Jenna Price | AUKUS submarine money could be better spent in so many ways

But the last few days have made ignorance impossible. The announcement of our new submarines, yet to roll in the deep, has been set in a cockforest, gently fluttering in the winds of bluster.

Turn on the radio or the television, click through endless stories, reigning men. There they are in their natty uniforms and gold stripes. Or snuggish t-shirts with NAVY on the back.

When I heard the amount the submarines would cost, I nearly had a prolapse. $368 billion.

Now I know there is a whole "whataboutism" thing which we should do our best to avoid. But we are about to spend a submarine load of money so I am here to whatabout.

You'll remember when the Prime Minister tweeted in January:

"I believe in an Australia where the doors of opportunity are open to all."

But doors of opportunity don't just open for anybody.

You need to be able to get to the door, have the ability to turn the handle, and then walk through.

So many of us can't do that, don't have the wherewithal to make that happen. While I understand submarines are vital, I'm going to make a few suggestions.

Let's divide the amount of money by the number of submarines, about $46 billion each, give or take a few billion.

Because we can't have all the nice things, why don't we go six submarines for the nation and two submarine equivalents for the rest of the nation.

What would we get for $92 billion? According to lobby group The Parenthood's Georgie Dent, turns out we could have nine years of free universal childcare (to be honest, I had a few years of not freaking out about the cost of childcare.

Now my beloved children are freaking out instead). This might be excellent because we could support and educate a whole generation of kids who would turn out to be the next generation of diplomats and politicians maintaning steadfast, neutral relationships with the rest of the world. Win win.

Now I engaged the brainpower of one Margaret McKenzie, longtime economist, now working at Per Capita who did a quick back-of-the-envelope estimate for me.

She says our total budget spending is just about one-quarter of our gross domestic product. That spending, says McKenzie, is low compared to other comparable countries.

That aside, she's happy to take my challenge of how we could spend $90 billion. Figures by McKenzie, commentary by me (obviously):

Here's another thing I did not know because I have not paid attention to defence spending, Impact Economics' lead economist Angela Jackson tells me defence spending is quarantined.

Yep, 2 per cent of our GDP. It doesn't get the same interrogation because it's a rule. So how do we know that what we are spending is really the best value for money?

"Would you spend it this way if you didn't have the guarantee? We need to be sure this is held to the same standard as all other spending in the budget. What might our other priorities be," asks Jackson.

Turns out our submarine spending will create 20,000 jobs. I hope to heaven there are some jobs for women - because if coverage of the announcement over the last few days is anything to go by, there are no women anywhere.

Except Tanya Monro our chief defence scientist, barely mentioned anywhere this year except in Kirstin Ferguson's leadership manifesto Head & Heart.

And look, amid all the men who've had something to say on AUKUS/China/defence spending and its complete necessity for our nationhood, let me introduce you to James Curran, Sydney University professor of history, who must be a bit of a renegade in his crew of foreign affairs specialists.

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He reminds me former PM Scott Morrison (father of AUKUS and father of robodebt, thanks Sarah Ferguson) says no regular defence spending would be cannibalised to pay for the subs. So that's more than the 2 per cent. Help!

Curran says Labor is terrified of being accused of being soft on China, national security and the alliance so this is why it has backed the massive sub spend. And it won't really have to carry the can because it won't be around when the fiscal rubber hits the road.

In the meantime, "Something has to give and this government will have to make other cuts," says Curran.

Oh! What about this good idea? ACOSS CEO Cassandra Goldie says that what we are spending on submarines could go towards lifting income support payments above the poverty line. OR if we are utterly committed to spending that money on boats, then she has an alternative.

"The annual cost/investment is about $10 billion per annum which is about half the cost of the stage three tax cuts."

To think. We could be rolling in the deep yet still have had it all.