ADF chief warns Australia must be ready to launch combat operations from home

ABC NEWS (Australia)

The Chief of the Defence Force has warned that Australia may have to prepare for the possibility of launching combat operations from its own soil.  The stark warning comes as the debate over defence spending continues to rage in Canberra.

Transcript

00:00It was a pretty stark warning this morning from the Chief of the Defence Force, Ros.

00:06He essentially said Australia was now entering a new era.

00:10Now to be clear, the CDF wasn't predicting that conflict was inevitable, nor was he saying

00:16that Australia would definitely end up fighting a war on its own soil.

00:20But what he did say is that the circumstances were now uncertain enough and that the strategic

00:25landscape has altered enough, along with military technology, that Australia now had to prepare

00:30at the very least for that possibility.

00:32And he said that was a real shift because, of course, ever since World War Two, Australia

00:36has conducted military operations, but it's done so entirely far from its soil in places

00:42like Afghanistan.

00:44So what the Chief of the Defence Force was trying to signal, I think, was more than anything

00:48else the fact that Australians needed to think differently about the role of defence and the

00:53threats that were facing it.

00:55He also fielded, of course, some questions about defence spending in the wake of the Defence

01:00Secretary's warning, the US Defence Secretary's warning that Australia needed to get defence

01:05spending up to 3.5% of GDP.

01:08He didn't wade in directly on that, but he did say that Australia's, or that the Defence

01:12Department's expenditure was already at the edge of its envelope.

01:15In other words, he's spending, he's having no difficulty spending the money that is being

01:19given to him.

01:20He certainly didn't wade into the political fray in any way, but I guess the overall message

01:24was that if there was more money that came defence's way, then he would be happy to find

01:29a way to spend it.

01:30Let's take a listen to the CDF, Ros, speaking earlier about the way that Australia's landscape

01:35is changing and some of the threats that we may have to grapple with in the future.

01:39Perhaps, finally, we're having to reconsider Australia as a homeland from which we will conduct combat

01:47operations.

01:49And that, again, is a very different way, almost since the Second World War, about how we think

01:55of national resilience and preparedness of we may need to operate and conduct combat operations

02:02from this country.

02:04And that's everything from our northern infrastructure, our supply chains.

02:08And Steven, PNG's Defence Minister has also spoken.

02:12What was his main message?

02:13Yeah, this was an interesting intervention from Billy Joseph, the PNG Defence Minister.

02:19He spoke quite a bit about the defence treaty that Australia and PNG announced not that long

02:24ago that they were going to negotiate.

02:26Now, interestingly, things seem to be moving rapidly in that space.

02:30The Defence Minister said that they would meet in the north of the country, or that Australian

02:33ministers and officials would meet in the north of the country next week to discuss

02:37a zero-draft.

02:38That's essentially the first rough draft of the agreement.

02:41So they seem to be racing, potentially, towards a rapid conclusion of that agreement.

02:46He also made it very clear that PNG had chosen its security partners and that its security

02:51partners would be countries like Australia, New Zealand and the US, rather than China.

02:57He didn't criticise China directly.

03:00But he did say that PNG's decision to basically sign this treaty, effectively in some ways abandoning

03:05PNG's long-held, non-aligned instincts, was a clear signal to the region that when it

03:11comes to security, he wants to go with Australia rather than others.

03:15He also indirectly seemed to criticise China's recent circumnavigation of Australia by the People's

03:22Liberation Army Navy.

03:24That, of course, happened a couple of months ago.

03:26But Billy Joseph made the point that that flotilla also went through PNG's waters.

03:32And he said that it was a reminder of the, quote, threats that the region is facing at

03:37the moment.

03:38Let's take a listen to what he had to say.

03:41We all appreciate the threats, you know.

03:43The cycle of navigation of Australia by the PLA vessels, it came through our space as well.

03:48And they did some, you know, live drills in the Tasman Sea and all that.

03:52So we're not, you know, ignorant of what we're dealing with.

03:56But we have to respect its sovereign states, how they make this and as far as how much they

04:03want to spend in defence.

04:05Now, Ros, it's pretty unusual for Pacific ministers to wade into security debates at

04:11all, particularly when it comes to China.

04:13So the fact that Billy Joseph was so blunt there about what he saw as the PLAN's activities

04:20and why it might represent a problem, it does signal that at least for this government in

04:24PNG, they've laid down a few very clear strategic markers and they would like to confine China

04:30to the economic sphere rather than the security one.

04:33Whether that's possible to sustain, we'll have to wait and see.

04:36So please think of the, in general during this training process, please.

04:50They are ready to stop the covidostat?

04:54Didn't expect the covidostat?

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