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. “My views will not please the prime minister, the foreign minister nor the defence minister but the country is entitled to a rationale for such a radical and dangerous policy.” The purpose of the email was to forewarn ministers that he would be tipping a bucket on them – and the nuclear-powered submarine plan they had endorsed –…
Tag: Anthony Albanese
US-China war not inevitable, Albanese says, urging countries to ‘prevent a worst-case scenario’
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. Albanese also sought to reassure countries in the region that remain wary about Australia’s plan to acquire nuclear-powered submarines under the Aukus pact. “In boosting…
Joe Biden’s advisers say he doesn’t want to drag Pacific allies into ‘headlong clash’ between US and China
Joe Biden’s senior advisers have acknowledged countries in the Indo-Pacific don’t want to be “trampled by a headlong clash” between the US and China. In a webinar with an Australian audience on Friday, senior White House national security council (NSC) officials said the US president wanted to give allies and other close partners “breathing space” to engage with China constructively. Edgard Kagan, the NSC’s senior director for east Asia and Oceania, said Biden had been listening to the region’s concerns. “I think the president is very focused on the fact…
Australia, India, Japan and US take thinly veiled swipe at China
The leaders of the Quad group – Australia, India, Japan and the United States – delivered a thinly veiled swipe at Beijing’s behaviour on Saturday at a summit in Hiroshima. The US president, Joe Biden, and his three partners in the group did not mention China by name but the communist superpower was clearly the target of language in a joint statement calling for “peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific maritime domain”. “We strongly oppose destabilising or unilateral actions that seek to change the status quo by force or coercion,”…
The cancelled Quad summit is a win for China and a self-inflicted blow to the US’s Pacific standing
The Chinese government is probably the biggest winner from Joe Biden’s decision to pull out of his trip to Australia and Papua New Guinea, forcing the cancellation of the Quad summit in Sydney. Chinese state media outlets won’t need to muster much creative energy to weave together some of Beijing’s preferred narratives: that the US is racked by increasingly severe domestic upheaval and is an unreliable partner, quick to leave allies high and dry. To make matters worse for the US’s standing in the region, Biden’s planned visit to PNG…
Australia’s defence force is expected to get its biggest overhaul in decades. Here’s what we know so far
Australia’s national security environment is about to get a major shake-up. The defence strategic review ordered by the Albanese government – and what the government plans to do about it – will be publicly released on Monday in what is being touted as the biggest defence overhaul in nearly four decades. Ordered just 73 days into the Albanese government, the review was conducted by the former chief of defence Air Chief Marshal Sir Angus Houston AK AFC and former Labor defence minister Prof Stephen Smith. They handed their completed review…
‘Only one is paying. Our bloke’: Paul Keating attacks Labor leadership over Aukus deal – video
Former Labor prime minister Paul Keating savages his own party for signing up to the Aukus submarine deal. Keating calls the Aukus press event held in the US with Anthony Albanese, Joe Biden and Rishi Sunak ‘kabuki theatre’. The former PM says one of the ‘principle problems’ of the deal is that ‘defence has overtaken foreign policy’. He goes on to attack the foreign minister, Penny Wong, saying, ‘running around the Pacific Islands with a lei around your neck handing out money, which is what Penny does, is not foreign policy’…
Australia news live: Victorian energy prices to jump almost a third as Bowen calls on Coalition to ‘look in the mirror’
From 1h ago Chris Bowen throws back to Coalition on energy price rises The energy minister is borrowing a turn of phrase out of Julia Gillard’s misogyny speech when asked about the Coalition’s suggestion that capping coal and gas prices will, in the longer run, increase prices. Chris Bowen: I invite the Coalition to have a look in the mirror. I mean, he had the independent energy regulator this morning pointing out that without the intervention, the price rises would have been closer to 50%. An intervention that Mr Dutton…
US, UK and Australia embarking on a ‘path of error and danger’, says China – video
China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin told reporters that the US, UK and Australia ‘are walking further down the path of error and danger’. The comments were made in a press conference in response to the Aukus partners’ announcement of a multibillion-dollar deal on nuclear-powered submarines. The deal, made by leaders during a meeting in San Diego, will provide Australia with nuclear-powered submarines in an effort to counter the rise of China in the Indo-Pacific. The Chinese government accuse the three countries of pursuing a deal ‘for the sake of…
What is the Aukus submarine deal and what does it mean? – the key facts
In a tripartite deal with the US and the UK, Australia has unveiled a plan to acquire a fleet of up to eight nuclear-powered submarines, forecast to cost up to $368bn between now and the mid-2050s. Australia will spend $9bn over the next four years. From this year Australian military and civilian personnel will embed with US and UK navies, including within both countries’ submarine industrial bases. From 2027 the UK and the US plan to rotate their nuclear-powered submarines through HMAS Stirling near Perth as part of a push…