April 16, 2025
STEVE CANNANE:
Joining us now is James Paterson, the Shadow Home Affairs Minister and also the Coalition's Campaign Spokesman. Thanks for your time.
JAMES PATERSON:
Good morning, Steve.
STEVE CANNANE:
You heard there from Richard Marles that Indonesia has no plans to base Russian aircraft in Papua. And that came from Indonesia's Defence Minister. Does the matter end there?
JAMES PATERSON:
Well, it's certainly welcome clarification, but there are still some unanswered questions about this. And the particularly important one is, what did the Albanese government know? When did they know it? And what did they do about it? Because it does appear, based on Richard Marles' comments just then and the comments yesterday from the government, that they only learned about this from media reports and had to quickly scramble to make a call to find out whether those media reports are true or not. Now, if you have a good bilateral relationship with one of our closest and most important regional partners, and if we have good intelligence, then things like this should not come as a surprise to the Australian government.
STEVE CANNANE:
When this story broke yesterday, your leader, Peter Dutton, asked the question, did the Prime Minister know about this before it was publicly announced by the President of Indonesia? And what is the government's response to it? Now, the President of Indonesia did not publicly announce this. Should Peter Dutton be a little bit more careful with his words when he's talking about foreign leaders and what they did or didn't say?
JAMES PATERSON:
Well, Peter was referring to media reports in a breaking news story. At that stage, we'd not yet been briefed. In fact, we still haven't been briefed, even though we're entitled to be briefed under the caretaker provisions on sensitive foreign policy issues like this.
STEVE CANNANE:
So should he have waited until he was briefed, until he made those comments?
JAMES PATERSON:
Well, he was asked to comment on it, and I think in a political campaign, especially, it's important for the opposition leader to be able to respond to that. We've written to the government, we've sought a briefing, it has not yet been provided. It must be provided today in a timely way under the caretaker provisions.
STEVE CANNANE:
But it's also really important that an opposition leader and potential Prime Minister does not put words into the mouth of one of our neighbours' presidents.
JAMES PATERSON:
Well, it's also important that the Prime Minister of Australia get important details right on national security. And time and time again, Anthony Albanese gets it wrong.
STEVE CANNANE:
Okay, but I'm asking about the actions of your leader here.
JAMES PATERSON:
Yes, and I heard you allow Richard Marles to make many points about the opposition leader, and I want to make one about the Prime Minister. He confused the Australian Defence Force with the Australian Border Force when the Chinese research vessel was in our area. He said it was being monitored by the ADF. In fact, it was been monitored by the ABF. He says the Chinese government gave us notice of their live-firing exercises in the Tasman Sea. They didn't. He said we learned about the live-fire exercises in the Tasman Sea at the same time from the Australian Defence Force and a Virgin Australia pilot. In fact, we heard about it before from the Virgin Australia pilot. Now, this is the Prime Minister. He gets the briefings. He should be on top of the details, but he's not.
STEVE CANNANE:
On Radio National Breakfast, it's 13 minutes to eight. We're talking to Senator James Paterson, Coalition's Campaign Spokesman and a spokesperson for Home Affairs. I wanted to bring you to what's been happening more broadly in Indonesia. In November, Indonesia and Russia held its first ever bilateral naval exercise in the Java Sea. Should Indonesia be engaging with the Russian military at a time it is waging a full scale unprovoked war with Ukraine?
JAMES PATERSON:
Indonesia is a sovereign country and they make their own decisions about their international relations and we respect their right to do so. But they're also a very important national security partner for Australia. And what we would ask of Indonesia is what they ask of us, which is we take into account each other's interests when we make important decisions on national security. That's why it is very important that any Russian aircraft being based in Indonesia or indeed operating, or exercising, or training, out of Indonesia can be categorically ruled out.
STEVE CANNANE:
Are you concerned that Indonesia's President and Defence Minister met with former Defence Minister of Russia, Sergei Shoigu, in Jakarta in February? This is a man who has an arrest warrant out against him issued by the ICC for targeting Ukraine's civilian population in the kind of attacks that we saw in Sumy in the past 72 hours.
JAMES PATERSON:
Russia's war on Ukraine is reprehensible and illegal, and we're very proud to stand with Ukraine and support them in that fight. As the Deputy Prime Minister said to you earlier, though, this is a matter for Indonesia, who they choose to meet with and engage with. They are a sovereign country, and it is not our right to dictate to them who they meet with. I think it is important, though, that Russia is obviously placing very great weight on the importance of this relationship. They're in the middle of their largest war since the end of World War II, and they sent their Defence Minister to Indonesia to meet Indonesian officials. That shows how serious they are about establishing a presence in our region, and it shows why we should take it seriously and why we need to be proactive, not reactive, as the government appears to be.
STEVE CANNANE:
So what sort of risk do you think this could pose to Australia and our region if the two countries became closer on issues of defence? I'm talking, of course there, Indonesia and Russia.
JAMES PATERSON:
Well, let's talk specifically about the prospect of Russian aircraft being based in our region, that would obviously be detrimental to Australia's national interest, as independent national security commentators like Rory Medcalf and Michael Shoebridge have been saying over the last 12 hours. It would not be welcome to have Russia, which is an authoritarian country, which has hostile and competing interests with Australia, to be able to be based in our region, just a short flight from Australia.
STEVE CANNANE:
Several weeks ago, the UK Prime Minister raised the idea of a peacekeeping force in Ukraine. Peter Dutton said he wouldn't want to commit Australian resources to that, saying that was a task for the Europeans. With Russia now apparently looking to increase its presence in our region, would it be prudent to revisit that position and work more closely with other nations pushing back against Russia?
JAMES PATERSON:
We're very proud of our support for Ukraine and we should continue to support them with military and financial and economic assistance as we have been doing, but we have very real needs in our own region and the ADF capability frankly is more stretched than it should be, as Peter Leahy and others have said in the media today. The fact that Russia is taking an interest in the Indo-Pacific demonstrates why we need our scarce capabilities in the Indo-Pacific to respond to our direct national interest.
STEVE CANNANE:
Senator, when will the Coalition announce its policy on defence spending?
JAMES PATERSON:
We've already said that we will spend more and we'll spend it faster than Labor, we've already said we'll restore the 4th Squadron of Joint Strike Fighters which Labor cut and that will cost at least $3 billion. We'll announce our defence spending target in the coming days and weeks, well before the election.
STEVE CANNANE:
Right to assume that the policy is going to be at least at a minimum of 2.3% of GDP, which is Labor's plan for spending?
JAMES PATERSON:
Labor did have a plan to spend 2.4% of GDP at the end of the decade, but they've actually walked back from that. It's now only 2.3%, as you say. I don't think that meets the seriousness of the challenges that we face. You cannot say that this is the most dangerous time in Australia's history and only have spending of 2% of the GDP, which is what the previous government restored after the last Labor government cut it. So we do think we need to spend more. We do think that we need to spend it faster, and we'll outline the specific details of that very shortly.
STEVE CANNANE:
Okay, Senator Paterson, thanks very much for your time this morning.
JAMES PATERSON:
Thanks, Steve.
ENDS