E&OE

 

SARAH FERGUSON: Angus Taylor, welcome to 730

 

ANGUS TAYLOR: Good to be with you, Sarah.

 

SARAH FERGUSON: Now, Xi Jinping today urged the Prime Minister to maintain the renewed Australia-China relationship. He said, no matter how the landscape may evolve – that's clearly a reference to the US – is there an opportunity for Australia here to exploit the chaos created by the America-first trade policies?

 

ANGUS TAYLOR: Well, Sarah, trade's important to this country. Always has been, and will continue to be, and that means we should have strong trade relationships with China, with the United States, with other trading nations around the world. It's always been important to our prosperity as a nation, and it will continue to be so I strongly encourage the Prime Minister on this. We should continue to pursue those trade relationships, but we should be pursuing them across the board, including with the United States, and that means fighting hard to avoid having tariffs imposed on our exports.

 

SARAH FERGUSON: Xi Jinping also invited the Prime Minister for lunch today, as well as the meeting. Is that a plus for Australia?

 

ANGUS TAYLOR: Well, I think we should be doing everything we can to build relationships like this around the world, but that means also building the relationship with the new American administration, the new US administration, and that's got to be a priority for the Prime Minister, alongside trade relationships like the one we have with China, Sarah.

 

SARAH FERGUSON: But you're not suggesting that the Prime Minister shouldn't have gone to meet Xi Jinping, are you?

 

ANGUS TAYLOR: No, not at all. But I would suggest that after over 250 days of this new US administration, we should have seen a face to face meeting between the Prime Minister and the President of the United States, and we should be seeing relationship building and work going on with the United States around the AUKUS alliance, around our strategic alliance, more broadly, and that's incredibly important in what the Prime Minister himself has said is the most uncertain and dangerous time since the Second World War.

 

SARAH FERGUSON: Now, just a couple of things on that point. Obviously, work is going on behind the scenes. The last meeting was cancelled by Trump, but he also cancelled on South Korea and India. But let me put the question to you like this. Of course, meetings are important, but isn't there also an argument for dealing with Donald Trump at arm's length, if you look what's happened to the Japanese another close ally. He met their Prime Minister earlier this year, now relations with the Japanese are at their worst point in decades.

 

ANGUS TAYLOR: Look, Sarah, I think you can always build relationships over time. It's challenging. Look, our relationship with the United States is very long standing, is very deep, we've fought with them in every war since Federation, and we should be working closely with them to make sure that we have peace through deterrence and strength in our region, we should have a joint commitment with them to the security of Taiwan and peace in the Taiwan Strait. These are incredibly important things to be focusing on right now, and it's why AUKUS is so important, and it's why the very clear messaging coming out of the United States that this has got to be a priority for us as a centrepiece of our alliance. You know, the Prime Minister would like to say that alliances like this override sovereignty. They don't. They underpin sovereignty. You achieve sovereignty with good alliances, Sarah and this is what we need to see.

 

SARAH FERGUSON: Let's be clear about this, because it's very important, would the Coalition be prepared to give Donald Trump a guarantee that Australia would join the US in a war over Taiwan?

 

ANGUS TAYLOR: Well, we need to have a joint commitment with the United States, regardless of who the president is about peace in our region, and that means the security of Taiwan and peace through strength and deterrence in the Taiwan Strait. This has to be a priority. Now, does that mean you can codify your response in every possible scenario? Well of course not, and no country can, but you can commit to those core principles that I've described, and this is exactly what the Prime Minister and the government should be doing. It's what I'm sure America is looking for, some indication that we do have that commitment to peace through deterrence.

 

SARAH FERGUSON: To be clear, Angus Taylor, are you saying that the government should give a pre-commitment to the United States that Australia would take part in a war over Taiwan?

 

ANGUS TAYLOR: Well, Sarah, I think I've been pretty clear in saying that you can't codify for every possible scenario, but you can make principled commitments to the security of Taiwan, to peace through deterrence and capability in the Taiwan Strait and through working together.

 

SARAH FERGUSON: It’s a different thing. Peace through deterrence is one thing, a pre commitment to take part in an active, live firing war is a different thing. Is that what you are asking the government to do?

 

ANGUS TAYLOR: Well, Sarah, I think I've been pretty clear. I mean peace through deterrence and strength is incredibly important. That does mean you're prepared to act under certain circumstances. You can't codify all the scenarios as to how our conflict might unfold. It's not possible to do that, and no one … the Americans, won't do that, and nor can we, but you can make those principled commitments as part of an alliance and what's lacking right now is a commitment from this government to an alliance which has underpinned our security for many, many decades, which does require strength, and where the objective is peace, not war. The exact opposite. We don't want conflict. That's the whole point here. But you can avoid conflict by working together with strength and clarity and credibility, and that's what we need to see from the government.

 

SARAH FERGUSON: Would that include a pre-commitment to commit either the AUKUS subs or Virginia class subs when and if they're delivered to Australia? Would that be included in what you're asking for?

 

ANGUS TAYLOR: Well, what I am saying is there needs to be a commitment, a joint commitment, between the United States and Australia to peace through deterrence and strength, and that means working together very closely in the Taiwan Strait to the security of Taiwan and that commitment should underpin what we are doing in AUKUS. It should underpin our purchase of the Virginia class submarines, and it should underpin an increase in our defence spending to at least 3% and the investments that go alongside that, the investment in joint facilities here in Australia, in the north at Tindal, at Darwin, Townsville, and the new submarine bases, as well as the upgrades in Osborne and Henderson, all of this has to be part of that package. Now I don't see any evidence that the government is making progress on that package and that under the underpinning set of principles to our alliance.

 

SARAH FERGUSON: So if I can refer to the reporting that came out of the United States recently, which refers to a series of meetings between defence officials in the US and defence officials in Australia where that question was asked about a pre-commitment to joining America in a war over Taiwan. You think the answer to that question should be yes?

 

ANGUS TAYLOR: Well, I think I've already answered that question. We can't codify every scenario, but we can commit to what I've just described. To the security of Taiwan, which is so crucially important to the Indo Pacific, to making sure the Taiwan Strait remains a place of peace, and we're only going to achieve that by making sure that we have the strength, jointly and the credibility to ensure and underpin that peace. So look these are the commitments that need to be made, Sarah, and they are not being made, as far as we can see, if they're being made that's very quietly behind closed doors, and frankly, we're not getting the transparency we need.

 

SARAH FERGUSON: Angus Taylor, why should Australia make a pre commitment of that nature when the United States retains some ambiguity over its position vis-à-vis Taiwan?

 

ANGUS TAYLOR: What I am saying we should commit to is a joint commitment to the security of Taiwan, to peace in the Taiwan Strait, and I'll say it again. I mean, and they are, they are absolutely underpinning commitments to make sure that we have broader peace in the Indo Pacific, to make sure we have the appropriate power balance in our part of the world and to ensure that we continue to achieve into the future what we have been able to achieve since the Second World War. Now we're facing the most dangerous environment since the Second World War, and if we think that we can actually get the right equilibrium, the right balance without investment in defence, without alliances, then we're kidding ourselves, and that's why it's so important we make these investments at this time.

 

SARAH FERGUSON: Angus Taylor, thank you very much indeed for joining us.

 

ANGUS TAYLOR: Good to be with you.

 

ENDS.