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Scott Morrison remembers it as “the longest night of my prime ministership”. It was September 14, 2021, the night before the official announcement of the AUKUS defence agreement.
Before going to bed, he sent French President Emmanuel Macron a text advising Australia “was out of it”: it would cancel the deal for France to provide 12 conventional submarines to the Royal Australian Navy, signed in December 2016 when Malcolm Turnbull was prime minister.