The AUKUS files

The AUKUS deal is one of the most significant strategic decisions the Australian government has made in decades, but some of the key details remain obscured from public view.

Below you can explore a collection of the AUKUS-related documents obtained by Daniel Hurst under freedom of information laws since 2021. All were originally freely accessible to the general public on government departments' official disclosure logs, but the Department of Defence now removes such files from public view after two years. Some other departments keep them online for longer.

The below documents were downloaded from the public disclosure logs at the time and are now posted here as an enduring public resource.

Secret investigation into the nuclear option

1. Defence secretly orders work into an alternative to the French submarines

• Agency: Defence
• Date range of documents: May 2020 to February 2021
• Date released under FOI: December 2021
• Points of interest: These documents show the contours of the formal process behind the Morrison government’s consideration of switching to nuclear-powered submarines, with one such review afforded "the highest priority".
• Related news story: Home affairs boss Michael Pezzullo was kept out of secret Aukus deliberations

2. Defence secretary receives advice reporting positive progress on the French submarine contract

• Agency: Defence
• Date range of documents: August 2021
• Date released under FOI: February 2022
• Points of interest: These documents show that despite previous negative press about the French submarine project, the advice within Defence shortly before the government made the AUKUS switch was that things were now travelling well. The French offer for the next phase of work was deemed “affordable and acceptable”. The top Defence official promised this positive feedback would be reflected in the looming “2+2” meeting between Australia’s foreign affairs and defence ministers and their French counterparts - a meeting that the French government would later claim was central to Australia’s double dealing.
• Related news story: Top defence official was to report ‘good progress’ on French submarine project weeks before axing

The French correspondence

3. Defence sends letter to France’s Naval Group a week before project's dumping

• Agency: Defence
• Date range of documents: September 8, 2021
• Date released under FOI: December 2021
• Points of interest: This is a highly technical letter to France’s Naval Group as part of the process of moving to the next phase of the contract, including tracking progress against conditions to proceed. There is a disclaimer about not necessarily having authorisation to continue work beyond the current step, but also nothing explicit that the whole thing is about to be dumped.
• Related news story: Australia wrote to Naval Group noting progress on submarines a week before contract was cancelled

4. Defence sends another letter to France’s Naval Group, just hours before the project's dumping

• Agency: Defence
• Date range of documents: September 15, 2021
• Date released under FOI: October 2021
• Points of interest: This is a short letter, again focused on routine procedural matters under the contract. It was sent just hours before the French president was notified by then-PM Scott Morrison that the whole deal was off. The Australian government would point to wording in this letter that there was not necessarily authorisation to proceed to the next stage; the French side would argue the letter gave no heads up of problems just hours before the rupture was announced.
• Related news story: Australia told French submarine firm it didn’t have green light to proceed hours before deal cancelled

Morrison's shipbuilding adviser stays on

5. The secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet writes to former US navy secretary Donald Winter

• Agency: PM&C
• Date range of documents: September 2022
• Date released under FOI: November 2022
• Points of interest: The fact that a former US navy secretary relied on by the Morrison government for advice on naval shipbuilding would be kept on hand for advice by the Albanese government shows a level of continuity in this area.
• Related news story: Labor retains Coalition-appointed shipbuilding adviser on $9,000 for each day worked

The outspoken former PM

6. Former prime minister Paul Keating sends this paper to Anthony Albanese outlining his views on the strategic risks posed by AUKUS

• Agency: PMO
• Date range of documents: January 24, 2023
• Date released under FOI: June 2023
• Points of interest: This is notable because it shows the argument the former Labor PM was making to the current Labor PM behind the scenes in January 2023, prior to Albanese locking in the details of the AUKUS submarine plan in San Diego in March 2023.

7. Keating sends an email to ministers in Albanese’s cabinet giving them a heads up on his blistering public attack on AUKUS

• Agency: Foreign Minister's Office
• Date range of documents: March 15, 2023
• Date released under FOI: June 2023
• Points of interest: This email is notable for the very direct language he uses in correspondence with Labor cabinet ministers, giving them a heads up on what he was about to say publicly. It would be an uncomfortable email to receive. Keating acknowledged his views "will not please the Prime Minister, the Foreign Minister nor the Defence Minister but the country is
  entitled to a rationale for such a radical and dangerous policy".
• Related news story: Paul Keating sent explosive email to Labor cabinet two hours before attack on Aukus, FOI documents reveal

The diplomatic reassurance

8. DFAT’s summary of the briefings it gave to foreign diplomats in Canberra after the more detailed AUKUS plans were announced in early 2023

