Anthony Albanese accused of being ‘out of his depth’ on Chinese warships

The more details that emerge about the Chinese warships off the coast of Sydney, the more worrying the situation gets.

Peter Dutton has warned Anthony Albanese is confused and “out of his depth” on national security, after defence chiefs contradicted the Prime Minister’s account over being notified three Chinese warships were performing live drills off the coast of Australia.

Defence officials have revealed they did not know Chinese warships were conducting live-fire drills in the Tasman Sea until a Virgin commercial pilot sounded the alarm.

But that’s at odds with the Prime Minister’s account who insisted that there was a warning from New Zealand that came through “at around the same time” as the Virgin pilot’s notification to Airservices Australia.

Aviation safety experts at Airservices Australia told a Senate estimates hearing on Monday night that it was first informed of the live-fire drill at 9.58am on Friday morning, when a Virgin pilot was informed by the Chinese navy by radio.

The Chief of the Defence Force, David Johnston, told Senate estimates on Wednesday that a warning from a New Zealand warship was ­received in Canberra about 11am last Friday.

But that was 90 minutes after the exercise began.

Anthony Albanese’s account of how Australia knew is under question. Picture: ABC

“The first charge of the Prime Minister is to keep our country safe and to make sure that we have in place the settings which protect us against any acts of aggression,’’ Mr Dutton told 2GB radio.

“The Prime Minister is either making this up, shooting from the hip, or completely out of his depth – or maybe all three.

“I’ve never seen a Prime Minister floundering like this Prime Minister on the issue of national security.”

The Opposition Leader on Thursday took aim at Mr Albanese’s capability to get across the detail — saying it was hard to tell what the Labor leader is trying to say due to his “umming and ahing”.

Is the PM misleading?

2GB host Ben Fordham then asked, “is he misleading or is he mixed up?.”

“I don’t know whether he makes things up, but he seems to get flustered in press conferences,’’ Mr Dutton said.

“You hear it – the umming and ahing, and at the end of it, you don’t know what he’s actually said. But what we do know is that he is at odds with the Chief of the Defence Force, and he needs to explain why, on such a totemic issue, he either wasn’t briefed, that he’s made up the facts, that he’s got it wrong. I mean, what could possibly be the logic or the rationale here?.”

On Friday, Mr Albanese said China issued in accordance with practice an alert that it would be conducting these activities.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton savaged the PM’s comments. Picture: NewsWire/John Gass

He then claimed on Wednesday that New Zealand notified the Australian Defence Force, but it appears that did happen an hour after Air Services alerted defence through the Virgin pilot.

“So, I think the Prime Minister’s either confused, he’s mixed up in his details or he’s misled,’’ Mr Dutton said.

“Whatever it is, I think he needs to stand up and say, ‘look, I got it wrong. I misunderstood the briefing that I had’, but for the Prime Minister not to be across that detail – we don’t know whether there’s a nuclear submarine attached to this exercise or why the government wouldn’t be putting in place very definite measures to collect the intelligence and be ahead of the game here.

Three Chinese warships recently completed live-fire drills in the Tasman Sea.

“This is a very serious breach of our standard operating orders and procedures. The Prime Minister, of all people, should be well and truly across this. But it seems on matters of national security, the PM just doesn’t have much interest at all.”

‘Embarrassing for Australia’

Fordham observed there was “a strong chance that Anthony Albanese does not want to admit that we only found out about a live fire exercise from the Chinese navy through a Virgin pilot, because that’s just embarrassing – embarrassing for Australia”.

“Well, Ben, but we now know that to be fact,’’ Mr Dutton replied.

“So, the Prime Minister will have to explain why that is fact and why on Earth, the government and Richard Marles, as the Defence Minister, didn’t have in place the proper arrangements that you would expect from a country like ours – the intelligence gathering.

The warships were detected off the Australian east coast.

“The Prime Minister, in his own words the other day, was talking about there being surveillance in the sky and on the water, etc. Well, it turns out that that’s not completely accurate.

“Again, the PM just seems to dig himself a deeper hole each day.”

Defence Minister says Australia ‘does not know’

Defence Minister Richard Marles said this week the fact the Australian government does not know whether a submarine was accompanying the Chinese flotilla showed “why submarines matter”.

“That’s why we’re investing heavily in our long-range submarines,” he told ABC RN.

Richard Marles said China gave an "unsatisfactory" notification over the live-firing operation. Picture: 9News

“Now, all of that activity is being conducted. It’s being conducted efficiently, principally by Australian assets, but in combination with our allies.

“And given the location of where this occurred on Friday, it was a New Zealand frigate that we were working with that was on station.”

Mr Marles said the question of “when that information ultimately makes its way to Canberra is not the pertinent point here”.

“If Australia is under threat down the track and it takes New Zealand an hour and a half to let us know what they have seen, that would be OK?” he was asked.

“You’re conflating two different circumstances,” Mr Marles said.