The Chief of the Defence Force has warned Australia may have to rethink its military strategy and prepare for the possibility of launching combat operations from home soil. The stark warning comes as the debate over defence spending continues to rage in Canberra.
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00Well, it was a pretty stark warning, you'd have to say, Joe.
00:05Now, in a sense, this isn't something entirely new.
00:08We have heard these sort of warnings before, but to hear it in such plain language from
00:13the Chief of the Defence Force was certainly pretty arresting.
00:16Look, what the CDF is saying is not that conflict is inevitable or that the north of Australia
00:21will inevitably become a war zone.
00:23What he is saying is that there is now sufficient uncertainty out there about the strategic
00:28landscape that Australia has to prepare for the possibility of launching military missions
00:35off its northern approaches, rather than simply, as we always have previously, going off to
00:40fight distant wars in places like Afghanistan.
00:43In other words, the world is becoming more complex.
00:46Technology has shrunk distances that used to offer pretty surefire protection to us.
00:52And as the tensions that we've seen between, in particular, the US and China rise over this
00:57whole region, Australia has to prepare itself for some of those really dire outcomes.
01:04Let's take a listen to the CDF.
01:06He was speaking at the ASPE conference here in Canberra earlier today.
01:10Perhaps finally, we're having to reconsider Australia as a homeland from which we will conduct
01:17combat operations.
01:19And that, again, is a very different way, almost since the Second World War, about how we think
01:25of national resilience and preparedness of, we may need to operate and conduct combat operations
01:32from this country.
01:34And that's everything from our northern infrastructure, our supply chains.
01:40And PNG's Defence Minister has also spoken.
01:42What did he have to say?
01:45Yeah, an interesting contribution from Billy Joseph, PNG's Defence Minister.
01:49Typically, Joe, ministers from the Pacific are pretty careful about saying anything at
01:53all about China, particularly when it comes to the security space.
01:57Billy Joseph, though, made it pretty clear that as far as his government, or the Marape government,
02:02concerned PNG has made its choice on security matters, and it's decided to go with Australia,
02:08as well as countries like New Zealand and the US, its so-called traditional partners, rather
02:13than with China, which he says is primarily an economic partner for PNG.
02:18So that's exactly what Australian officials, of course, Joe, want to hear.
02:22Interestingly, Billy Joseph also made a bit of a throwaway reference to some of the threats
02:27posed by China as well.
02:28He talked about the People's Liberation Army, Navy circumnavigation of Australia, pointing
02:33out that those ships actually went through PNG's waters as well, saying it was a reminder
02:39of some of the difficulties and threats faced by the region.
02:43That's pretty unusually blunt for a senior minister from a place like PNG.
02:47Let's take a listen to what he had to say.
02:50We all appreciate the threats, you know.
02:52The circumnavigation of Australia by the PLA vessels, it came through our space as well,
02:57and they did some, you know, life drills in the Tasman Sea, and all that.
03:02So we're not, you know, ignorant of what we're dealing with, so, but we have to respect
03:08its sovereign states, how they make this, and as far as how much they want to spend in defence.
03:14And there was another bit of controversy over a defence think tank hosting this event today.
03:19What can you tell us about that?
03:21Yeah, that's right.
03:22This is a controversy over some of the reporting that the Australian Strategic Policy Institute,
03:26which hosted this event today, has done on defence issues.
03:29It warned a few weeks ago that Australia's defence force could become brittle and hollowed out
03:34if the government didn't plough more money into it.
03:37The government's responded furiously to that.
03:39We've already had the prime minister and the defence minister accuse Aspie of doing shoddy work.
03:44Today, Pat Conroy, the defence industry minister, perhaps went even further,
03:49suggesting that the think tank had been guilty of making up its own facts,
03:53suggesting that it was biased politically in some way and demanding that it overhaul its methodology
04:00when it comes to these sort of reports.
04:02So, clearly, a pretty extraordinary spray here from Pat Conroy.
04:06Aspie's response today is simply to say that it is not a partisan organisation,
04:11that it's focused simply on the question of what Australia needs to do to prepare for conflict.
04:16It's also pointed out that the debate we've been having over defence spending
04:20in the wake of the demands from the Trump administration
04:22echo some of the debates that are found in the pages of its recent report.
04:27I guess it is a little bit inside the beltway, Joe, but still a fascinating debate
04:31that's still got a way to play out between this government-funded,
04:34but independent think tank and its paymasters in government.