Morrison, Albanese coincide on foreign policy

The savagery of the rhetoric and character assassination contrasts with the similarity of the policy messages from both sides.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese during Question Time. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

Russia’s war has provoked a global crisis – a military conflict escalating into an economic and energy war that means higher consumer prices in Western countries – but Labor leader Anthony Albanese remains firmly aligned with Scott Morrison’s foreign policy and his Ukraine response.

Labor has a proud tradition on national security and foreign policy which Albanese invoked this week – citing John Curtin, Bob Hawke, Paul Keating, Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard – yet the prime minister he seems most intent on imitating is Morrison, the target of Labor’s excoriating personal attacks.

In case anybody had doubts, Albanese made it clear this week that on issues of security substance, Labor agrees with Morrison. This encompasses the US alliance, faith in America’s military power, Albanese’s confidence that Labor and the Biden administration have “pretty similar” world views, backing Morrison’s tough stance against China, his attitude towards Europe, sharing his hard line against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, backing the agreement to acquire nuclear-powered submarines, listening to advice from the security agencies, supporting the Quad, and increasing defence spending above 2 per cent of GDP.

The paradox of the coming election is stark. The rhetoric and policy are in conflict. The image of polarised politics is set to deceive. The savagery of the rhetoric and character assassination contrasts with the similarity of the policy messages, the almost complete absence of ideological differences, the scale of agreement on foreign policy and the relatively modest – compared with past elections – domestic policy differences.

Both sides will repudiate this judgment. But the evidence, so far, is conclusive. It was further reinforced this week when both Morrison and Albanese gave defining foreign and security policy speeches at the Lowy Institute in Sydney.

Against the backdrop of the coming national election, Morrison’s theme was the global danger from “a new arc of autocracy”, his argument being that national security must extend more into our “way of life” – an effort to turn security into a frontline election issue.

Albanese did the opposite, seeking to neutralise security policy at a time of global crisis, thereby ensuring the election will be fought on domestic issues where he is convinced Labor will prevail.

“Our national security interests should transcend the partisan divide,” Albanese said. Using the same language as Morrison, he identified the three key principles at the heart of Labor’s foreign policy: defending Australia’s territorial integrity; protecting its political sovereignty; and promoting economic prosperity and social stability.

Albanese said he was “proud” of Labor’s decision taken last year in less than 24 hours to support Morrison’s AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine initiative. “I think that was an example of the maturity of the Australian Labor Party,” Albanese said.

Pressed on whether Labor might find some means to extricate itself from this complex submarine venture when in office, he said: “We’re committed to the project.”

The ALP leader was unruffled by the gentle remark of Lowy director Michael Fullilove that “probably as a young man you didn’t go into parliament to build a nuclear-powered submarine fleet”.

Former PM Kevin Rudd, whom Albanese admires, has said it is “patriotic” to challenge the submarine deal and warned last year that Morrison had not made the technical nor strategic case for nuclear submarines, while Paul Keating has said they are a violation of Australia’s sovereignty.

Pressed on China policy, Albanese made it clear he had no differences on “substance”, although his tone was far softer than the PM’s. He criticised China for failing in its responsibility as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, offering sanctions relief for Russia and signing a “no limits” friendship with Moscow just before the Ukraine invasion. “We have the same position on the South China Sea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and human rights abuses against Uighurs and Tibetans,” he said.

Scott Morrison visits Nolan Meats, Gympie, after devastating floods. Picture: Patrick Woods.

Asked what sort of ally he would be for the US in 2022, Albanese waxed lyrical. He sounded more enthusiastic than Morrison. “America is still the global leader of democracies,” Albanese said. He branded as “quite extraordinary” its “military industrial complex”, its “institutional strength” and dismissed its domestic traumas as merely the “messy” aspects most democracies face.

Albanese makes clear he is proud of being a member of the Gillard government that brought US marines to Darwin. “Australia needs to step up in partnership with the United States and other like-minded countries.” Albanese said – a sentence that could have come from Morrison’s mouth and probably has at some point.

Despite numerous claims, there is no sign Australia will have a khaki election. That means war or war preparation, and the nation is not at war. The defence force is fighting floods, not enemy troops. It will not be sent to Ukraine. There is no parallel with the 9/11 attack on the US that involved Australia, triggered the ANZUS treaty and saw our Afghanistan commitment. The public’s mood is driven by the pandemic, cost-of-living, jobs, health security and disaster relief. The mindset is local not external.

But national security off the back of China’s coercion and Russia’s war is a serious frontline issue in a far more dangerous world. Morrison is entirely justified in seeking to elevate security but knows political over-reach is a blunder. He made two announcements this week manifestly in the election context yet completely justified.

The first was an in-principle decision for a submarine base on the east coast. This will be a major event with three potential sites – Brisbane, Newcastle and Port Kembla – to serve as a base for the nuclear-powered submarines. Defence has long had this under review. An expanded submariner force must be located on the populated east coast and the nuclear aspect raises both safety and political issues.

The second was the long-run plan to increase the size and capability of the ADF by 30 per cent by 2040, an increase of 18,500 personnel to a strength of 101,000 implementing the 2020 Force Structure Plan. The cost will be $38bn over the period with Morrison saying “you can’t flick a switch to increase your army, navy and air force overnight”.

