Graham Richardson: Australia’s Solomon Islands failure is massive

Australia’s security has been put under threat by the Morrison Government’s inept approach to the China-Solomons Island pact. How did they get it wrong, writes Graham Richardson.

Just after Paul Keating won his tussle with Bob Hawke, a number of important commemorations were about to take place.

The one which all Australians should think about at the moment, given what is happening with the Solomon Islands, was the 50th Anniversary of the Battle of the Coral Sea in May 1992, 80 years ago next month.

Keating rightly went to Townsville for the commemoration.

Fought in the huge expanse of water between Australia and the Solomon Islands, it was the first battle ever fought without ships sighting each other and it marked the first time the Japanese advance southward was checked, coming a month before the more famous Midway battle.

Coral Sea occurred because Japan wanted to take Port Moresby and Tulagi, which is in the southern Solomons, and cut the shipping lanes between Australia and the USA.

The Government has overseen a major diplomacy bungle in the Pacific that has placed China on our doorstep and compromised Australia's security.

Along with the battles at Milne Bay and Kokoda, Australia’s supply lines to the US were saved.

Townsville, which is about 1780km from Honiara, became the largest Allied operational base in the South West Pacific during World War 2.

Today, with the RAAF Base and Lavarack Barracks, it’s our most important defence asset north of Brisbane, which is 1340km to the south.

That’s why the Chinese move into the Solomons is the one of the greatest threats to Australia since those heroes’ of the Coral Sea, Milne Bay, Kokoda, Buna and Goa turned back the Japanese.

The Americans knew the importance of the Solomons and that is why their first major land offensive against the Japanese occurred on Guadalcanal — the Solomons’ largest island.

God forbid if another war starts but, if it does, the Chinese will be able to stop any assistance from our great friends in the US getting to our shores.

Australian Army soldiers at RAAF Base Townsville, Queensland, to deploy to the Solomon Islands on 26 November 2021.

For the City of Townsville, it’s now on the front lines. Modern missiles could easily target “the Garrison City” and our defence assets lost.

It beggars belief that the Morrison Government, which has touted its much vaunted AUKUS Pact and the nuclear submarines (which won’t be delivered for many years and have already cost Australian taxpayers over $5 billion in compensation to the French), found out about the China-Solomons agreement at the last minute.

Sending a junior Minister, like the relative unknown Zed Seselja, to Honiara instead of the Foreign Affairs Minister to try to head off the Pact has only compounded the error and backfired terribly, putting Australia at risk.

It is either incompetence or gross dereliction of Australia’s future security.

China's ambassador to the Solomon Islands Li Ming and Solomons Prime Pinister Manasseh Sogavare cutting a ribbon during the opening ceremony of a China-funded national stadium complex in Honiara. Picture: Mavis Podokolo

Former Foreign Minister Julie Bishop would have made the trip and Hawke and Keating both would have seen the strategic imperative of keeping the Chinese out.

Keating always pointed out that Australia faced its greatest threat from the Japanese in the Second World War and that while our nation’s focus on Gallipoli and the Western Front in the Great War was important, we had somehow lost sight of those great battles fought on the Coral Sea, PNG and the Solomons.

For a City like Townsville, the front line has moved uncomfortably close at the stroke of a pen. Now we know how the Taiwanese feel.

The failure of our government intelligence agencies to monitor what was happening in the Solomon Islands is a massive one.

The fact that China, armed to the teeth and cashed up, would seek to increase its influence in the Pacific was well known.

Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Money is usually the victor over love and loyalty and China is ever at the ready to splash the cash to further the influence it craves.

Knowing all of that, we should have been more alert to the temptations China could dangle before our Pacific neighbours. Instead, we were asleep at the wheel.

Australia’s isolation at the bottom of the world has been both a blessing and a curse. In two world wars no foreign enemy was able to get one of their soldiers onto our shores.

Darwin and Townsville were bombed by the Japanese and that was the only damage our enemies were able to inflict upon our homeland, apart from the sinking of a Manly ferry when the Japanese managed to get some mini subs into Sydney Harbour.

The full price of this intelligence failure is still unknown.

The promises of the island nation’s leadership are worth little, or nothing, given their behaviour in recent times.

We have no guarantee the Chinese will not have a base dangerously close to our shores.