Election 2022: Scott Morrison’s defence goes by (Richard Marles) book

Scott Morrison has used Labor deputy leader Richard Marles’s recent book to defend his government’s record of engagement in the Pacific.

Labor deputy leader Richard Marles and Corangamite MP Libby Coker in Geelong to announce an urgent care clinic. Picture: Alison Wynd

Scott Morrison has used Labor deputy leader Richard Marles’s recent book to defend his government’s record of engagement in the Pacific, amid criticism he was not proactive in responding to the signing of a new security deal between China and Solomon Islands.

Campaigning in Townsville on Tuesday, the Prime Minister quoted from Mr Marles’s Tides that Bind – Australia in the Pacific, released in August of last year.

“He (Mr Marles) said: ‘It would be wrong to suggest that Australia has not properly allocated resources to its relationship with the Pacific. On the contrary … we are genuinely present in the region’.

“So I find it odd that having been so adamant and supportive of what Australia was doing, what our government was doing in the Pacific, that on the eve of (an) election, someone who runs their speeches past the Chinese government before giving them is now going to be critical of us.”

Anthony Albanese on Tuesday defended Mr Marles for running a 2019 address he delivered at the Beijing Foreign Studies University past the Chinese embassy in Canberra, arguing it was standard practice to distribute speeches in advance. The Opposition Leader said Kevin Rudd had also taken that approach when he was being critical of China.

“What Richard Marles did, and it’s something members of the government haven’t done, was go to China and criticise China on human rights. On Uighurs, on Hong Kong, on its human rights record,” Mr Albanese told 6PR radio. “And the distribution of a speech, which not one word was changed in advance, is something that happens regularly.

“Because he was critical of China, in China … Richard Marles did something that Kevin Rudd went and did, and something that I’m not aware of examples of Australian government ministers going to China and doing.”

Penny Wong takes charge of Labor’s campaign in Darwin as Marles returns to duties in his home state of Victoria. Picture: Tim Hunter

Mr Albanese also rejected suggestions Mr Marles was defending the government’s engagement with the Pacific in his August 2021 book.

“That’s not right,” he told 2GB radio. “We have been saying for some period of time that the cut in aid was having an impact, that our failure to engage appropriately in the Pacific was having an impact. And we know that it has.”

The Australian reported on Tuesday that Mr Marles had also described China as a “force for good” in a question-and-answer session following a speech at Oxford University in 2017.

“You can make an argument that it’s as big a contribution to human rights in terms of the alleviation of poverty that comes from it that we have seen in our lifetimes,” Mr Marles said.

“In every speech I make in mentioning China, I always mention that. Not everyone does.”

But former Victorian Labor MP Michael Danby said the comments from Mr Marles were “worrying” and that he should not be defence minister if Labor were to win the election. “(It’s) very disappointing. It’s frankly worrying (that) the picture that’s been built up over the last few days doesn’t enhance his reputation as a security hawk,” he told Sky News.