Morrison and Defence Minister Peter Dutton again put up in lights Labor’s reduction of defence spending to 1.56 per cent of GDP in the 2012-13 budget, a disastrous blunder by the Gillard government that will be hung around Labor’s political neck for many years. The reality is that Morrison’s defence spending at 2.1 per cent of GDP is still modest. Both leaders subscribe to higher defence spending but are wary of the trade-off, given the public’s constant demand for higher social spending.

Albanese, however, did produce retaliatory firepower this week. He identified two areas of potentially significant security difference – climate change and maritime power. He sees climate change as a device to help fashion a rapport with US President Joe Biden, an example of the ALP and the Democrats working together again. (Labor does not speculate on any return of Donald Trump).

Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese addresses the Lowy Institute in Sydney on Thursday.

Albanese will turn his more ambitious climate change policy into a diplomatic and security spearhead. On coming to office he will ask the director-general of the Office of National Intelligence and head of the Defence Department to assess the links between climate change and national security – a nexus that drives the Biden administration and that Labor will surely embrace.

Like Rudd when succeeding the Howard government, Albanese will seek to maximise diplomatic goodwill from a more ambitious emissions-reduction stance. Albanese also signalled a Labor government will review naval acquisitions and capabilities on arriving in government and this guarantees a decisive encounter, even a showdown, with the Defence Department. It has the potential to become the most important security difference with Morrison – if an incoming ALP government has the skill and courage to challenge the Defence orthodoxy. Serious doubts must surround that question.

The ALP leader sensibly said he could not make capability decisions from opposition but he has raised a justified alarm – the need to deliver more naval combat capability in the next 15 years. Albanese pledged to examine the much-delayed and under-gunned Hunter-class frigate program, consider increasing the number of Hobart class Air Warfare Destroyers, assess upgrading weapons on the Arafura Class offshore patrol vessels, consider tomahawk missiles on the Collins-class submarines and, most critically, address how to solve the “capability gap” due to the long delay in the arrival of the nuclear submarines.

Defence analyst from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, Marcus Hellyer told Inquirer: “We need to accept the fact that the current naval program is subject to significant strategic risk. We should acknowledge that we have a serious problem here. We cannot wait till 2034 for the first new naval surface ships and until the late 2030s for the first nuclear-powered submarines.”

Albanese’s challenge to Defence orthodoxy should be welcome. Defence stands by the frigate program and insists there is no capacity for Australia to run three submarine programs – the nuclear build, the Collins upgrade and a new Collins-type conventional submarine. But the critique best represented by Hellyer cannot be ignored: while the 2020 Defence Update said Australia no longer has a 10-year warning time for state-to-state conflict, the shipbuilding schedules showing no new vessels until the mid-2030s are “completely unacceptable”.

Debate on naval capability is unlikely to be an election issue. But with the government running on its security credentials, Albanese has credibility with his claim: “A defining characteristic of this Liberal government is an enduring focus on announcements but not on the delivery of them.”

Is bipartisanship a good thing in foreign policy? In truth, it is a national asset particularly when Australia has faced unprecedented economic coercion from China. Labor’s embrace of a tough national security stance is a welcome and essential event given a more dangerous world.

The real question is: how much of Labor’s stance is conviction and how much electoral necessity? It is fatuous to think Albanese as prime minister, supported by Penny Wong as foreign minister, would not develop his own priorities and style in running foreign and security policy. But he remains a largely unproved and unknown commodity in this domain.

Morrison, by contrast, has a proven, high-profile record on security issues. One can agree or ­disagree, but he has reshaped Australian foreign policy. For three years, Morrison has pushed back against China’s coercion, deepened the US alliance and promoted the Quad along with stronger networks in the region.

In his Lowy address, Morrison used the Ukraine crisis to highlight the growing danger from autocratic states and how Australia, under his leadership, became a global leader in defying China’s intimidation. His response to the crisis has been dominated not just by robust support for stronger sanctions against Russia but targeting China for its refusal to condemn the invasion, for offering trade support for Russia and for generally standing with Vladimir Putin.

Morrison’s message is that the “wake-up” call now sweeping European capitals must also extend to the nations of the Indo-Pacific in relation to China. Note, however, that Morrison has been careful: he keeps separate the issues of Ukraine and Taiwan, saying “these situations are entirely different”. He doesn’t want to let Australians think what happened in Ukraine might just flow into a repeat in Taiwan.

Morrison and Albanese speak in the same terms about national resilience – the challenge being to manage a new age of global shocks from pandemics to financial crisis to aggressive autocracies. In their own ways they are heading in the same direction: more self-sufficiency, strong defence capability, domestic manufacturing, closer regional ties, reinvesting in the US alliance, and sustaining economic growth at home.

Albanese invokes Curtin in World War II to assert sovereignty as Labor’s enshrining security principle. He’s right. But that’s been Morrison’s mantra for the past three years. The lesson: in the coming campaign, don’t be fooled by the rhetoric; focus on the policies from each side, and note their remarkable similarities.