Richard Marles insists Australia will always make its own decisions on military deployments, hitting back at Malcolm Turnbull’s and Paul Keating’s claims the Aukus deal will erode the country’s sovereignty.
The defence minister will tell parliament on Thursday that acquiring at least eight nuclear-powered submarines will “dramatically enhance” Australia’s sovereignty, rather than undermine it.
The speech appears to be an attempt to tackle domestic concerns as Australia, the US and the UK prepare to announce key details of the construction plans next month.
Turnbull, the former Liberal prime minister, told Guardian Australia last week that the government must answer whether the submarines could be “operated, sustained and maintained by Australia without the support or supervision of the US navy”.
Turnbull said if such assistance was required, “sovereignty would be shared with the US … [in] a momentous change which has not been acknowledged let alone debated”.
Keating, the former Labor prime minister, has previously raised similar concerns about increased reliance on US support and suggested Australia’s sovereignty was being “wilfully suborned”.
But Marles, who is also the deputy prime minister, will argue on Thursday that the plans will not limit Australia’s room to make its own decisions.
According to speech extracts distributed by his office in advance, Marles will tell parliament “the reality is that almost all of Australia’s high-end capability is developed in cooperation with our partners”.
“Submarines are no exception – and that dramatically enhanced capability dramatically enhances our sovereignty,” Marles will say.
“While there will be much more to say on Aukus in the weeks and months ahead, Australia will always make sovereign, independent decisions on how our capabilities are employed.”
Marles will argue Australia needs British and American expertise “to help us along our optimal pathway” but the end result will be that “we are better able to shape, deter and respond within our strategic landscape”.
The submarines and other advanced defence capabilities to be developed through Aukus will “help us hold potential adversaries’ forces at risk, at a greater distance and increase the cost of aggression against Australia and its interests”.
Marles will make the comments as part of a broader speech about Australia’s cooperation with the US, including joint facilities such as Pine Gap in the Northern Territory and increased rotations of American forces in Australia.
He will say that work depends on “our longstanding and bipartisan policy of ‘full knowledge and concurrence’, as articulated by the Hawke government”.
Under that policy, the Australian government must have “a full and detailed understanding of any capability or activity with a presence on Australian territory” and approve of that presence “in support of mutually agreed goals”.
The ABC reported in 2017 that the Pine Gap facility provided detailed geolocation intelligence to the US military. That prompted some legal observers to question the site’s potential role in supporting deadly US drone strikes in the Middle East.
Marles will say joint facilities with the US “provide critical functions that directly support our national security, which we would not be able to realise by ourselves” – but will add that the arrangements are not set in stone.
“What remains constant – and which is regularly evaluated – is the alignment of these activities with our national interests and the maintenance of our sovereignty, which I reaffirm here today.”
The US president, Joe Biden, said in his State of the Union speech on Tuesday that he was seeking “competition not conflict” with China.
“Allies are stepping up, spending more and doing more – and bridges are forming between partners in the Pacific and those in the Atlantic,” Biden said.
China’s ambassador to Australia, Xiao Qian, said last month the Aukus deal was unhelpful to the relationship between Australia and China.
He also argued it would serve the interests of other countries but not of Australia, in an apparent reference to the sovereignty questions.
