Of the three countries involved in AUKUS, Australia has been the only one to be indifferent to the need for an inquiry into its merits.

Unsurprisingly, the United States and British inquiries have found much to merit the project — including Australian taxpayer money to sluice their respective submarine industrial bases — but both have also expressed concern about their production rates of nuclear-powered submarines.

While the first pillar of the agreement promises that the Royal Australia Navy will receive three Virginia-class nuclear-powered submarines (SSNs), with the possible opportunity to acquire a further two, the prospect of their timely arrival looks increasingly doubtful.

The recent developments at the Shangri-La Dialogue held in Singapore that these will be hand-me-downs from the US Navy already suggests the lack of regard Australian personnel and their slavish representatives are held in.

Add to this a joint as yet undesigned UK-Australian SSN model that will use US technology, the chances that a fleet of these expensive hulks finding their way into the hands of Australian sailors looks damnably remote.

With Canberra insisting that no official inquiry be conducted into AUKUS, it has fallen to those keen on a public inquiry to take up the mantle. The crowd-founded AUKUS Public Inquiry, coordinated by the Australian Peace and Security Forum (APSF), will be led by a number of commissioners, spearheaded by former federal environment minister and front man for Midnight Oil Peter Garrett. Former MPs, retired military and naval officers (these include former chief of the........

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