Exclusive: Former PM directly warned cabinet ministers over China, the Pacific and US hegemony prior to his pointed speech at the National Press Club
At 10.45am on Wednesday 15 March, an explosive email landed in the inboxes of all of Anthony Albanese’s cabinet ministers.
“Dear cabinet colleagues,” wrote Paul Keating, Labor luminary turned chief Aukus critic.
Continue reading...Prime minister also seeks to reassure regional nations wary about Australia’s reasons for acquiring nuclear submarines under Aukus pact
Anthony Albanese has warned against “harmful” assumptions that the US and China are heading towards an inevitable war, and called for “practical structures to prevent a worst-case scenario”.
The Australian prime minister said a war in the Indo-Pacific would be “devastating for the world” and used a keynote speech to a regional security summit in Singapore to urge all countries to uphold peace and stability.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Documents obtained by Guardian Australia show Australia attempted to reassure countries amid nuclear proliferation concerns
Australian officials have told foreign diplomats that the Aukus submarine plan is “expensive” and not “easy to replicate”, as part of an effort to play down concerns about the risks of other countries racing to do the same, a newly released tranche of documents reveals.
Officials also urged diplomats to be on guard for disinformation about the nuclear-powered submarine plan, the documents show.
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Continue reading...Xiao Qian suggests improvement in Australian relationship with Beijing possible but would take ‘mutual respect’
China’s ambassador to Australia, Xiao Qian, has denounced the Aukus nuclear-powered submarine plan as an “unnecessary consumption of the hardworking Australian taxpayers’ money”.
Xiao said the multi-decade defence plan would consume “tremendous” amounts of money “which could be used for other purposes like infrastructure, like reducing the cost of living, and giving the Australian people a better future”.
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‘Good women’s policy is good economic policy’: Sussan Ley convening women’s economic security roundtable
The deputy opposition leader and shadow minister for women, Sussan Ley, is convening a women’s economic security roundtable today.
Restarting the Career Revive program for older women to retrain and re-enter the workforce.
Greater flexibility in childcare arrangements (for which there are no details, but the rhetoric is consistent with allowing women to use subsidies on alternatives such as nannies).
Paying superannuation on paid parental leave.
Helping older women who face relationship breakdown achieve financial security, including through access to superannuation.
The Liberal party can be the party of choice for women – we must be – and that is why we are going to meet them where they are in life with new ideas and real solutions that help them.
I want the women of Australia to know that the Liberal party that Peter Dutton and I lead will be back in your corner – we will support your career choices, we will look at ways to help you as you manage your work-life balance and we will help you secure your financial independence.
I don’t think anyone would question when you’ve got something like the debt ceiling being negotiated in the United States …
In terms of the relationship between the countries and the strength of the relationship, as allies, that’s all there; and I think anyone who knows what negotiations with the debt ceiling are like in the United States understands exactly why President Biden’s been in a situation to make a decision like this.
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Quad still a priority, White House says
Despite the postponement of Joe Biden’s visit, the White House says that partnerships like the Quad remain a priority.
Revitalizing and reinvigorating our alliances and advancing partnerships like the Quad remains a key priority for the President. This is vital to our ability to advance our foreign policy goals and better promote global stability and prosperity. We look forward to finding other ways to engage with Australia, the Quad, Papua New Guinea and the leaders of the Pacific Islands Forum in the coming year.
I think he will obviously be working very hard for this not to happen. We’ve danced this dance before, as the phrase goes …
I think we’ll get to a good place and I think that’s why he’s wanting to stay there, to focus on just that.
Continue reading...President had been due to address parliament next week, the first US leader in 10 years to do so, as part of Asia tour
President Joe Biden has cancelled a visit to Australia, the second leg of his upcoming Asia trip, due to the slow-motion crisis building in Washington over the US debt ceiling.
Biden is to attend a three-day summit of G7 leaders that starts on Friday in Hiroshima, Japan, and will return to the US on Sunday.
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Continue reading...Anthony Albanese pleased Biden has taken up invitation, an honour also afforded to Barack Obama in 2014
Joe Biden will address the Australian parliament next week, the first US president in nearly 10 years to speak to a joint session of MPs and senators in Canberra.
Officials have confirmed that Biden will make the speech on Tuesday 23 May, the day before he attends the Quad summit in Sydney with the prime ministers of Australia, Japan and India.
Continue reading...Ottawa ‘highly interested’ in joining group amid fears country could be shut out of intelligence and tech sharing
Canada’s defence minister has said the country is “highly interested” working closer on defence technology with Australia, Britain and the US, after reports that the country wants to join the Aukus defence pact.
The Globe and Mail reported on Monday that Canada was making efforts to join the group, amid fears that the country could be excluded from valuable intelligence and technology sharing between a smaller circle of nations. Both the foreign affairs ministry and Privy Council are working to have Canada included, the Globe reported.
