00:00Defence is saying that this has gone from being, I suppose, a surprise feature of the
00:06talisman sabre games to an expected addition to the talisman sabre games. They're expecting
00:11this war ship, this surveillance ship, sorry, to arrive close to Australia at some point
00:16over the next few weeks. Just to recap on what talisman sabre actually is. They're essentially
00:20massive war games conducted off the coast of Queensland, the Northern Territory, and
00:24this year for the first time Papua New Guinea as well. It involves 19 different countries,
00:28but it's primarily Australia and the US organising these defence exercises. They involve about
00:3335,000 people. So they are absolutely massive in scale. China, of course, doesn't take a
00:40part, but has typically taken an interest in what's going on. At the last four editions of
00:45these war games, which take place every two years, a Chinese vessel has turned up at one
00:50point or another. So defence is saying it would be very unusual. Here's the Minister for Defence
00:54Industry. Pat Conroy speaking on this a bit earlier. When we conduct these exercises,
01:00we're always cognizant that they're being observed by people who want to collect information about
01:04how we work with our allies, how we communicate with our allies and partners, and you manage
01:09that accordingly in a sensitive way. That's what the Australian people would expect our Australian
01:14Defence Force to do, and we'll continue to do that. But again, I'll say that the Chinese
01:19military have observed these exercises since 2017, and it would be very unusual if they didn't do that
01:26this time. Okay, Tom, thanks for that.
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