China’s navy mission reveals Pacific’s biggest jellyfish: the Albanese

Anthony Albanese has been criticised over his handling of a live-fire drill by the Chinese navy.

Well that was quite the palaver. The Chinese government sent a flotilla of warships, equipped with advanced technology, to sail 10,000km to Australia on a fact-finding mission.

They found out what they wanted to know. But their actions are confounding. You do not need a sophisticated sonar or a naval task force to work out that Australia is home to the Pacific’s biggest jellyfish, otherwise known as Anthony Albanese. Anyone here could have told them that.

The Prime Minister’s Sino-slap was poetic justice. Instead of calling out Beijing for its adventurism, all an enfeebled Albanese could do was accuse Opposition Leader Peter Dutton of “talking Australia’s national interest down” by highlighting his government’s farcical response to this intimidatory exercise.

This is rank hypocrisy. When opposition leader, Albanese all but sided with China when it placed crippling trade sanctions on Australia following the Morrison government’s call for an inquiry into the origins of Covid-19. Instead of backing his country and presenting a united front to counter Beijing’s bullying, Albanese exploited the situation for domestic political gain.

“This government seems to have presided over a complete breakdown of relationships,” he said in 2020. “The fact that ministers can’t pick up the phone to each other, I find that extraordinary.”

Speaking of extraordinary, and to quote Office of National Intelligence head Andrew Shearer, last fortnight’s naval venture was the “furthest south a [People’s Liberation Army-Navy] task group has operated”. Albanese has such a great relationship with China that he did not even get a phone call to let him know it would conduct live-fire exercises just a few hundred kilometres off the east coast of Australia. I find that extraordinary.

But thankfully our defence surveillance systems were on the ball, right? Wrong. We learned of what the Chinese were doing only because a Virgin Airlines pilot notified Airservices Australia, which in turn told Defence. Even the Royal New Zealand Navy (RNZN) learned of this hazard before Defence did. I find that extraordinary.

It gets even better. Fronting the media a day after the incident, a hapless Albanese revealed his knowledge gap was the size of the Great Australian Bight.

“China issued, in accordance with practice, an alert that it would be conducting these activities, including the potential use of live fire,” he insisted.

The Chinese navy’s Zunyi destroyer was one of the ships in the flotilla off Australia’s coast. Picture: Supplied

This was nonsense. As Chief of the Defence Force David Johnston later told Senate estimates, Defence did not learn of the exercise until 40 minutes after it had begun. Farcically, Albanese later claimed the RNZN warned Defence what was happening “at around the same time” the Virgin pilot gave Airservices Australia the heads-up. In fact Virgin’s notification preceded the RNZN’s by an hour.

That a prime minister – even one notorious for his inability to get across a brief – could be that ignorant regarding a matter of national security is something I find not only extraordinary but also alarming.

To top it off, Johnston also admitted it was not clear whether a Chinese submarine had accompanied the fleet. That tells you everything about what has been allowed to happen to the Royal Australian Navy since the Albanese government took over. At this rate, the only way we could detect a foreign submarine in our waters is if a Virgin Voyages cruise ship in the vicinity alerts us.

It was an aquatic circus, and the clownfish are aplenty. The RNZN’s delay in notifying its Australian counterpart “wasn’t a real incident,” said Defence Minister Richard Marles.

That must have been news to the airline carriers that hurriedly had to divert a total of 49 flights, including several midair. No big deal, you say?

Anthony Albanese blundered in his response to the presence of the Chinese ships. Picture: NewsWire / Monique Harmer

“I think trying to make something of when that information ultimately makes its way to Canberra is not the pertinent point here,” Marles said.

But you know what does matter, at least according to the minister? Aside from demanding his department address him as ‘Deputy Prime Minister’, Marles will be remembered for overturning the ban on rainbow morning teas at Defence.

“I actually think the restoring of the diversity morning teas matters,” he said in 2022. And how are those priorities working out for the country, minister?

Then there was Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy’s laughable claim that the Chinese flotilla had faced “the highest level of surveillance that you’ve ever seen”. Jesus wept, there was one frigate shadowing these ships and it was not even ours. It might as well have been sending alerts by flag for all the use it was.

As is typical of Foreign Minister Penny Wong when her shortcomings are exposed, she used her opening address to Senate estimates to attack the Coalition, accusing its members of “trying to turn China into an election issue”.

Two of the Chinese navy ships which were spotted near Australia. Picture: ADF

Like Albanese, Wong is a hypocrite. In May 2021, she too joined the Beijing bandwagon, saying then prime minister Scott Morrison’s approach to China was “frenzied, afraid and lacking context”. As Anthony Galloway, then political correspondent for The Age, observed at the time, in making those remarks she had “declared an end to bipartisanship”.

A tip for journalists: next time you interview Treasurer Jim Chalmers, remind him of what he told the National Press Club in 2021. The Morrison government had “failed to plan for a more assertive China,” he claimed.

“And our concern is that we’re not responding; don’t have a plan to deal with that,” he said. I could not better describe Labor’s current situation. A renewable energy superpower, you were saying, Jim Chalmers?

Albanese’s ‘plan’ consisted of meekly offering that “we have made it very clear that we expect more (sic) notice to have been given”. You have been warned, President Xi Jinping. Next Albanese will tell you he has been underestimated all his life.

Beijing succeeded in both intimidating and humiliating Albanese. His feebleness is such he would not protest if he woke one night to find Chinese ambassador Xiao Qian pointing a laser at his eyes. He would not demur if Xiao returned the following day and blasted him with sonar pulses while he was taking a dip in The Lodge’s swimming pool.

Here’s a thought – could Albanese’s advisers tell him Beijing’s actions threaten commercial air travel, and that if they continue he will not be able to holiday overseas, let alone receive his regular upgrades to first class? I cannot think of any other way to galvanise him.

“Handsome Boy” is so 2023. Thanks to the Chinese navy, Albanese is now “Cabin Boy”.