The Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison stated today that Paris should have known that Australia was not satisfied with the contract for the French submarines. “I think they would have had every reason to know that we have deep and grave concerns that the capability being delivered by the attack class submarine was not going to meet our strategic
interests and we had made very clear that we would be making a decision based on our strategic national interest,” he said, reported the Sydney Morning Herald. “Ultimately this was a decision about whether the submarines that were being built at great cost to the Australian taxpayer were going to be able to do a job that we needed it to do when they went into service.
“Our strategic judgment based on the best possible of intelligence and defense advice was that it would not, and so therefore to go forward when we are able to secure a supreme submarine capability to support our defense operations, it would have been negligent for us not to.”
