Published by The Australian
Let’s start with the obvious: Russia seeking military expansion in our region is a very bad thing.
Putin wants a greater Russian footprint in the Indo-Pacific to give it more chips at more tables, and to complicate the ability of the United States to project power.
We have assets and operations that are highly relevant to that goal. Seeing more of what Australia does is very desirable for Russia.
So an apparent request from Russia to permanently base aircraft in Indonesia is the definition of material – it is plainly an issue of great significance.
But the government is refusing to provide a briefing to the opposition on the reported request, despite there being numerous precedents of similar briefings being provided in the past.
What possible reason is there to not provide a briefing?
If there is confidential material to be provided, that confidence will be respected, as it always has been in the past.
The government has tried two tacks to avoid providing the briefing so far.
The first is a lame technical argument – so lame in fact that nobody from the government has actually put their name to it.
The second is to say that, because Indonesia has rejected the apparent request, there is nothing to see here and nothing to talk about. That is patently ridiculous. Anthony Albanese suggested that discussing the issue would be like discussing a fake moon landing.
Hubris is never good in a leader, but when you combine it with incompetence things get really messy.
By the Prime Minister’s reckoning, a reported request from Russia to permanently base aircraft within striking distance of Australia is a humorous, trivial matter.
To be blunt: who does this guy think he is?
The attempt to throw the switch to vaudeville is a transparent attempt to shift the focus away from the Albanese government. Did they actually know anything about this reported request? And if they did, what did they do about it?
The journalist who broke the story on Russia seeking access to a military base in Indonesia is standing by his information.
The only conceivable reason why the government would not want to provide a briefing is because the content of that briefing would be embarrassing for it. If the government had acted effectively on this matter, they would be keen to tell the whole nation.
Penny Wong devotes a large proportion of her time to self-praise, so why not take up the opportunity here? If there is a good story to tell about the government’s diplomatic prowess, why not tell it?
It’s pretty obvious that something has gone very wrong, and so the response is to put up a combination of bureaucratic roadblocks and performative distractions.
It would of course be very simple for the government to clear up this matter by providing a briefing. This is an issue that will not be going away.
The evasion on Russia follows on from one of the clearest examples of diplomatic ineptitude that our country has seen for a very long time.
It’s only a couple of months ago that Albanese needed a Virgin airlines pilot to tell him that the People’s Liberation Army was conducting live-firing exercises off Australia’s coast.
Around the same time, his Foreign Minister was telling us that she had raised concerns about the exercises with China’s Foreign Minister. Actually it was a concern, singular. The only issue raised was words to the effect of – “some more notice would have been nice”. The Government expressed no concerns about the live-firing exercises themselves. They were also totally fine with the circumnavigation of Australia by the same flotilla.
Rather than expressing objections, the government was actually at pains to assert that the PLA exercises were really just the same thing that Australia does itself in the South China Sea. Except they were not the same thing at all.
Just this past week, we’ve also seen the concerning news that Timor-Leste, which is only 700km from Darwin, is open to participating in military exercises with China. This follows on from the nation signing a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with China in September 2023.
Since the Albanese government was elected, we’ve seen China reach policing agreements with Vanuatu and Kiribati, and sign multiple agreements with the Solomon Islands. And just two months ago, the Cook Islands signed a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with China.
These are inconvenient facts for the Albanese government, but facts they are. The government can’t pretend that these things have not happened, so ducks for cover and says as little as possible.
It is plainly trying the same tactic with the reported Russian request of Indonesia.
But Australians deserve honesty, not obfuscation. It is reasonable to conclude that the government is not being upfront because it has something to hide.
David Coleman is Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs.
Hon David Coleman MP
Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs
Member for Banks