• Agency: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
• Date range of documents: March 2023
• Date released under FOI: May 2023
• Points of interest: This line of argument (that Australia's acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines "would be difficult and expensive; it would not constitute a 'breakout' because this was not a process that would be easy to replicate") was an attempt to reassure foreign diplomats stationed in Canberra that it would not spur a raft of other countries to follow suit, but also happened to underline the challenges and costs of Australia actually making AUKUS a reality.
• Related news story: Aukus ‘expensive’ and not ‘easy to replicate’, Australian officials told foreign diplomats

9. The talking points for the annual meeting known as AUSMIN, which involves talks between Australia's defence and foreign ministers and their US counterparts

• Agency: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
• Date range of documents: July 2023
• Date released under FOI: October 2023
• Points of interest: This shows the official defence of AUKUS in the context of meetings with the Biden administration. It is characterised as being part of Australia’s desire to contribute to “strategic equilibrium in our region” and deter conflict.

The documents too hot to handle

As is common with FOI-based investigations, there is some material that is blocked from public release in its entirety. Below you will find the requests for information that were deemed too sensitive for disclosure, not even in a redacted form.

10. The top-level text messages

• Agency: PMO
• Application date: December 2021
• Decision date: February 2022
• Documents sought: Text messages sent between then-PM Scott Morrison and French president Emmanuel Macron between September 12 and September 18, 2021 relating to submarines or AUKUS (with the application asking the decision maker to take into account that portions of these messages had already been selectively leaked and the decision had already been announced, so full release of them would not disclose sensitive matters).
• Reasons for documents being blocked: The FOI decision maker refused access to the material, saying communications between the PM and a foreign head of state were undertaken in confidence and releasing them could damage international relations.
• Related news story: Aukus row: Scott Morrison’s office refuses to release full text exchanges with Macron

11. How the submarine base location was shortlisted ahead of a pre-election announcement

• Agency: Defence
• Application date: March 2022
• Decision date: April 2022
• Documents sought: Any advice, briefings or submissions prepared for the Minister for Defence in relation to preferred locations for a new submarine base on the east coast of Australia, and the site analysis referred to in the 7 March 2022 press release that said: "Following significant work by the Department of Defence, which reviewed 19 potential sites, three preferred locations on the east coast have been identified, being Brisbane, Newcastle, and Port Kembla."
• Reasons for document being blocked: The FOI decision maker refused access to one relevant document, saying releasing it "could reasonably be expected to cause damage to national security, defence and international relations of the Commonwealth". The decision maker also cited the cabinet documents exemption and the need to protect commercially valuable information about properties.
• Related news story: Defence blocks access to advice on location choice for Australia’s nuclear submarines base

12. The funding profile for Australia's payments to the US and the UK to prop up those countries' defence industries

• Agency: Australian Submarine Agency
• Application date: March 2024
• Decision date: May 2024
• Documents sought: The total funding provisioned specifically for industrial uplift in each of the United States and the United Kingdom over the life of the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine program, and also broken down by year for each of the first 10 years of the program.
• Reasons for documents being blocked: The FOI decision maker refused access to two documents, saying releasing the details of the financial arrangements "would, or could reasonably, cause damage to Australia’s relationships with the US and UK".

13. Details of the payments Australia is making to the US and whether there is any way to claw back the money if the US doesn't deliver on its end of the deal

• Agency: Australian Submarine Agency
• Application date: June 2025
• Decision date: August 2025
• Documents sought:
  (a) Any contract, memorandum of understanding, exchange of letters or similar instrument underpinning Minister Marles’ announcement on 8 February 2025 that Australia’s first payment towards supporting the US submarine industrial base under AUKUS “has been made in the last week or so”.
  (b) The actual, provisional or indicative schedule of the remaining of Australia’s payments towards supporting the US submarine industrial base under AUKUS (including dates and amounts).
  (c) Any ministerial submissions, advice or talking points prepared for Minister Marles in relation to the existence or absence of a clawback mechanism (however described) to retrieve payments made by Australia to the US in the event that either the Agreement Among the Government of Australia, the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the Government of the United States of America for Cooperation Related to Naval Nuclear Propulsion is terminated or suspended or the US president does not make the certification required to enable Virginia Class submarines to be transferred to Australia to the previously agreed timeframes.
• Reasons for documents being blocked: The FOI decision maker found one relevant document covering "the financial aspects of an international arrangement between Australia and the United States" including "details of payments and related information that formed part of confidential intergovernmental negotiations". The decision maker blocked the document's release in full, citing multiple grounds including that it could harm international relations. The letter also cited the cabinet exemption and legal professional privilege.
• Related news story: Australia is sending billions to the Trump administration – and wants to keep it secret

This website is a generative AI-free zone. This material was compiled manually and any opinions expressed are entirely my own.