the deal on Tuesday alongside his counterparts US President Joe Biden and UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
Under the deal - part of the AUKUS security arrangement - Australia will command a fleet of eight nuclear-powered submarines within the next three decades.
