ALERT: Social licence for AUKUS lacking as Public Inquiry report and recommendations due

The Public Inquiry into AUKUS

MEDIA ALERT

Wednesday 28 October 2026 

Social licence for AUKUS lacking as Public Inquiry report and recommendations due 

The Lead Commissioner of Australia’s independent, crowdfunded Public Inquiry into AUKUS has warned the Federal Government about growing community unease about the project, ahead of the release of the Inquiry’s report and recommendations next week in Canberra.

Lead Commissioner Peter Garrett said today that the Inquiry hearings showed successive Governments had comprehensively failed to make the case for the AUKUS submarine pact, and that the sheer scale and cost of the project meant it risked becoming a threat to social cohesion in Australia over time.

“In the absence of any social license for this deal I fear Australians struggling through the current cost-of-living crisis will come to see the AUKUS expenditure going to the US and the UK in a very poor light.

“People aren’t mugs. As well as helping fund overseas shipyard construction these submarines will generate high level nuclear waste, which remains Australia’s responsibility. Once people understand this highly dangerous material needs to be stored somewhere safely, at great expense and for a very long time, they are bound to seek answers that have simply not been provided through the AUKUS process.

“Where is the Government’s plan for this massive waste management undertaking?  It would be negligent not to have a plan, but up to now the community has been kept in the dark.

“That is unsustainable.”

A substantial number of Australians - including a former Prime Minister, former Foreign Affairs and Defence Ministers, senior academics and military experts, community groups and citizens - have presented to the Inquiry across 10 day-long hearings in 8 cities around Australia since it launched in the middle of the year.

Nearly 10,000 people watched the proceedings, either attending in person or via the live-stream.  Over 1,000 written submissions were received. 

$220,000 was raised by crowdfunding, from individual donors and from civil society organisations, in order to hold the inquiry.

The Commissioners have now drafted a comprehensive report which will be presented at the National Press Club next Wednesday November 4.

AUKUS Public Inquiry media contacts:  Phil Davey 0414 867 188 ([email protected]) or Julie Macken 0400 925 217.