Anthony Albanese declares Pacific-first approach on the eve of US defence talks
On the eve of crucial defence talks with the US, Anthony Albanese has declared he will prioritise the Pacific over the US. Is he making a mistake?
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Australia’s future security and prosperity will depend on the Albanese government prioritising the Pacific region over the Middle East, the Prime Minister has declared on the eve of Australian leaders holding crucial defence talks with the US.
But a leading defence expert claims the PM’s Pacific-first strategy will see oil prices shoot through the roof, the same way the war in Ukraine sent energy prices skyrocketing
In a speech at the Lowy Institute, Anthony Albanese said “without any doubt, Australia’s future security and prosperity will be defined by the strength and success of our engagement in the region we call home”.
In a thinly-veiled justification of why Australia denied a US navy request to send a ship to the Red Sea, Mr Albanese said: (The) anchoring of Australian strategic policy in our region has been a core tenet of Labor defence and foreign policy.”
In the speech, Mr Albanese rattled off a list of Labor leaders who prioritised the Asia-Pacific region over the Middle East — signalling the overnight meeting is unlikely to see Australia play a leading part in a dangerous US-led mission in the Red Sea.
The mission is aimed to counteract attacks on ships passing through the region.
“Without any doubt, Australia’s future security and prosperity will be defined by the strength and success of our engagement in the region we call home,” Mr Albanese said.
“John Curtin’s decision to recall Australian forces from the Middle East for combat against Japan in New Guinea is widely held to represent the beginning of Australia setting our own foreign policy.
”It also represents the first anchoring of Australian strategic policy in Asia and the Pacific. When Curtin spoke of ‘the Battle for Australia’, he made it clear that we had to fight to secure our continent and our home.”
But defence strategy expert Michael Shoebridge accused the PM of “deliberately recasting history” saying the Labor leaders before him balanced regional and international defence priorities.
“The Houthis attacking ship and trade through the Red Sea will effect global energy prices, the prices Australians are paying for oil over Christmas,” he said.
“This idea of just focusing on our local region is just an excuse of the lack of capabilities in our defence … it’s deliberately narrow minded.
”We should certainly have the defence capability to send a single ship to the Red Sea while also patrolling the Pacific, it’s embarrassing.”
ADF chief General Angus Campbell will be representing Australia at the overnight meeting hosted by the US Secretary of Defense, Secretary Austin to discuss Operation Prosperity Guardian.
But in a move to again showed Australia’s limited role in the region, the US Defence Force failed to mention Australia as one of the nations working on the operation in its most recent statement.
“Operation Prosperity Guardian is bringing together multiple countries to include the United Kingdom, Bahrain, Canada, France, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Seychelles and Spain, to jointly address security challenges in the southern Red Sea and The Gulf of Aden,” it said.
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Originally published as Anthony Albanese declares Pacific-first approach on the eve of US defence talks
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