AUSTRALIAN former environment minister Peter Garrett is set to lead a crowd-funded review of the multibillion-dollar Aukus submarine deal, it was reported today.

The deal, the biggest-ever Australian defence project, provides for Canberra to buy second-hand US submarines to replace its current fleet.

Mr Garrett, the former frontman of rock band Midnight Oil, argued that an independent inquiry into the deal, worth 368 billion Australian dollars (£176bn), was “long overdue.”

He said that Aukus was Australia’s “most expensive” defence deal ever, but the chance to “question, debate and decide has been taken out of the hands of the parliament and the people.”

The review intends to hold public hearings in the coming months, in time for an October report back.

Joining Mr Garrett will be four other commissioners, including former Australian Defence Force head Admiral Chris Barrie, Western Australia’s ex-premier Carmen Lawrence and Karen Lester, the daughter of an Aboriginal man who went blind due to his exposure to British nuclear tests in South Australia in the 1950s.

A spokesperson for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the government welcomed “appropriate oversight and transparency” of the submarine deal.