Anthony Albanese is sending contradictory messages on Australia’s strategic outlook and its security ties with the US – invoking John Curtin as the Labor hero who stood up to America when he could have equally hailed Curtin as the hero who appealed to America.
Albanese’s John Curtin Oration last weekend offered a historically distorted view of Curtin overlooking the essence of his wartime strategy – maximum co-ordination and reliance on the US to safeguard Australia.
The Prime Minister brings a stubborn and almost self-defeating mindset towards Donald Trump. Albanese’s government champions a vast deepening of military ties with the US spearheaded by the AUKUS submarine agreement that means mutual power projection in the Indo-Pacific, yet he positions himself as an “Australian Way” leader ready to become a nationalistic Prime Minister repudiating Trump’s current and future criticism of Australia.
The strategic policy and domestic positioning are in conflict, constituting a risk for Australia.
Labor constantly says the review of AUKUS by the Pentagon is not a problem, that the agreement works for both nations, that Trump has never uttered a negative comment about AUKUS and implementation remains on track. All sweet.
Except that Albanese has not engaged the US President directly to affirm his personal commitment to AUKUS on the current timetable. Except that US Under Secretary of Defence for Policy Elbridge Colby launched an AUKUS review while publicly doubting selling Virginia-class submarines to Australia and signalling his determination that US allies be forced to pull their weight. Except that Trump has demanded allies increase defence spending to 5 per cent of GDP, a target NATO has nominally accepted. And except that US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth told Defence Minister Richard Marles that Australia should lift its defence spending to 3.5 per cent of GDP “as soon as possible”.
As for Colby, he is reported to be the official who just halted weapon shipments to Ukraine because of his concern about the rundown in US armaments.
That suggests he is willing to test his authority in the Trump administration. Colby would have ignited a review of AUKUS only because he had deep concerns. Given Albanese’s commitment to AUKUS, the government’s priority must be to reassure the Trump administration, to ensure the US upholds its side of the agreement.
But what is happening?
The Albanese government seems to be doing the opposite, almost tempting the US to put qualifications on AUKUS. Albanese resents US pressure on our defence budget. Post-election he is ready to challenge any US pressure and exploit anti-Trump sentiment in Australia. Meanwhile European leaders have accommodated Trump’s demands and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has cut a deal with Trump to lift his defence spend to 2.5 per cent and then 3 per cent.
Albanese’s constant claim that capability is what counts, not the proportion of GDP, misses the point. The reason we lack the capability we need is because of the limited GDP spend.
The 2023 Defence Strategic Review warned that “Australia faces its most challenging strategic environment” since World War II. It said defence must become more of a “whole-of-government and whole-of-nation” story. Labor endorsed the DSR but apparently doesn’t believe this message and hasn’t given effect to the full scope of the recommendations.
Under Labor, the defence spend is increasing from about 2 per cent of GDP to 2.33 per cent in a distant 2033-34. That is manifestly inadequate; it can’t finance AUKUS and maintain our defence resources. Australia should lift defence spending not just because the US wants it but because this is core national interest; witness the calls from Kim Beazley, Sir Angus Houston, Dennis Richardson and DSR co-author Peter Dean, let alone the Coalition in opposition.
The strategic meaning of AUKUS, as Scott Morrison repeats, is to project military power into the region with the US and other allies to strike a balance of power in relation to China. Labor can’t escape from that reality – but neither Albanese nor Foreign Minister Penny Wong seems able to make a public statement about the strategic justification for AUKUS. With Albanese visiting China this week and already facing initiatives from Beijing to deepen trade and technological ties between the nations, the strategic and financial consequences of AUKUS loom as major risk factors for Labor.
At what point does the US suspect a lack of commitment and implementation from Australia? Albanese seems trapped: pledged to AUKUS yet unable to fulfil genuine ownership. If that’s an accurate situation, it’s unsustainable. The sooner Albanese has a successful meeting with Trump and, hopefully, gets out of this grey zone, the better.
Albanese’s signals are creating enormous confusion in Australia about Labor’s real convictions. One can only imagine the confusion they may create in the US. What will Colby conclude?
Let’s be fair to Albanese. His speech praising Curtin for defying Allied leaders Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt when they sought to divert Australian troops to Burma correctly highlighted a singular, shining example of Australia’s sovereignty. Curtin was right and the entire ranks of the opposition were wrong – Robert Menzies, Billy Hughes, Arthur Fadden and John McEwen.
Years ago Beazley told me the pressure on Curtin “was the most intense that any Australian PM has ever been subjected to by an ally in any circumstances in the nation’s history”.
But Albanese should have highlighted that the chief of the general staff, Vernon Sturdee, threatened to resign unless Curtin defied the Allied leaders. If the Australian troops had been sent to Burma they would have finished in captivity, a catastrophic situation for Australia.
But this event, while heroic, cannot define Curtin’s war leadership. At midnight on April 18, 1942, under a directive agreed by Curtin, a foreign general, Douglas MacArthur, took command of all combat units of the Australian armed forces. MacArthur became commander of all Allied forces in the South West Pacific Area. He became chief military adviser to Curtin, and Curtin’s avenue to US military thinking. Until the end of 1943 Australia provided MacArthur with most of his ground forces. MacArthur reported to the US Joint Chiefs, not to Curtin.
As military historian David Horner said, this was a “substantial abrogation of Australian sovereignty”. The Australian chiefs of staff were effectively replaced by a US general. As Curtin biographer John Edwards said, this situation was “understood, agreed and welcomed by Curtin” because he concluded Australia had “no choice”.
He had a veto power over the deployment of our forces – witness the Burma decision – but, as Edwards said, Curtin “could not and did not make decisions about the timing, size or strategic purpose of military operations”.
Curtin’s real achievement as war leader was to navigate the national interest fused in strategic intimacy with the US; he saw no conflict between being an Australian nationalist and a champion of US ties ready to make huge concessions to harmonise mutual interests.
Labor is fully entitled to extol the Curtin legend for defying the great and powerful friends. It’s a shame it lacks the historical honesty to depict Curtin as he actually was and for what he actually did. Perhaps Labor is embarrassed by the truth of Curtin’s necessary concessions to the US, but that doesn’t diminish Curtin and it cannot detract from his wartime leadership of the nation.
In his speech Albanese stood by the US relationship. But the Curtin model that matters for Albanese today is the Curtin with the astute judgment to manage our intimacy with the US and simultaneously win the support of the Australian people. The circumstances are different, but Albanese’s focus should be on dealing with Trump, minimising the differences and maximising the alignments.
It’s up to Albanese – he can take the right or wrong lesson from Curtin.
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