Category Archives: Aukus

Malaysian foreign minister says concerns remain about Aukus pact after meeting with Penny Wong

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Saifuddin Abdullah points to risk of regional arms race but pledges increased trade and cooperation on cybersecurity with Australia

Malaysia’s foreign minister, Saifuddin Abdullah, has said that his country’s concerns about the Aukus nuclear submarine pact remain unchanged, after a meeting in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday with his Australian counterpart, Penny Wong.

Saifuddin told reporters he communicated Malaysia’s ongoing concern about the security deal between Australia, the UK and the US during a “very candid” discussion with Wong on her first visit to the Malaysian capital as Australia’s foreign minister.

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Labor extends term of Australian defence force chief Angus Campbell by two years

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Defence minister Richard Marles says continuity in ADF leadership important for Aukus but warns of nuclear-powered submarine delay

The chief and vice chief of the Australian defence force have had their terms extended by two years as the new government warns the country “cannot afford any more delay” to the delivery of new submarines.

The acting prime minister, Richard Marles, said continuity at the top of the ADF would help Australia to bed down the Aukus deal with the US and the UK, but he said the nuclear-powered submarines would not be ready “soon”.

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Australia live news updates: Anthony Albanese to meet EU president; NSW Greens criticise police ‘overreach’ against climate activists

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NSW Greens criticise ‘overreach’ of police operation against climate activists; Anthony Albanese leaving Sunday for Europe visit; protester interrupts Chinese ambassador’s Sydney address; Chris Bowen says energy market has returned to ‘normal market conditions’; report of aged care providers operating at a loss; nation records at least 46 Covid deaths. Follow the day’s news

Qantas is forecasting a loss of up to $550m this year, despite strong demand for domestic and international flights allowing it to reduce its net debt to $4bn by the end of this financial year.

That’s a $1.5bn improvement in the past six months.

We don’t want a circumstance whereby there’s risk to Australian personnel by undertaking such a visit, but we’ll take that advice and we’ll act accordingly.

We’ve formed a special bond with Ukraine. President Zelenskiy is one of the century’s great heroes, and he’s provided inspiration not only to his people but to the rest of the world as well.

I hope that we can visit in due course and if the prime minister is able to visit, if that’s the security advice he’s received, that it’s safe for him and for his delegation to visit, then I think it’s entirely appropriate that he would.

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Aukus pact: Australia pays $830m penalty for ditching non-nuclear French submarines

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Anthony Albanese pledges to reset Australia’s strained relationship with France after settling cancelled contract with Naval Group

The Australian government has agreed to pay €550m (A$830m) in a settlement with Naval Group over the former Morrison government’s controversial decision to scrap the French attack class submarine project.

The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, announced on Saturday the confidential settlement would draw a line under the cancelled $90bn project. Labor gave bipartisan support to the Aukus partnership that replaced the project – under which the US and the UK have offered to help Australia to acquire at least eight nuclear-propelled submarines and cooperate on other advanced technologies.

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Biloela family welcomed home; Albanese announces $830m submarine penalty – as it happened

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French defence minister welcomes Australia’s payment to Naval Group over submarine cancellation; 70 Covid deaths across the country. This blog is now closed

Prime minister Anthony Albanese will hold a press conference in Sydney at 10.15am

There are reports in French media that Australia has settled with French company Naval Group over the cancellation of the submarines contract by the former government. We have not confirmed, but we shall see if that’s what the press conference is about.

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Anthony Albanese talks with Timor-Leste leadership as he flies to Indonesia for official visit

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Ahead of Jakarta trip, PM flagged push for deeper ties with neighbours while ‘recognising the challenges’ of China’s involvement in region

Anthony Albanese had what officials characterised as a “warm and positive” conversation with the Timor-Leste prime minister, Taur Matan Ruak, en route to Jakarta on Sunday.

Ruak congratulated Albanese on his recent election victory, and the Australian prime minister pledged closer cooperation on the climate transition and development support for Timor-Leste.

