Keating says Australians ‘utterly at odds’ with Labor on US-China

Former prime minister Paul Keating has accused the Albanese government of being out of touch with the Australian public on foreign policy, leaping upon survey results showing most Australians say the nation should avoid picking sides in a conflict between the United States and China.

The latest Resolve Political Monitor poll, published in this masthead on Monday, found 57 per cent of voters thought Australia should sit out a conflict between the competing superpowers, with 16 per cent in favour.

Former prime minister Paul Keating said the Australian public did not want to pick sides between the competing superpowers.

“These polling numbers, taken by a reputable pollster on a large sample, make completely clear that the public does not endorse any military engagement by Australia as party to a military dispute arising between the United States and China,” Keating said in a statement on Monday.

“In other words, the public in its common sense, is peering through the haze of exaggerated strategic risks and the notional ‘China threat’ to dramatically affirm that Australia and Australians should have no part of a major military dust-up in East Asia between the major powers,” said Keating, who has long argued for a more conciliatory approach towards China and distance from Washington.

A conflict over the self-governing island of Taiwan – which Beijing claims as part of its territory but has never been ruled by the Chinese Communist Party – is one of the most likely triggers for hostilities between the US and China.

Keating, a fierce opponent of the AUKUS submarine pact, said the poll showed the Australian public “is utterly at odds with the military commitment the Albanese government has made to allow the US to base four nuclear attack-class submarines in Perth and seven or eight nuclear-armed B-52 bombers south of Darwin”.

“These weapons, in all likelihood, would be central to any military exchange between the United States and China in the region, decisions about which Australia would have no part other than perhaps, being politely consulted by the United States before their employment.”

It would be very hard for Australia to sit out a conflict between the superpowers when the nation had “already outsourced its real estate to the US military for use at its singular decision”, he said.

“This is the kind of jeopardy that arises from a strategically addled policy consciousness – the confused fear of abandonment central to the foreign policy acquiescence of the Albanese and Morrison governments,” he said.

Speaking at the National Press Club last year, Keating said Labor’s adoption of the AUKUS submarine pact was a “deeply pathetic” moment in the party’s history, describing it as the worst decision by a Labor government since the attempted introduction of conscription in World War I.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has repeatedly said he respects Keating, while stressing the world had changed dramatically since he was prime minister in the mid-1990s.

Keating did not mention that less than a third of the survey’s respondents said Australia should cancel its plan to acquire nuclear-powered submarines after US President-elect Donald Trump’s victory.

The lead author of the government’s landmark Defence Strategic Review said the Australian debate on Taiwan was “fundamentally broken” and reductionist.

Instead of asking whether Australians would reflexively support a war to protect US primacy, Professor Peter Dean said it was more pertinent to examine whether Australia should assist Taiwan if it were subject to a unilateral act of aggression.

China’s possible use of force would have consequences for Australia’s domestic security, shipping routes and economy, which he argued would shift the thinking of Australians when considering the nation’s role in any conflict.

“Protecting the Australian people and keeping the Australian economy going will be the overriding [interest],” he said at an Australian Institute of International Affairs conference on Monday.

“It’s about the protection of Australia … We will look east and west more than we will look north.”

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