Continue reading...South-east Asia must not become ‘an arena for proxy wars’, the nation state’s foreign minister said
Singapore has strongly backed the Aukus defence pact, with ministers saying they trust Australia to play a bigger role in regional security and don’t want south-east Asia to become “an arena for proxy wars”.
After talks with Australian counterparts in Canberra on Monday, Singaporean ministers reaffirmed Australia’s nuclear-powered submarines would be welcome to visit once in service.
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Continue reading...Review calls for ADF to develop ability to precisely strike targets at longer range and to develop stronger network. Follow the day’s news live
Plibersek v Joyce on Newspoll
In their regular spot on Sunrise, environment minister Tanya Plibersek and Coalition frontbencher Barnaby Joyce weighed in on those Newspoll results.
They’re very strong support numbers, and I tell you the reason is not based on polling but what people tell me when I’m out around the country.
People tell me that they’re pleased to see a government that is just getting on with the job, doing what we promised and they’re impressed that the prime minister is just sticking with what he said he’d do.
We don’t have an election tomorrow and that’s a good thing.
A lot of people are starting to focus now on issues such as the voice and saying, “I don’t feel comfortable with this.”
Continue reading...Experts say Australia should look beyond criticism that is largely for domestic Chinese consumption and engage on a broader level
Australia’s strategic defence review, to be made public on Monday, is likely to spark a hostile response from China and set off a new round of claim and counterclaim about the precarious relationship between the two countries.
Sir Angus Houston, the former head of the Australian military who led the review with the former defence minister Stephen Smith, said when it was launched last year the strategic circumstances were “the worst I have ever seen in my career and lifetime”.
Continue reading...The move aims to free up funding for the government to accelerate and expand other projects
Australia is set to dramatically scale back the number of infantry fighting vehicles it buys for the army as part of a defence overhaul to be announced on Monday.
The army had planned to acquire up to 450 infantry fighting vehicles, at a cost of up to $27bn, to replace Australia’s Vietnam war-era armoured personnel carriers.
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Continue reading...Intelligence agency wants government security clearance system ‘hardened’ to protect sensitive information
Foreign spies are “aggressively seeking secrets across all parts of Australian society”, including trying to recruit “disloyal” government insiders to access classified information, Asio has warned.
The intelligence agency said “hostile foreign powers and their proxies” were seeking to test the Australian government’s security clearance system.
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Continue reading...Minister says foreign and defence policies are both essential for making the country stronger and more influential
Penny Wong will dismiss Paul Keating’s claim that the military has taken over foreign policy in Australia, as she insists the defence department and diplomats are working together to “keep the peace”.
In a speech on Monday, the foreign affairs minister will say countries across the Indo-Pacific region want to “choose their own destiny” and not have the rules “dictated by a single major power to suit its own interests”.
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Continue reading...James Paterson says regulatory barriers in US could imperil access to AI, hypersonic weapons and other advanced systems
Australia needs to be “ruthless” about prioritising which technologies it pursues under the second pillar of the Aukus pact to overcome “regulatory barriers” in the US, the shadow minister for cybersecurity and countering foreign interference, James Paterson, has said.
The Liberal senator made the comments on the Guardian’s Australian politics podcast, warning that an “absence of consensus” in the US and a “clear plan” in Australia could see it miss out.
Continue reading...Country gives just $1 in assistance for every $10 that goes to defence, humanitarian groups say
The huge Aukus price tag has sparked calls to boost aid funding, with the sector lobbying the Australian government not to dismiss such measures as an optional “luxury”.
The nuclear-powered submarine program is forecast to cost between $268bn and $368bn by the mid 2050s, most of it beyond the first four-year budget period.
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Continue reading...Defence minister says government ‘willing to explore’ participating in ‘pillar two’ of defence deal founded by Australia, UK and US
New Zealand’s government has confirmed it is discussing joining the non-nuclear part of the Aukus alliance founded by Australia, the UK and US.
“We have been offered the opportunity to talk about whether we could or wish to participate in that pillar two [non-nuclear] aspect of it,” said Andrew Little, the New Zealand defence minister. “I’ve indicated we will be willing to explore it.”
Continue reading...Radiation Health and Safety Advisory Council also warned against cloak of national security to ‘mask inadequate radiation safety protection’
Labor and the Coalition have been accused of taking a “deeply unsettling approach” to transparency around Aukus after the major parties blocked the publication of documents about nuclear safety and waste issues.
The government cited national security concerns when it rejected a Senate order to produce documents, including those about options to manage operational waste from the nuclear-powered submarine program.
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Continue reading...Defence department puts out call for satellites that can talk to each other and to the ground, are ‘scalable, rapidly deployable and re-constitutable’
Defence is looking for a mesh of military space satellites that can talk to each other as well as to the ground, and is “scalable, rapidly deployable and re-constitutable”.
The system, in other words, would need to be able to be made bigger, to be quickly put into action, and to be repaired in case of attack or accident.
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