THE HON TANYA PLIBERSEK MP
MINISTER FOR SOCIAL SERVICES
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TV INTERVIEW
SUNRISE
MONDAY, 7 JULY 2025
TOPICS: PRIME MINISTER’S CHINA VISIT; US-AUSTRALIA RELATIONS; DEFENCE SPENDING.
NATALIE BARR: Now, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is preparing to travel to China later this week to meet President Xi Jinping, where he's expected to be greeted with a red carpet reception. The diplomatic visit comes amid fresh claims this morning that China is hoping to capitalise on our fraying relationship with the US with trade and investment to be a heavy focus of the discussions between the two leaders in Beijing. For their take, let's bring in Social Services Minister Tanya Plibersek and Nationals MP here in the studio, Barnaby Joyce. Good morning to both of you. But Barnaby, can this sort of take up some of the slack, do you think, our relationship with China that the US is creating?
BARNABY JOYCE: Well, the Prime Minister must have a hell of a hand of cards because he's really got the chips on the table on this one. This is very dangerous. We've got to understand that the United States is a cornerstone of our defence relationship. It's not going well. This is the fourth meeting that the Prime Minister's had with the leader of China, with this totalitarian regime, we've got to understand that. And Mr. Trump has not had a meeting with the Prime Minister yet and I'm truly concerned about that and especially why they're doing a review on AUKUS. This is not good.
BARR: Shouldn't we make friends with China?
JOYCE: We should, but we should not do it at the expense of the United States of America. We've got to understand the realm we live in and this realm of the Western Pacific. If things go pear shaped for us, we're in trouble, real trouble. And we're supposed to be becoming as powerful- if we are going to have a defence policy that doesn't need the United States, we'll get ready to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on defence because we are way, way, way behind where we need to be.
BARR: That is what a lot of defence experts are saying. Tanya, is the Prime Minister looking for a new bestie in China?
TANYA PLIBERSEK, MINISTER FOR SOCIAL SERVICES: Well, your question started Nat, with the assumption that there's a fraying relationship with the United States and nothing could be further from the truth. The Prime Minister has spoken to the President on the phone, the Defence Minister has met his counterpart recently. The Foreign Affairs Minister has just been in the United States recently. The Trade Minister is constantly talking to his counterpart in the US. We've got all sorts of high level dialogue constantly going on with the United States and that's as it should be. The United States absolutely is our foundational defence and security partner. The relationship is terrific. We also want to have a good trading relationship with China. Under the previous Morrison Government, the trading relationship had smashed our agricultural sector. We've restored $20 billion worth of trade with China. That's good for our farmers and certainly good for Barnaby's constituents. And I would have thought he would be welcoming the restoration of trade with the stabilisation of the relationship. As the Prime Minister has constantly said, as the Prime Minister has constantly said, we cooperate with China where we can, we disagree where we must. And worked out very well for Australia in recent years with the restoration of those billions of dollars of trade.
JOYCE: You don't have to throw trade out the door to maintain your defence relationship. Now, if you're saying we have a great relationship with-
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: It's a shame the Morrison Government did.
JOYCE: You've got to let me speak. A great relationship with our neighbour in the United States. It's just that you've never been over for a cup of tea. They've never invited you into the house for a cup of tea. You haven't met them. So, you say the best you've done is yelled over the fence to them. And this is not the sign of a good relationship. And if we can't extract a meeting between the Prime Minister of Australia and the President of the United States, we are on bad ground. Now, I like Kevin Rudd, he is a nice guy, but he is not the Ambassador for the United States. He's got to be moved to somewhere like, I don't know, the United Kingdom or France. And we have got to really work on this relationship because it is tenuous and that is dangerous, more dangerous for Australia than it is for the United States.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: It's just nonsense.
JOYCE: Well, it's not nonsense, Tanya, because we just can't crack a meeting with him. We look like the odd ones out when we go to these meetings. You're pushed off to the side. You don't get in the room. It's ridiculous.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: It’s such a silly thing for Barnaby to be talking down.
BARR: Tanya, would you say that Anthony Albanese's relationship with Trump is exactly where you want it to be?
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: He's had multiple phone calls with the President.
BARR: Well, one was like a congratulations. I don't know whether that would-
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: We were disappointed when the President needed to return quickly to Washington because the Middle East blew up. I mean, anybody would understand that the President of the United States would want to be back in Washington when-
JOYCE: He rang up the President of Mexico and the Prime Minister of India. He just didn't talk to us.
BARR: And there was six months in between, you know, when he got in and then when that happened.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: The Australian relationship with the United States is-
JOYCE: Going badly.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: -deep, long, abiding and stable. And I think it's actually really irresponsible, Barnaby, of you to be talking it down in this way.
JOYCE: It's not because we. It's not because the Prime Minister gave that really weird speech at the Curtin Institute where he basically started with an inference that we're going to go our own way. How on earth would that work? He gave the speech, Tanya, not me.
BARR: Yeah, Tanya. That was an interesting speech. It did feel like we were, you know, heading in another direction. You know when you've got basically a conga line of defence experts lining up to say we need to be spending more on defence in this country.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: His speech –
JOYCE: Was crazy.
MINSITER PLIBERSEK: …made the absolutely perfectly valid point that an Australian Labor Government will always put Australian interests first.
JOYCE: Well then go get a meeting with the President.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: I don’t know why you think that is remarkable Barnaby.
JOYCE: Because you're not putting us first.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: I don't know why you think that is remarkable. He certainly is.
JOYCE: It's remarkable because we don't have - we just have been devoid of a relationship at the highest level. The Prime Minister and the President are not talking to one another in a face to face meeting. And if you're going to put Australia first, you better get our defence relationship up to speed because your number one job is the protection of the Australian people.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: I honestly think it’s so irresponsible of you to be beating this up for domestic purposes.
JOYCE: I didn't give that crazy speech that, that the Prime Minister gave to the Curtin Institute where he's sort of like, oh, well, we're going to go our own way with, with who's army? We're way behind. We've got six submarines and at times none of them work. We've got frigates that basically, sometimes we can't find crews from.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Yeah it would've been better if you had done something when you were in government instead of waiting for us to come to government.
JOYCE: And we've got a defence force that's smaller in comparative power-
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: It would've been terrific if you'd done anything other than issue press releases.
JOYCE: -we're worse than Australia's ever been against a major superpower in comparative terms, not in total terms. In comparative terms.
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: And that's why we are spending more than any government in Australian history. Almost $60 billion on our defence forces over the next 10 years.
JOYCE: But you're spending more on everything cause there's inflation. Like you're spending more on Medicare, you're spending more on the NDIS.
BARR: Former Chiefs of Army and Navy say we are in worse form than we were 20, 30 years ago. So, that's who you've got to listen to. A former ASIO chief –
MINISTER PLIBERSEK: It would have been good if we started this project a decade ago. Yeah, it would have been good if we'd started under the Coalition Government.
JOYCE: Oh not that again. Oh my gosh. You're the government. How many times have I got to say that. You are the government.
BARR: That's a point too Barnaby. Anyway, look, we've run out of time. Thank you very much. We've got to go. We'll see you next week.
ENDS
