Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced on Saturday that the confidential settlement would put an end to the canceled $ 90 billion project. Labor provided bipartisan support to the Aukus Partnership that replaced the project – in which the United States and the United Kingdom offered to help Australia acquire at least eight nuclear submarines and collaborate on other advanced technologies. However, Albanese said on Saturday that the way the former Morrison administration handled it “caused a huge tension in the relationship between Australia and France”. “It is a fair and just settlement that has been reached. Following are also discussions I had with the President [Emmanuel] “Macron and I thank him for these discussions and the cordial way in which we are rebuilding a better relationship between Australia and France.” The deal was forged by the new Labor government just three weeks after the federal election. Albanese confirmed that it had not been achieved before the elections by the former government and was kept secret. The total cost of the failed submarine project for Australian taxpayers is $ 3.4 billion, which is lower than the $ 5.5 billion advertised as the government’s total approved budget for the project. As previously reported by the Guardian Australia, officials considered this to be a maximum “file”. Albanese said, despite the lower cost, it is still “an extraordinary waste from a government that has always been great in announcements but not good in delivery, and from a government that will be remembered as the most wasteful government in the history of Australia by the federation “. Sign up to receive top stories from Guardian Australia every morning The prime minister has said he will allow Australia to move forward with its relationship with France. Macron accused Morrison of lying to him about the deal and Morrison later said he “was not going to make a police sleigh in Australia”. Part of a text message exchange between the two leaders was leaked to several Australian media in an apparent attempt to allay the idea that France had been completely blinded by the cancellation. French officials have denounced the leak as “an unprecedented new low”. Macron, on the other hand, had warmly welcomed Albanese’s election last month, inviting Albane to visit Paris, which the prime minister said he had accepted. “The details are being worked out. We have a critical relationship. France, of course, plays a crucial role in the European Union. “And President Macron, of course, was recently re-elected, I’m newly elected and it ‘s important that we made a commitment – I appreciated his congratulatory message and the fact that we both want to restore the relationship between our two countries,” he said. “I see a personal meeting between me and President Macron in France as absolutely vital to re-establishing this relationship, which is important to Australia’s national interests.” On Thursday, opposition leader Peter Dutton said he had drawn up a plan as secretary of defense before the election to buy two Virginia-class submarines by 2030 to fill the gap before the delivery of the nuclear submarines, claiming that ” “The Americans would have facilitated just that.” Albanese said on Saturday that Dutton had presided over a regime of “all announcements, non-surrender”. “You are not defending your country and our national security with a media statement – you are defending it with operational capability,” he said. “My government intends to focus on the tradition and not on the statements made by Peter Dutton, which contradict all the statements he made while he was Secretary of Defense.” Asked whether Australia was negotiating on the submarines Dutton mentioned, Albanese said he would not comment “in time” on national security and defense. The Aukus announcement also forced the United Kingdom and the United States to control losses with France. The French defense minister canceled talks with her British counterpart last year following the announcement of the deal, while US President Joe Biden had a 30-minute call with Macron to repair relations following the ouster of France’s ambassador to Washington.
