Much has been made of the release of leaked text messages from the Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrisson. They argue what he did was wrong, but let’s look at this from a different perspective. You pull that type of diplomatic stunt and you get called out – it is that simple. 

Emmanuel Macron called Scott Morrison a liar in an international forum, it was Macron who was shown to be a liar when the text messages were released – it killed Macron dead. We know Macron knew that the submarine deal was going bad – they had been informed. A complex contract has a series of escape clauses if major milestones such as cost, quality, time or safety are not being met. The French were well aware that they were not meeting contract requirements, these concerns had been raised and they still did not rectify these issues. What did they think was going to happen, we would just accept this failure ? Fat chance, we are not accepting this. 

Sure, a deal was being negotiated with American and British counterparts for nuclear propulsion. The situation in the Pacific is deteriorating rapidly, Australia requires a bluewater submarine and the American and British designs meet that criteria. The French consortium was not going to meet the requirements of the program, that was clear and Australia was going to be left without a submarine fleet with any type of capability. This is why contracts with performance clauses are signed, if a supplier fails me meet specifications and is in breach of contract, then the project sponsor has the right to seek rectification, and in extreme cases, the contract is void if repeated non-compliance is recored and not rectified.