>>507097817 (OP)The whole thing was just a vote buying exercise that got of hand. Tony Abbot had a plan to buy Japanese subs and it would have been fine. But he got rolled by Malcolm Turnbull who did the French deal on the condition that the fucked up shipyards in the backwater Australian state of South Australia would be used, thereby securing the vote of the workers in the small geographic area around the shipyard. But, then, Malcolm Turnbull was rolled by Scott Morrison who wanted to make a name for himself by creating "AUKUS" (echoes of the famed ANZAC, stories of which every Australian child has drummed into them from their first years in school), signing up to a ludicrous deal to obtain nuclear submarines, something we really don't need. The only downside to the axing the AUKUS deal will be that our esteemed politicians will no doubt take it upon themselves to come up with an even more implausible way to waste money.