Morrison holds fast at G20 after Biden’s ‘clumsy’ claim

A rapprochement between Australia and France matters for the security of democracies across the Indo-Pacific and beyond. Achieving it has been made more difficult, however, by the way in which Joe Biden, during meeting with Emmanuel Macron at the G20 summit in Rome, effectively threw Scott Morrison under the bus over the cancellation of our submarine deal with Paris. In Rome, the Prime Minister was right to stick to his guns, especially in insisting the decision to buy nuclear submarines was “the right decision in our interests”. Mr Biden’s implied assertion, while sitting next to Mr Macron, that Australia was “clumsy” in its handling of the cancellation of the $90bn deal with France fell short of what Australia should expect from the leader of our closest ally.

As Mr Morrison pointed out, the US administration was kept “up to date with the status of our conversations and discussions” with the French government at every stage of the prolonged process before Australia made the decision to scrap the submarine deal. Mr Biden’s claim that “what we did was clumsy …. (and) not done with a lot of grace”, and that “I was under the impression that France had been informed long before”, beggars belief. It is inconceivable that Mr Biden could have been unaware of the process leading to the announcement of the new AUKUS pact and the purchase of nuclear-powered submarines from either the US or UK. What was needed from Mr Biden was firm, statesmanlike leadership that helped bridge the gap between Australia and France.

It is to Mr Morrison’s credit he sought out Mr Macron in the G20 leaders’ lounge to “shake his hand and clear the air”, as Geoff Chambers reported Mr Morrison also reiterated Australia’s concern to “ensure we had the right submarine capability to deal with our strategic interests’’.

Ahead of the French election in April, Mr Macron is under pressure. He could suffer an electoral backlash over the cancellation from French workers. But he should also be clear about the speed with which Chinese aggression is emerging as a threat to France’s interests, as well as Australia and regional nations in the Pacific.

Mr Macron’s phone call to Mr Morrison last Thursday was a sign that he is more willing to see that argument. But his absurd assertion that Australia – from which France imported $569m worth of coal in 2019 – should “cease production and consumption of coal” shows a serious lack of judgment. Talking tough with Australia may fall into the same strategy, aimed at winning votes, as Mr Macron’s stoush with Boris Johnson over post-Brexit French fishing rights.

The G20, overall, has been productive and a good summit for Australia. Mr Morrison met Indonesian President Joko Widodo after Jakarta raised questions about the AUKUS military pact and nuclear subs agreement. The leaders welcomed increased US focus on the Indo-Pacific”. Mr Joko invited Mr Morrison to Jakarta next year.

The first in-person G20 summit since the pandemic began agreed to a faster distribution of vaccines in developing countries to ensure 70 per cent of the global population was vaccinated by the middle of next year. Mr Morrison strongly supported the move. The world must end the Covid-19 pandemic and “make sure we don’t have another one”, he said. After leading international calls for an independent global investigation into the origins of Covid-19, a move that provoked a hostile reaction, including restrictions on trade, from China last year, Mr Morrison said the issue was not about blame but about understanding how the pandemic came about. The world needed a stronger, more independent and more transparent World Health Organisation, he told the G20. Australia supported giving the WHO broad power to investigate pathogens with pandemic potential, in all countries, without prior approval.

The leaders also struck an agreement to stop multinational corporations such as Apple and Google parent Alphabet sheltering profits in low-tax havens. They will now be subject to a minimum 15 per cent tax. The reform plan is already backed by almost 140 countries representing more than 90 per cent of GDP. As OECD secretary-general and former Coalition finance minister Mathias Cormann writes on Monday, the international tax reform agreement has delivered a successful multilateral outcome on a difficult issue.