Australia's submarine dance with the US is just a show. Albanese doesn't intend the subs will ever be built

Words alone, however, cannot change reality. Labor's current politicians prefer to point to numbers. These show a different calculus. If you want a precise numerical quantification of exactly how incorrect today's politicians think this criticism of the AUKUS submarine deal is, they point at the 1996 election, Keating's last. His crash through or crash strategy back then delivered a primary vote of just 38.75 percent. Preferences only boosted that tally to just over 46 percent. Compare that to Anthony Albanese's two-party preferred count of 52.13 last year, more than any other Labor leader for 50 years with two exceptions: Kevin Rudd (52.7 in 2007) and Bob Hawke (53.2 in 1983). Keating can only dream of numbers like those. Sure, Albanese only received a (miserable) 32.58 percent of the primary vote, but that number isn't relevant because his aim was to win. He wasn't interested in going down in flames, pandering to the party faithful. He delivered. Albanese is focused on victory.

That's why, when Scott Morrison delivered the awkward baby submarine that was AUKUS along with a demand that Labor take it or leave it, Albanese, Richard Marles and Penny Wong folded so fast. They knew they'd been wedged but swallowed it whole to ensure it didn't become the point of difference that lost them the coming election. This left a ticking, policy time bomb sitting in the middle of Labor's platform. They knew it required defusing. The problem was to find a way of neutralising the submarine issue without breaking the promise. The only question was how to do (virtually) nothing while making it appear as if they'd done everything.

The answer? Embrace the submarine deal but with a timeline that renders it virtually irrelevant to the next few budget cycles. Kick the can down the road. The key point is defence will not be an issue in the next election.

While scrapping the deal and buying missiles might have made the most military sense, it would have been political suicide. Every PM, from both sides of politics, has proclaimed these represent a vital capability since Kevin Rudd had the brainwave of creating a submarine industry. Telling voters, now, that the idea is a dud is virtually impossible. Albanese didn't bother trying. What he's done instead - something Keating missed - is sign up to a deal which removes the issue from the agenda without offering anything more solid than promises. These virtually guarantee that no submarine will ever be built here again.

Again, look at the detail, the numbers, not the headlines. Canberra's current commitment is essentially rhetorical. Actual construction has been pushed so far off into the future (20 years) that Albanese might just as well have announced a project to send a woman to the moon. This submarine is straight from the dreamtime, just like the idea the vessels will ever be manufactured here.

The only boat mentioned in the plan, the first one, together with the reactors for the rest of the fleet, are to be built in Britain. Do you really think South Australia's Osborne shipyard (which last churned out a sub in March 2003) will be re-tooled in 2040 to assemble pre-manufactured parts here? That sealed nuclear reactors will be shipped halfway round the world by BAE simply to create work here?

This would mean subsidising a couple of welders' jobs at a cost of over half-a-million dollars each. By contrast the now-extinguished car industry appears like a positive paragon of productivity. Restarting submarine production here makes no financial or industrial sense. The best we could ever hope for is bit-work, generated from the goodwill of multinational defence companies. They'll only discover their heart when romance makes business sense.

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This extended timeframe simply buys time for the business lobby to quietly disappear. It can't wait until the work arrives. In the meantime, encouraging students to study engineering makes perfect sense, because they will find other jobs. There will still be submersibles - but smaller ones (so they can go deep), uncrewed (so they can stay at sea longer), and autonomous.

This is a whole new industry the government can get behind which will enable high-level technical collaboration with allies without the complication of dual-crewing of submarines. Modern weaponry will be allowed to evolve without the imposition of a vessel that will probably be outmoded by 2050.

The analysts know the cycle of technical development is moving faster than the 30-year timeframe the submarines depend on. This plan grants this government, and future ones, time to explain this to the broader community without facing entrenched opposition from submarine lobby.

So although Keating's invective scathingly denounced its target, it's irrelevant. He made the mistake of assuming that this is a genuine plan to build submarines. It's not.

Albanese's deftly sidestepped the defence hawks by offering them their precious, a bauble to hold tight and cherish. He's also made sure he can't be blamed for cancelling the submarine, no matter how implausible the project becomes. He's simply kicked the eventual political cost of abandoning the project down the hill.

His cunning plan just ignored two things. He assumed his party would supinely roll over, just as he did when Morrison originally ambushed him with the idea. Albanese thought everybody would be just as thrilled to see him standing alongside Joe Biden and Rishi Sunak as he was to be there. He also failed to explain the impossible: why we will need SSN's in 20 years' time.

Perhaps he should have dealt with the policy first. Oh, and an earlier phone call to Keating mightn't have gone amiss, either.