Peter Garrett
speaker
112 appearances
2 recordings
2 series
first heard Jun 2026
last heard 14 Jun
Peter Garrett’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 2.
Appearances
7am · Peter Garrett on Aukus, politics and the fight for “the soul of the country” · 14 Jun 2026
podcast
We are sceptical about AUKUS and I think any fair-minded person who looked at it may take that view as well.
But we're absolutely clear that it is a genuine public inquiry.
It's almost at the heart of AUKUS.
Is AUKUS something which brings us into the US's potential warfighting plans or otherwise?
And if so, is that something that Australians agree with?
Yeah.
Hi, Daniel.
There sure was.
I mean, we had former Foreign Minister Gareth Evans.
His name may be known to some listeners, but certainly he was a very significant figure, both in the Hawke government and the Keating government back in the day, and very well known internationally.
He was highly critical of AUKUS for a range of different reasons, some of which people would be aware of.
The fact that the cost of the submarines is very high and the question of whether they'll arrive at all is still up in the air.
But I think additionally, he provided us with a really interesting context about
what the Americans would expect if, in fact, we ended up taking the first part of the Orca subs deal, which is the nuclear-powered Virginia subs.
And he pointed out in the comments by senior American officials that, essentially, they would still remain American submarines.
And I think that was something which the inquiry was aware of, but we never heard it articulated so clearly by someone with that experience.
The other bit of, I think, really interesting material that was submitted at this inquiry was the fact that
The amount of high-level weapons-grade plutonium that these nuclear submarines do produce over their lifetime and under this arrangement that the government has entered into, many people may not be aware that Australia is actually required to safely store that long-lived high-level radioactive waste.
The other thing to say is that it was very interesting to hear from members of the public.
And they had some really good questions that they were asking.
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