Editorial
Pete Hegseth and the AUKUS folly

The man who sets Australia’s defence policy is an alcoholic former Fox News commentator who is known for his gross financial mismanagement and on at least one occasion paid a settlement to a woman he was accused of raping.

Pete Hegseth’s own mother has called him “an abuser of women” who “belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around, and uses women for his own power and ego”. In an email later published by The New York Times, she wrote: “Get some help and take an honest look at yourself.”

Several times, while running a veterans’ charity, Hegseth had to be carried to bed by colleagues. On one occasion they had to restrain him as he tried to climb onstage at a strip club to which he had taken his staff. Another time, after an all-night bender, he was seen walking through the streets chanting, “Kill all Muslims! Kill all Muslims!”

Hegseth has the face of a man who is pretending to think. In many pictures, his hair looks cleverer than he is. Even Republicans say he is the least qualified or competent person ever to be made United States secretary of defence, a title now changed to secretary of war.

This is a man who puts combat plans into unsecured group chats, who has directed the US military to commit war crimes in the Caribbean Sea. He abhors the role of women in the armed forces and is obsessed with the facial hair of troops. “No more beardos,” he said in a speech two months ago. “The age of rampant and ridiculous shaving profiles is done.”

This week, Hegseth stood beside Richard Marles and Penny Wong and endorsed AUKUS. He said it was “a pragmatic, practical application of hard power between our countries that reflect peace through strength”.

It was another moment of performative embarrassment, a kind of diplomatic hazing, pretending everything is normal as a half-drunk innumerate sex pest shakes you down for $368 billion in submarines you don’t need and won’t get.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said AUKUS was “full steam ahead”, borrowing a phrase of Donald Trump’s. Wong was happy to repeat it: “We are full steam ahead.” It doesn’t matter that the submarines are nuclear-powered. The stupidity of the phrase is worthy of the policy. The boats aren’t coming so who cares what’s in the boiler?

AUKUS is a once-in-a-century folly. It’s a defence policy written by a tourism executive. At great expense, it makes the country less safe. It is to Labor’s immense shame that it lacks the courage or insight to walk away from it and from the cartoon administration that is still pushing it.

The Pentagon recently reviewed AUKUS, endorsing it with a few changes, although it has refused to release the details. Marles ignored a dozen questions on the topic this week. Probably it is because the review was written on a napkin and simply says “Can you believe what these idiots agreed to?”

The review was a chance for Labor to end the absurdity of AUKUS. Instead, it sent two of its most senior ministers to stand around pretending it is a good idea to tie the country’s future to a military that has no intention of defending the region and whose actions are currently directed by a man who thinks sideburns are a threat to national security. As Pete Hegseth’s mother would say: “Get some help and take an honest look at yourself.”

This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on December 13, 2025 as "For Pete’s sake".

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