TANYA PLIBERSEK MP
SHADOW MINISTER FOR EDUCATION
SHADOW MINISTER FOR WOMEN
MEMBER FOR SYDNEY
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
4BC DRIVE WITH SCOTT EMERSON
WEDNESDAY, 22 SEPTEMBER 2021
SUBJECTS: AUKUS Alliance; Foreign Policy and Defence Procurement.
SCOTT EMERSON, HOST: We're joined by Tanya Plibersek, the Shadow Minister for Education and Shadow Minister for Women. How are you Tanya?
TANYA PLIBERSEK, SHADOW MINISTER FOR EDUCATION AND SHADOW MINISTER FOR WOMEN: I'm great, Scott. How are you?
EMERSON: I am sensational today. Scott Morrison, he's in the US. He met with US President Joe Biden in America. Now last week we did ask you that question about describing the relationship between the US and Australia and you raised a few little minor issues, but said it was pretty strong. Then almost the next day we heard the announcement of the AUKUS. What did you know?
PLIBERSEK: Well I didn't have any tip off, that's for sure. But yeah, I think there's bipartisan agreement that the US is our key ally. It's our principal security partner and a very close friend to Australia. And we want the Prime Minister to be successful on this trip because of course that's in Australia's interests. We say though, that working with other nations is important too. So we need to keep our relationship with our European friends. And the last week that hasn't been terrific with the French, very, very angry at the way this submarine thing has been handled. And of course, we need to make sure our relationships in the region of very strong as well, particularly with the ASEAN Nations, but right across the Indian and Pacific Oceans and through Asia. We’re geographically a part of Asia and we need to make sure we've got good strong allies and good relationships in our region too.
EMERSON: What about our good strong relationships with Europe. Particularly the French, at the moment. They're not particularly happy with us.
PLIBERSEK: Yeah not great at the moment, no.
EMERSON: Do you think Scott Morrison could have handled that a lot better?
PLIBERSEK: I think it would have been much better to have these conversations with the French government, and even with other governments near us like the Indonesian government for example, before the announcement was made. I mean, it looked like there were a couple of phone calls that were very last minute indeed, just before this was announced publicly. I don't think that's a great way of handling it, I don't think that's great diplomacy. And more particularly I am worried the submarine arrangement means that we've basically wasted eight years. First of all looking at Japanese submarines, then looking at French submarines, now we've got a new proposal before us, but nothing really has happened in eight years to advance our next generation of submarines and we've spent billions of dollars now on a project that won't go ahead. We won't get the first of our new subs until about 2040. That's not great management of a really, really important part of our defence.
EMERSON: Let's talk about then, in terms of that broader issue for us there now, because I did hear your former Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating - he came out and bagged Labor in terms of Anthony Albanese coming straight out and supporting this AUKUS agreement. Well, what do you think about Paul Keating's comments?
PLIBERSEK: Look you're never left in doubt about what Paul Keating thinks are you? He's pretty direct in his comments -
EMERSON: But is he out of touch? He was Prime Minister what, a quarter of a century ago. Is he out of touch with the realities of now?
PLIBERSEK: I absolutely wouldn't say that about Paul. He's got very strong opinions. He's got a right to them, he follows this stuff very closely. But our Shadow Cabinet and our caucus made a different decision. We do have the next 18 months to discuss the details of this and we hope the Government will be a little bit more forthcoming than they were in with the original announcement. We found out about this essentially as it was happening. Labor was briefed probably the day before the public announcement. That's not great for something that is going to shape our foreign policy and our defence procurement for decades to come, it would have been much better for the Prime Minister to be a little bit more bipartisan in this. We are always going to put the national interest first.
EMERSON: But surely a day before, it’s a decision for the Government, but they did alert Anthony Albanese the day before. Yeah I mean, it's not like he was blindsided by the announcement when he heard about it on the news.
PLIBERSEK: Look, it's honestly not much time for something so consequential. This is really going to shape our foreign policy and our defence procurement for decades to come. I mean, the submarines that we're using now think were mostly built in the 1990s. So what are we now, the 2020s - they're going to have to have their lives extended. These are big, complicated, expensive purchases. It is quite important to have a bipartisan approach to the sort of huge scale of defence procurement that we're talking about. Tens of billions of dollars and decades of work here. The more agreement we can have in the national interest, making sure we've got the best possible equipment for our serving men and women, that's in everybody's interests. And we have never played politics with defence and with our international relations. It's too important to do that. And I think it's important that the Government reaches out and involves us in the decision-making, but there are a lot of questions still about this project. How much of the technology will be shared? Where are the jobs going to be? How much have we spent on the on the French Subs that has been wasted now? We need to have these conversations and it'd be useful if the Government was prepared to do that in good faith.
EMERSON: Alright Tanya Plibersek, always good to chat. Will catch you again next week.
ENDS