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Richard Marles eyes meeting with US defence secretary at Singapore forum

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Defence minister’s attendance at high-level security conference the latest in flurry of diplomatic activity by new Labor government

Australia’s new defence minister, Richard Marles, is preparing to travel to Singapore next week for a high-level security conference and a potential first meeting with his US counterpart.

The trip is the latest in a flurry of diplomatic activity by the new Labor government. The minister for foreign affairs, Penny Wong, has just wound up visits to three Pacific countries and the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, is preparing to fly to Indonesia on Sunday.

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Anthony Albanese tells Labor colleagues not to waste a day as he urges ‘more inclusive’ parliament

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Emotional prime minister gives first post-election address to caucus and confirms Indonesia visit this weekend

An emotional Anthony Albanese has urged his Labor colleagues not to waste a day in government while confirming he will go to Indonesia for his second overseas visit this weekend and convene the 47th parliament at the end of July.

The prime minister used his first post-election address to caucus on Tuesday, ahead of the appointment of his first cabinet and ministry, to outline his initial program as well as his expectations for the coming term of government.

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Australia ‘louder than we should have been’ in criticising China says former Asio chief

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Sharp critique from Duncan Lewis comes as Chinese foreign minister embarks on ‘extraordinary’ Pacific island nation tour

Australia’s former intelligence chief Duncan Lewis says Australia has been “rather louder than we should have been” in public criticism of China when a better approach, given escalating regional tensions, should have been “speak softly and carry a big stick”.

Lewis has told the Australian National University’s national security podcast Australia had been at the forefront of China criticism in recent years “when we might well have been better to have been one back and one wide”.

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Scott Morrison softened his defiant language on climate change action amid UK trade deal

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Documents indicate PM’s changes to foreign policy speech coincided with environment agreement in trade talks

Scott Morrison softened his defiant language on climate action in a foreign policy speech in June 2021, shortly after officials appeared to have finalised the environment-related parts of the Australia-UK free trade agreement, documents obtained under freedom of information laws reveal.

The timing is outlined in government documents obtained by Guardian Australia, alongside draft talking points denying climate policy was causing any delays to the trade negotiations.

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Australian federal election 2022 live: Albanese calls Coalition housing scheme ‘an attack on future generations’; AEC finds signs in breach

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Anthony Albanese labels Coalition housing scheme ‘an attack on future savings’; AEC says Advance Australia ‘Greens’ signs in breach of electoral act; home price increases will be ‘marginal’ under new plan, Scott Morrison says; PM says Labor was informed about Aukus when they ‘needed to be’; NSW records four Covid deaths. Follow all the day’s news live

Labor campaign spokesperson Jason Clare has a new line.

He told ABC TV:

The next week is really important. Australians have a big choice to make this weekend. It is a choice between a better future under Labor and more Scott Morrison.

As Australians think about this, they would be thinking “Do you want to wake up on Sunday morning and roll over and see Scott Morrison?”

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Albanese says Morrison broke faith with US by delaying Labor’s Aukus briefing

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Biden administration reportedly said defence alliance needed bipartisan support, but opposition was not told until day before it was announced

Anthony Albanese says the prime minister, Scott Morrison, broke “faith and trust” with the US by waiting four-and-a-half months to brief Labor on the Aukus deal, a claim the Coalition has criticised as “misleading” and “reckless”.

Albanese was responding to a report in Nine newspapers that the Biden administration would only consider the project if it had bipartisan support.

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Labor to rethink Coalition’s ‘bewildering’ decision to scrap armed drones if it wins election

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Shadow defence minister Brendan O’Connor says cancellation of $1.3bn SkyGuardian program demands explanation

Labor will consider reinstating a $1.3bn program for Australia to acquire armed drones if it wins the election, vowing to review the Coalition’s “bewildering” decision to scrap it “as a matter of urgency”.

The shadow defence minister, Brendan O’Connor, said he was concerned there was a “very significant capability gap in the immediate future”, and he would seek detailed advice after the election.

