E&OE

 

KIERAN GILBERT:

Welcome back to the program. Let's bring in the Shadow Defence Minister Angus Taylor, thanks for your time. Earlier in the week, you were on the ABC, and you said that we should have a joint commitment with the United States to the security of Taiwan. Was that a shift in Coalition policy?

 

ANGUS TAYLOR:

No, not at all Kieran. Look, let's face the real facts right now we're seeing a rapid military buildup by the Chinese Communist Party and other authoritarian regimes around the world and of course, what we're seeing with that military buildup is unprecedented. We have a commitment, as does the United States to the status quo in and around Taiwan. That means peace in the Taiwan Strait. That means a secure Taiwan, and these are things that we've long been committed to, and that commitment is an important one to ensure that we continue to see peace into the future in our region and in and around Taiwan, we achieved that peace, importantly, through strength, through deterrence. This is incredibly important, and it is why increasing our defence spending to three percentage points of GDP or more is incredibly important. It's why joint investments with the United States on nuclear submarines, as well as in joint facilities, to support our work together is incredibly important at a time like this, whether it's in Tyndall or Darwin or Townsville. I mean these investments…

 

KIERAN GILBERT:

Your colleague…is that consistent with what Andrew Hastie said just in the last week, that it would be, it's unreasonable for Australia to declare a position for a hypothetical or indeed, James Patterson said that we cannot pre commit to a particular course of action in a particular conflict and he agrees with the Prime Minister. Are you consistent with what they're saying?

 

ANGUS TAYLOR:

Absolutely, and if you read what I said earlier in the week, and I'll say again, now, you can't codify all the scenarios. Well, you can't codify all the scenarios around conflict into the future. What you can do is commit to core principles, which we've done for a long while. We are committed to a status quo in and around Taiwan. We are committed to making sure that we have peace in the Taiwan Strait. And of course, to achieve that, we need strength. We need deterrence. The most provocative thing of all is weakness, Kieran and what we fear we are seeing right now under the Labor Party, is weakness. We've seen ASPI tell us that we're on a pathway to a paper defence force in this country, and that's simply not good enough at what the Prime Minister himself has said is the most uncertain strategic environment since the Second World War.

 

KIERAN GILBERT:

So do you believe the Government should tell Elbridge Colby that we would help them in the event of a war over Taiwan.

 

ANGUS TAYLOR:

My comment is about joint commitments to the status quo, to peace in our region, and achieving that peace through strength and deterrence, and I think we should be continually clear about that commitment, Kieran. You know, that's not the same as committing to join in a conflict in every scenario, because you can't do that and through history, no alliance has ever been based on that kind of, that kind of commitment. So, Kieran, I think you've got to be practical about this. Andrew believes that, Andrew Hastie that is, as do I, so our position is consistent, and the Coalition position on this has been consistent, but the context is changing, Kieran, and this is why a commitment to 3% of GDP for defence spending, critical investments in joint facilities. Critical investment in our defence force, in getting the numbers of personnel to where they should be. The government is missing its own targets. Critical commitment to missile manufacturing in our country, to the sovereign capability we need, the agility we need, the readiness we need. I mean, this is a government that's got rid of its readiness reporting. It doesn't even know if we're ready to deal with conflicts in our region, because it's not getting the reporting on it, as far as we can see. So, we're seeing real failure from this government, and that's failure that needs to be called out.

 

KIERAN GILBERT:

Do you think, is it a bit rich for the United States, you know, through the Under Secretary of Defence to be asking us for what we’d do in the event of a conflict when they also, they have had for decades a position of strategic ambiguity themselves, so they don't even say what they're going to do. So why should Australia?

 

ANGUS TAYLOR:

Can I point out these reports you're referring to are anonymous leaks. So I don't give them, I can't give them a whole lot of weight, even though, you know, people love to talk about them, but what is clear and what should be given weight is the military buildup by the Chinese Communist Party and other authoritarian regimes around the world, and we're starting to see the consequences of this. In recent years, we've seen it with Russia's invasion of Ukraine. We've seen it with the behaviour of Iran vis-a-vis Israel and so, we have to be realistic and hardheaded about the world we are living in now. It's a world where strength matters. It's a world where sovereignty is best underpinned by alliances. Alliances don't undermine sovereignty Kieran, they underpin it and that has always been true, and that is something we need to see the government reconciling itself with.

 

KIERAN GILBERT:

Just to clarify finally, before we move on, just on the Taiwan question, because when you spoke about the agreement for Taiwan security that it should underpin everything we do, including AUKUS, it sounded, and clearly a number of commentators and analysts have thought, that you were talking about acceding to the request of Colby or the United States that we should agree before time to participate in any conflict over Taiwan?

 

ANGUS TAYLOR:

I think I've already answered this question, Kieran, but I'll use the opportunity to say more about it.

 

KIERAN GILBERT:

Just in terms of the AUKUS element, because you mentioned that it should underpin everything, we're doing including AUKUS. If I can read the exact words where you said that it should underpin what we're doing in AUKUS, that priority over Taiwan. So just elaborate on that.

 

ANGUS TAYLOR:

Of course. I mean, you know, continuation of the status quo in Taiwan, which means peace in the Taiwan Strait. It means a secure Taiwan. I mean, these are parts of what we should be ensuring that AUKUS is helping us towards, and we want to see peace in our region. We want to see peace in the Indo Pacific, and that's incredibly important at this time and that's why strength through alliances, and strength through an alliance like AUKUS, is so important. It's why capability is so important, investing in that capability. That's why getting our defence spending to where it should be is so important. It's why agility in our defence spend is so important. Investment in missile manufacturing, sovereign missile manufacturing in this country. Investment in the joint facilities at Tyndall, at Darwin, at Townsville, making sure we get the investment at Henderson and Osborne for support of AUKUS. I mean, these are all of the things that need to occur. This government is not doing it, and we have to be hardheaded about the failures of this government to meet even their own defence strategic review and the spending required to do what that review recommended, Kieran.

 

KIERAN GILBERT:

Do you think the Prime Minister got the tone and the balance right with his visit to China this week?

 

ANGUS TAYLOR:

Well, you know, I'm still trying to work out what he's coming home with, Kieran. One of my colleagues described it as a working holiday and I hope it wasn't that. I hope he actually does bring something home. It's not clear to me what it is. He went down memory lane, listened to some Midnight Oil and went in the footsteps of Gough Whitlam, but we need more than that. We do need strong economic and trade relationships with China, but we also need to recognise that there are strategic differences with China. The Darwin Port is an important issue in that as are other important issues. Indeed, we've seen even today reports of purchases of property by someone with, apparently links, deep links into the Chinese Communist Party, and that property is strategic for this country. So, you know, these are the sorts of discussions that need to occur. They're important and it's not clear to me how much progress was really made on this trip.

 

KIERAN GILBERT:

From those other assets that you alluded to. What do you want the government to do in response to those reports, which are separate to the Port of Darwin, of course?

 

ANGUS TAYLOR:

Yeah, of course. Look Kieran, I think there are real questions here to answer. A key question is for the Treasurer, which is, did these property acquisitions go through the FIRB process, and what was the outcome of that? But these are very real questions that the Government needs to answer. As I say, we are faced with the most uncertain strategic environment since the Second World War, that's what the Prime Minister himself says, and yet we've got a government that is not behaving in that way.

 

KIERAN GILBERT:

Shadow Defence Minister Angus Taylor, thanks for your time. Appreciate it.

 

ANGUS TAYLOR:

Good to be with you, Kieran.

 

ENDS.