National security boss warns ‘drums of war’ are beating

An ominous warning of war in our region has been issued just a week after it was claimed war with China could break out within a decade.

A powerful national security boss has warned “the drums of war” are beating in a thinly veiled reference to China.

In a stark Anzac Day message to staff, Home Affairs chief Mike Pezzullo said Australia should be prepared to “send off, yet again, our warriors to fight”.

Mr Pezzullo stressed Australia must seek peace via diplomacy but said that could not come at “the cost of our precious liberty”.

“In a world of perpetual tension and dread, the drums of war beat – sometimes faintly and distantly and at other times more loudly and ever closer,” he wrote.

“Today, as free nations again hear the beating drums and watch worryingly the militarisation of issues that we had, until recent years, thought unlikely to be catalysts for war, let us continue to search unceasingly for the chance for peace while bracing again, yet again, for the curse of war.”

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Home Affairs chief Mike Pezzullo has warned the ‘drums of war’ are beating. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

“We must search always for the chance for peace amidst the curse of war until we are faced with the only prudent, if sorrowful, course – to send off, yet again, our warriors to fight the nation’s wars,” he said.

“Warriors, above all people, pray for peace – for it is they who must suffer and bear the deepest wounds, the trauma and too often the death that is the invoice of war.”

The message comes as China takes an increasingly assertive stance on Taiwan and the South-China Sea and after a year of escalating tensions between Canberra and Beijing.

Last week, the federal government ripped up the Belt and Road Initiative signed by China and Victoria.

Beijing’s mouthpiece the Global Times warned the “suicidal attack” could be met with “potentially crippling countermeasures”.

It followed a slew of trade sanctions imposed on Australian products by China, seemingly prompted by Canberra’s push for an independent probe into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Labor foreign affairs spokeswoman Penny Wong urged the government to show “less politics and more strategy” in its dealings with Beijing.

“In national security, in diplomacy, words matter,” she said on Tuesday.

“It is really up to the government to explain how it is beneficial to Australia and how it furthers our national interests having a senior public servant make those remarks.

Former defence minister Christopher Pyne warned the chances of war with China were increasing. Picture: Anthony Wallace / AFP

“This is not the sort of language that we generally use when we are trying to be sober and cautious.”

Labor frontbencher Bill Shorten on Tuesday warned Mr Pezzullo’s “hyper-excited language” would simply cause more anxiety.

“I don’t understand why they’re using such inflammatory language,” he told Today.

But Nationals senator Matt Canavan said he welcomed “frank talk” about the Pacific and warned Australia should be prepared for conflict.

“I think on the balance of risks here we face too much minimisation of the threat, too much ignorance of how difficult things might get very quickly,” he told Sky News.

“I welcome Mike Pezzullo speaking frankly from his obviously very well-informed position because I do think the Australian people need a wake-up call.”

It comes after former defence minister Christopher Pyne warned Australia faced a potential war with China within the next decade, saying Beijing’s posture in the Pacific was “no longer benign”.

“Five years ago, I would’ve said that the possibility (of war) was very unlikely. Now, I would have to say that the possibility is more likely than it was then,” he said in April.

“Not a cyber war but a real one involving loss of life, destruction of military platforms, with aggressors and defenders on different sides.

“This isn’t rhetoric, this is something that you and I may well have to confront in the next five to 10 years.”