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Caroline Kennedy praises Australia’s bipartisan foreign policy despite PM’s claims on Labor and China

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Nominee as US ambassador says there’s a lot more to the Aukus deal than just submarines as she faces US Senate foreign relations committee hearing

Caroline Kennedy, the nominee for US ambassador to Australia, has said the Aukus security deal will provide “a lot of deterrence” in the Indo-Pacific even before the nuclear-powered submarines are ready.

With Australia set to enter a federal election campaign within days, Kennedy praised the country for standing firm with “a bipartisan foreign policy” in the face of “Chinese economic coercion”.

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Redspice: budget ushers in Australia’s ‘biggest ever’ cybersecurity spend

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Pledge of $10bn will see electronic spy agency ASD double and ramp up ability to launch offensive cyber operations

Australia’s electronic spy agency will double in size and ramp up its ability to launch its own offensive cyber operations as part of a $10bn national security budget pledge curiously dubbed Redspice.

But the funding is spread over 10 years and only $4.2bn will be spent in the first four-year budget cycle. Given the government is partly offsetting the package with savings from other parts of the defence portfolio, the cyber pledge is worth only $588.7m in new money in the first four years.

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Rising US isolationism means Australia must become more resilient and autonomous, thinktank warns

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United States Studies Centre finds Americans are not convinced the Indo-Pacific should be a priority region for the Biden administration

Voters in the US are not convinced the Indo-Pacific should be a priority region for the Biden administration, and isolationist sentiment in the country continues to rise, according to a new analysis by the United States Studies Centre.

The new USSC State of the United States report, to be launched in Canberra at an event on Wednesday with the defence minister, Peter Dutton, Labor frontbenchers Penny Wong and Brendan O’Connor, and US congressman Joe Courtney, finds support for the US alliance with Canberra remains strong.

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South Korea presidential contender vows to seek nuclear-powered submarines, months after Australia’s Aukus deal

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Lee Jae-myung aims to counter North Korea threats and pledges to restart stalled talks between Pyongyang and Washington

South Korea’s ruling party presidential candidate said he will seek US support to build nuclear-powered submarines to better counter threats from North Korea and proactively seek to reopen stalled denuclearisation talks between Pyongyang and Washington.

In an interview with Reuters and two other media outlets, Lee Jae-myung also pledged to put aside “strategic ambiguity” in the face of intensifying Sino-US rivalry, vowing pragmatic diplomacy would avoid South Korea being forced to choose between the two countries.

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Emmanuel Macron says ‘Australia behaved badly’ over Aukus submarine deal – video

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French President Emmanuel Macron says Australia behaved badly after ending its submarine deal with France before opting for a nuclear powered arrangement in collaboration with the United States and United Kingdom. Macron previously accused the Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, of lying to him over the abandoned $90bn submarine contract. Speaking in an interview with TF1 and LCI television stations, Macron said: "The Australians have treated us in a bad manner, industrially and strategically. We responded in the firmest manner, and it will be felt in time, believe me. The Australians behaved badly"

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China’s response to Aukus deal was ‘irrational’, Peter Dutton says

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Defence minister accuses Beijing of ‘bullying’ over criticisms of Australia’s pact with the US and UK

China has responded “irrationally” to the Aukus pact between Australia, the United States and Britain, the defence minister Peter Dutton says.

The conservative Australian minister continues to mount forthright criticism of the Chinese government, accusing it of “bullying” countries that stand up to Beijing.

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As China threat rises, can Aukus alliance recover from rancorous birth?

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Questions mount about pact’s ultimate purpose and implications for other Asean countries

It was initially seen as an audacious enlistment by Joe Biden of Australia into the 21st-century struggle against China, elevating the country in the process to a significant regional military power and finally giving substance to Global Britain and its tilt to the Indo-Pacific.

But since then the “ruckus” about Aukus, as Boris Johnson described it, has not stopped. If this was the start of a new “anti-hegemonic coalition” to balance China’s rise, it has not quite blown up on the launchpad, but nor has it taken off as smoothly as intended.

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