The AUKUS pork-barrel rolls on…

Written by: Nick G. on 15 February 2026

The announcement today (February 15) of a $30 billion federal government release of funds to South Australia for AUKUS expansion comes just five weeks before the 21 March SA State election.

There is no doubt that Malinauskas is a popular SA Premier.  He has provided enough popular entertainment in the shape of LIV golf (being played today), the AFL Gather Round and motor racing championships, to supply local media with endless promotional photos and TV spots.

But he has not had it all his own way. His last election win came with a pledge to solve the ambulance ramping crisis. Yet ambulances continue to be ramped outside hospitals. 

The figures for last November show that patients spent 3,422 hours waiting in ambulances for emergency care during that month.
That brings the total number of hours lost on the ramp during 2025 to 48,466 hours - already a historic high with a month still to go. For comparison, patients spent 47,380 hours waiting on the ramp in 2024 and 40,474 hours in 2023.

SA is gripped in the national housing crisis. Despite claims that it is building more houses than ever, rents are increasing and so are housing costs. Residential property sales recorded throughout 2025 have shown a mere 5.22 per cent of all sales in metropolitan Adelaide were in the sub-$500,000 price bracket. Median house prices in December 2025 rose a massive 14.5 per cent increase compared to the December 2024 quarter.  No-one’s wages have gone up that much.

The Premier also lifted the heavy rock of his call for Dr. Randa Abdel-Fattah to be dropped from the Adelaide Writer’s Week program. That rock fell from his grasp onto his own toes when 200 Writer’s Week participants withdrew in protest, causing the much-loved festival to be cancelled.

So Malinauskas does seem to have lost some of his gloss. 

The $30 billion figure appears to have been plucked from the air.  There will be an immediate $3.9 billion “down-payment” with the rest to come online across the 30 years of the project. However, there has been no reliable costing of the various stages of the project.

And despite all evidence to the contrary from the US Congressional Research Service, and a former UK Navy Chief calling from withdrawal from AUKUS because Britain is “no longer capable” of running a nuclear submarine programme after “catastrophic” failures pushed it to the brink, Albanese, Marles and Malinauskas continue to believe that AUKUS will deliver on its promises.

There is no doubt that public spending on health, housing, education, regional roads and so on, is being sacrificed  on the AUKUS altar. At an average cost of $30 million a day across the 30 years of the project, our lifestyle is being sacrificed to a dream…or nightmare!

AUKUS must be stopped now.

We must come out from under the stranglehold of the US empire.

Workers should not hold their breaths waiting for the so-called AUKUS “jobs bonanza”.

Print Version - new window Email article

-----