Peta Credlin: Government going out of its way to appease Beijing is disconcerting allies

There’s a simple way for the PM to, at least partly, restore some of the faith Donald Trump has lost in the USA’s allies, and it might just guarantee AUKUS, writes Peta Credlin.

As the missile exchange between Israel and Iran shows, our world is getting more dangerous by the day yet still Anthony Albanese seems almost determined to bury his head in the sand and do absolutely nothing about it.

If this complacency bordering on pacifism persists, Australia could be effectively defenceless. Not because our small and increasingly outgunned military forces have further deteriorated but because we’ve been put on notice that the American alliance is effectively over unless we start pulling our weight.

It’s not just our promised AUKUS nuclear-powered submarines that are at risk under the second Trump presidency; although the fact that the administration chose to make public its review of AUKUS to ensure compatibility with its “America First” priorities shows that things are now hanging by a thread.

It’s our pro-China position that is disconcerting our allies. Almost immediately after it was first elected, the Albanese government has gone out of its way to appease Beijing.

It did next-to-nothing when the Chinese navy conducted a live-fire exercise off the NSW coast. Nor could we put a ship in the water to track them as their warships circumnavigated our island nation. And then as things have deteriorated in relation to Taiwan, the PM has declared that an attack on Taiwan could not possibly trigger any alliance obligations.

The Albanese government did next-to-nothing when the Chinese navy conducted a live-fire exercise off the Australian east coast. Picture: Australian Defence Force

It is a sad truth that Albanese responded far more vigorously when an LAPD rubber bullet hit an Australian journalist last week than when the Chinese navy deliberately targeted two Australian divers a few years back. So, add this all up and ask yourself, why would the US want to sell us three of its best warrior submarines at a time when they don’t have enough of their own if this is our attitude?

But, as bad as that is, it’s actually worse than that.

A Virginia-class attack submarine, the type we hope to buy from America. Picture: US Navy

If the Trump administration has one consistent conviction, it’s that the world has ripped America off. In particular, that America’s allies have let Americans fight their wars for them. And history shows that view is not unfounded. As a result, America has put its NATO partners on notice that the alliance is over unless the Europeans do more of the military heavy lifting.

If the world’s most significant and successful military alliance is on the brink, unless its members spend at least 3.5 per cent of their GDP on defence, what chance does Australia have of maintaining a US alliance while spending scarcely half that?

But after ridiculing the Coalition during the recent election campaign, when it tentatively and belatedly committed to military spending eventually rising to 3 per cent, how can Anthony Albanese now plausibly commit to a near-doubling of defence spending just because he’s finally coming face-to-face with the US President? Has Albanese boxed himself in politically and will Australians now bear the price of his pigheadedness?

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Us President Donald Trump.

Sooner or later, Donald Trump was always going to work out that the Europeans are not the only ones who’ve been freeloading on America. In the first Trump presidency, our then ambassador in Washington, Joe Hockey, cleverly turned 2018 into a celebration of “a hundred years of mateship” to mark the centenary of US troops first going into battle in World War I under Australian command.

Back then, pre-Ukraine, pre-October 7, and pre-the increasing likelihood of a communist Chinese assault on Taiwan, the fact that Australia had been America’s ally in every single one of its subsequent wars was probably enough to hide our defence delinquency.

The Australian public might hardly have noticed our government’s refusal to send a frigate to the Red Sea in December 2023 – the first time since the 1951 ANZUS treaty that Australia has refused an American request for military assistance – but it sure registered in Washington. If ANZUS is to survive, we must commit to a big increase in defence spending. If AUKUS is to survive, we will have to give at least a private assurance that any future Australian nuclear submarines will be part of the American order of battle in the Western Pacific.

But, from Anthony Albanese and Penny Wong, how likely is that?

Since coming to office, the Albanese government has cancelled an order for an extra squadron of F35 jets, reduced an order for new armoured vehicles, prematurely retired an Anzac class frigate and let the armed forces fall 5000 personnel below establishment. Four years after it was first announced, there’s still no domestic missile production, there’s still no Tomahawk missiles on our aged subs, there’s still virtually no missile defences for our bases or cities, there’s still no order for light frigates almost two years after it was first flagged, and our last two minesweepers are about to be retired.

The government has cancelled an order for an extra squadron of F35 jets.

It looks like a deliberate strategy of disarmament masked by a nuclear sub purchase that this government probably always assumed it would never actually have to make.

Both the PM and the foreign minister remain instinctive leftists, whose natural tendency is anti-Americanism and sympathy for “liberation” movements. Their whole purpose in government is to expand the welfare state, not the armed forces.

After a lifetime of being antinuclear, the PM’s commitment to AUKUS, when Scott Morrison first announced it in 2021, was a tactical political manoeuvre to avoid looking weak on national security, not a fundamental change of heart.

Deep down, he’d like the AUKUS deal to fall over. And not just because, like all leftists, he’s basically a pacifist, but because nuclear powered submarines fly in the face of Labor’s opposition to nuclear power.

I mean, how can they argue against nuclear power and say it’s too hard to do here if we have a whole fleet of submarines that show that up to be a lie? So, understand the play here, Labor will do its best to encourage the slow death of AUKUS because it saves them losing massive face on Net Zero, because without nuclear power, Net Zero is a fantasy.

If the President suddenly raises the price and heightens the expectations, the PM can walk away and say it’s not his fault. Let’s face it, most of the green left would prefer being an economic colony of China to being a military ally of the United States.

This is why the PM’s trip to the G7 meeting in Canada matters as much as it does. President Trump has not yet agreed to meet with Albanese and, to save face, Albanese refuses to say publicly if he’s even tried to get a meeting.

Having organised these meetings for a PM before, I would be staggered that our PM, one of the only major leaders not to have met with Trump since his election, is excluded, because if that’s what is happening, it speaks volumes for the state of the relationship between these two men.

And whether you personally like Trump or not doesn’t matter. In a turbulent world, with no decent military firepower to speak off, picking a fight with our only capable ally is about as stupid as it gets.

THUMBS UP

Mick Giddings OAM – He’s the unofficial mayor of my old hometown of Wycheproof in Victoria’s Mallee, and his King’s Birthday award typifies the volunteer spirit that keeps country towns alive.

THUMBS DOWN

John Pesutto and his loan demand – The Liberal Party is not responsible to bail out Pesutto from the mess of his own making. He defamed Moira Deeming and lost. So, pay up. You’re a lawyer John, you know the rules.

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Originally published as Peta Credlin: Government going out of its way to appease Beijing is disconcerting allies