February 27, 2025
Defence officials have revealed an "unprecedented" joint surveillance operation tracking three Chinese warships off Australia's coast only reported their live weapons drill an hour and a half after it started, contradicting Anthony Albanese's version of events.
The Chief of the Defence Force, David Johnston, told Senate estimates on Wednesday that a warning from a New Zealand warship that Australia was relying on to track the flotilla was received in Canberra about 11am last Friday 90 minutes after the exercise began and about an hour after a similar warning was relayed by a commercial pilot.
But the Prime Minister insisted later on Wednesday that the New Zealand warning came through "at around the same time" as the Virgin pilot's notification to Airservices Australia, which had been passed to Defence 50 minutes earlier.
The comment, and his claims last week that China had provided notice of the drill "in accordance with practice", prompted Coalition allegations he was misleading the public.
The charge comes ahead of a looming federal election campaign in which the Prime Minister's leadership and grasp of complex detail will come under intense scrutiny.
Amid growing political furore over the warships' activities off Australia's coast, Admiral Johnston also said there was a real prospect that a Chinese nuclearpowered submarine was lurking underneath the task group.
"It is possible," he said. "Task groups occasionally do deploy with submarines but not always. I can't be definitive on whether that's the case."
Admiral Johnston said the Chinese had given "inadequate notification" of the "clearly disruptive" live weapons drill, which caused 49 aircraft diversions despite ongoing uncertainty over whether any live weapons were ultimately fired.
Opposition home affairs spokesman James Paterson said the delayed notice meant there was no advance warning of the drill at all. "It's not really notification of an upcoming exercise if we only find out about it after it has commenced, is it," he told Senate estimates.
He added in comments to The Australian that it was "remarkable" that the military operation tracking the vessels had failed to provide an earlier warning and Defence had to learn of the exercise from a civilian aircraft.
"The Prime Minister's attempt to mislead the public by suggesting there was notice given by the People's Liberation Army Navy and it was reported through military channels in a timely way is yet more evidence of his weak leadership," Senator Paterson said. "He should be honest, admit we were never notified, and call out this malign behaviour instead of making excuses for the PLAN."
Former defence official Michael Shoebridge said the government's handling of the episode had reached "new heights of incompetence", comparing it unfavourably with Tony Abbott's Operation Sovereign Borders.
"Can you imagine prime minister Abbott being so unaware of any actual detail about what happened when?" Mr Shoebridge said. "And can you imagine him accepting advice from the Chief of Defence Force that despite this unprecedented surveillance activity, he was unable to say if live firing actually occurred? And now Continued on Page 5
Chief of ADF torpedoes PM's version of events Continued from Page 1 it's possible, but he can't tell you, if a submarine is actually down there too."
Defence Minister Richard Marles told Melbourne radio on Wednesday China was yet to provide a "satisfactory answer" for the lack of notice for the drill, which was repeated on Saturday. But he defended the government's response, saying: "The moment that this task group came near Australia, I authorised an unprecedented level of surveillance. We've been doing that in combination with our ally, in respect of New Zealand. It was the New Zealand frigate that was doing the shadowing work at that time. So we both heard from New Zealand and from the commercial airlines around this."
Mr Albanese said the government learned of the drills from Airservices Australia and the New Zealand "at around the same time there were two areas of notification".
"One was from the New Zealand vessels that were tailing," the Prime Minister said. It came after he sought to play down the significance of the drills last week. "China issued, in accordance with practice, an alert that it would be conducting these activities, including the potential use of live fire," he said on Friday.
The next day Mr Albanese said "notification did occur of this event". But it emerged in Senate estimates on Monday that Australian authorities first became aware of the exercise after the Virgin pilot radioed Airservices Australia at 9.58am nearly 30 minutes after the Chinese opened their exercise "window" at 9.30am.
Greens senator David Shoebridge said: "I'm trying to work out how it is with a $55.7bn budget, we find out from a Virgin pilot and a delayed notification from New Zealand." Peter Dutton said Mr Albanese had to explain why the government was in the dark on the exercise for so long. "If there was an incursion across into our waters and defence didn't know about it, or the Defence Minister didn't know about it, we need to ask those questions and they should be answered," the Opposition Leader said.
"Frankly, the Prime Minister should stand up and explain what is a very significant event, but at the moment, obviously the Prime Minister hasn't done that, and his story seems to be at odds with the version given by the Chief of the Defence Force in estimates. These are very serious questions that the Prime Minister needs to answer."
Opposition defence spokesman Andrew Hastie said the Prime Minister needed to stand up and publicly call out China's "gunboat diplomacy".
"This is a message of strength from the Chinese military and the Chinese government, and our Prime Minister has shown himself to be weak because he doesn't have an answer for it," Mr Hastie said.
As of Wednesday morning, the Chinese task group was about 250km south of Hobart, travelling southwest.
Admiral Johnston said Chinese warships had operated off Australia's southeast coastline in the past, but the latest task group was unprecedented in that it had travelled down the coast from Southeast Asia, rather than transiting north from the Southern Ocean.
Defence Department secretary Greg Moriarty said Beijing was likely to repeat the voyage as it flexed its naval strength. "The Chinese are signalling. They are practising and rehearsing, and they are collecting," he said.
"China's made clear that it is growing the blue water naval capability it has.
"It's claiming regional and global interests as a maritime power, and I expect that they will wish to continue to be present in an increasing number of international waterways in the years ahead."