LATIKA M BOURKE: UK Defence Secretary John Healey’s resignation raises questions of Richard Marles, AUKUS

The final sentence John Healey spoke as Defence Secretary was a pledge on AUKUS, consisting of just three words: “And we will.”

The vow was an addendum to Foreign Minister Penny Wong’s reasoning for why the US, UK and Australian Governments were committed to delivering AUKUS submarines to Australia.

Under the current plan, Australia will buy three used boats from the US and co-build a new design with the UK called SSN AUKUS.

Mr Healey’s promise was made at the Wednesday evening’s AUKMIN press conference at Lancaster House, where he stood next to Senator Wong, his own Cabinet colleague, the UK’s Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper, and Australia’s Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles.

It was his last public outing before his shock resignation that could break the flimsy remains of Keir Starmer’s prime ministership.

But his three-word undertaking was said so quietly it went mostly unnoticed; the official transcript released by DFAT did not record it.

While he promised Mr Marles that they would be meeting again next week for a meeting of defence ministers to discuss Ukraine, Mr Healey’s low-key ending to the press conference turned out to be an omen.

The next morning, he quit, pulling out of a scheduled media appearance for Mr Marles at His Majesty’s Naval Base Portsmouth.

Mr Healey had planned to show Mr Marles around the base and speak to the media, to spruik the UK’s shipbuilding credentials, and shore up support for AUKUS.

But his sensational resignation, because of Sir Keir’s failure to fund defence at the levels to match the heightened geopolitical threats that the UK Prime Minister is the first to identify, left Mr Marles a jilted bride.

The Deputy Prime Minister abruptly told the media already in Portsmouth and in transit to the naval base to go home.

After being given a tour of the base by a junior minister, Mr Marles fled without a word. He refused to speak to the press about the implications, which are dire, of Mr Healey’s resignation for AUKUS. But the Defence Minister cannot escape the uncomfortable truths that his British counterpart has exposed.

The first is AUKUS. In his resignation letter, Mr Healey set out Sir Keir’s plans to raise defence spending by a paltry 0.08 per cent of GDP by 2030.

Mr Healey brutally quoted Sir Keir, pinpointing that year as the same one when Russian President Vladimir Putin might try and attack NATO.

“The extra support is backloaded when the pressure of operations and imperative to speed up readiness to fight is in the first two years and it rises to just 2.68 per cent of GDP in 2030, when we will reach 2.6 per cent next year with the investment we are already making,” he said.

He told the UK Prime Minister that he was leaving the country less safe. It was explosive. It was honourable. And it was consequential.

Mr Healey has positioned defence spending front-and-centre of Labour’s looming leadership contest.

It’s a charge no prime minister can survive, and the listless Sir Keir was already leading a limping Government being circled by Labour rivals Wes Streeting and Andy Burnham.

A prime minister’s first duty is national security and one of his most loyal ministers has exposed his dereliction. Labour can find money for striking tube drivers, it cannot do more on defence, despite pledging to NATO allies that they would meet 3.5 per cent by 2035.

While other NATO countries have raced ahead and are already at 3 per cent spending or more, the UK went backwards to 12th place in the last set of league tables comparing nations’ spending.

Sir Keir’s letter accepting Mr Healey’s resignation was typically tone deaf. He said that “irresponsible borrowing only puts that at risk,” as though debt was the only option available to fund the required increase to defence spending, as opposed to cutting back government spending and welfare.

Mr Healey’s honourable resignation may earn him the leadership crown in time. But until then, the turmoil leaves Australia dangerously exposed.

Mr Healey was one of AUKUS’ biggest champions in the Labour cabinet. Sir Keir has professed to be a supporter of the program but a bipartisan review of progress, chaired by the Labour MP Tan Dhesi, found that it is “plodding along”, faltering and captured by drift.

“We need a lot more infrastructure investment into His Majesty’s naval base, Clyde, as well as in HMNB Devonport, as well as in Barrow-in-Furness, the home of British submarine ship building,” Mr Dhesi told the Latika Takes podcast.

“It is without a shadow of a doubt that we still do not have enough dry dock facilities, that’s why half a billion pounds worth of submarine refurbishment works has been delayed.”

Mr Healey’s resignation spelt out an uncomfortable truth for Australia — this Labour government has no intention of paying for the investments needed to make AUKUS work.

If being stood up was humiliating, Mr Healey’s actions make a mockery of Mr Marles’ nothing-to-see-here feast of words whenever he is asked about the frequently cited concerns regarding the UK’s ability to deliver boats.

“We are really confident about this trajectory,” Mr Marles insisted at Lancaster House on Wednesday.

The uncharacteristically media-shy Mr Marles did not address these questions before flying out of London on Thursday evening, issuing a written statement instead to praise his “good friend” Mr Healey and praise the defence relationship as “enduring”.

Finally, Mr Healey has shown a courage that is lacking in the progressive side of politics in Australia when it comes to national defence.

Australia’s defence spending is at 2.1 per cent of GDP. To fudge this, the Government has begun including things like pensions to claim the spend is closer to 3 per cent.

Cooking the books doesn’t make the country safer. Just ask John Healey.

Mr Marles will have many questions to ponder on his long-haul flight home. But one of his critics will be demanding he answer when he lands, whether he is capable of showing similar courage in securing real funding for Australia’s defences.