Transcript - Television Interview - Sky News with Tom Connell - Thursday, 16 September 2021
TOM CONNELL, HOST: Let's get to my panel Liberal MP Jason Falinski, from the Labor Party, Patrick Gorman. Jason, we heard your party and the Coalition talk about Labor's wasted years in office, not progressing our next phase of submarine capability. Now, eight years in, countless dollars, we don't know how many dollars it's going to take for compensation, effectively, you're back to square one.
JASON FALINSKI, LIBERAL MP: Well, Tom, that's just not true. I mean, we've made a massive step forward today. For the first time in the history of our nation we will have nuclear capable submarines that are some of the best in the world. This is the only time, outside of a one-off deal in 1958 with the United Kingdom, that the United States has shared its nuclear submarine technology with another country. It secures our alliance in what is a strategically difficult and dynamic environment in which we live. It ensures the safety protection of the Australian people, and that is the first and foremost responsibility of any government in Australia.
CONNELL: Right, but eight years in there has, as of today, been no progress made in terms of actually getting ships in the water. That's true, isn't it?
FALINSKI: Tom, that is not true. The progress has been substantial, and you can see that in today's announcement. Today we have an announcement where, in the only outside 1958 one off deal, we are the only country in the world that will have access to the most sophisticated technology in the world when it comes to submarine technology, it would have been ludicrous for us not to accept or not to enter into this agreement. This is a massive step for us.
CONNELL: All right.
FALINSKI: And to characterise it any other way, I think, is incredibly unfair.
CONNELL: Well, my point is around what progress has been made in the concrete so far. But let me get to Patrick Gorman,
FALINSKI: Well, as I say, you know, in eight years we now have access to the most sophisticated technology in the world. That is massive progress by any measure.
CONNELL: Sure, but not yet. OK, Patrick, Labor, what is Labor's support for this? Is it full support without caveat?
PATRICK GORMAN, SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR WESTERN AUSTRALIA: Labor will look at the detail of this proposal as it comes out. What we know is that we've had a lot of announcements about the building of submarines from this Government over the last eight years. They had some hundred contractors standing with them last year who were all bidding for work on the previous, probably soon to be dumped, project. So I think Labor's job in this, which is a huge announcement from Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom, is to scrutinise it and to ask those questions. When will they be built? Where will they be built? When will they be operational? What does this actually look like? Because at the moment we have a, you know, the three party statement, but we don't actually have any detail. Maybe the Prime Minister will give us more in a few minutes time. And also, what is the cost? We know there's been huge waste in the current program. What is the cost of this program? Something else that the Prime Minister has so far not revealed.
CONNELL: So what are the red flag areas? What about this announcement, if you found that gremlin in the detail could mean Labor doesn't support it?
GORMAN: No, look, I don't think we'll talk about red flag areas, that's not the appropriate way to deal with important national security matters. We'll look at this calmly, make sure that we carefully look at the proposals, get the briefings from government. I'm sure there'll be briefings from other,
CONNELL: So your inclination now is support, even if, even if you reserve the right to say, look, this was a waste of money, and why are we paying this to France and so on? But there really is a broad support from Labor on this.
GORMAN: Tom, Labor takes national security seriously. Anthony Albanese will be saying a little bit more in just under an hours’ time. I'm not going to get ahead of that, but I think our role as the Opposition, the government has built this agreement, the government has broken their previous policy of building submarines in Adelaide with Naval Group. These decisions of government, the role of the Opposition in these things is to scrutinise them appropriately, to make sure that Australians have absolute confidence that decisions are being made in their best interests, and in the national security of all Australians.
CONNELL: In a moment, we'll have Scott Morrison being a diplomat as Prime Minister, of course, we'll take our viewers there. For now, we've got Jason Falinski as the straight talker. Jason, this is about Chinese aggression, isn't it?
FALINSKI: Tom, I wouldn't characterise it that way. What I would say is, because I think that that's not helpful to the safety and security of our nation, what I would say is that certainly in the next 20 or 30 years, we will see that we live in a very strategically dynamic and fluid environment. We need to ensure that we have the best military capability that we have and forward deterrents like submarines are important elements of that to ensure that anyone who wishes to threaten the safety and security of the Australian people, know that they will have to pay a terrible cost if they do that. That is what this is about. That is the responsibility of all governments, whether it be Labor or Liberal. And I would point out that the potential Coalition partner for the Labor Party after the next election has already criticised this decision, and is already calling the submarines floating Chernobyls. So that's a very disappointing response from, I guess, what can only be described as an extreme left party in our Parliament.
CONNELL: Jason, just on the expectation this sets though, this, you mentioned how rare it is for the US to share this type of technology. It would surely heighten their expectations on us in backing them in whatever it might be, for example, some form of conflict with China over Taiwan.
FALINSKI: So, Tom, that's a that's a really good point. And absolutely, this solidifies our alliance with the United States and with the United Kingdom and with other liberal democracies right around the world, who want to push back on authoritarian regimes.
CONNELL: But it increases the onus on us to be involved, too.
FALINSKI: It gives us the capacity and the capability for us to be involved and ensure that we have safety and stability in our region in what in what will be a challenging yet fluid environment. The fact of the matter remains, and I've seen the statement by Paul Keating today, criticising the fact that this somehow inhibits Australian sovereignty. The fact of the matter is that Australia cannot continue to act, we have 25 million people in a region of almost, well what will soon be four billion people, but of three billion people, we need all the alliances that we can get. Whether it be the United States, whether it be Indonesia, whether it be those nations of the South Pacific, Singapore and elsewhere. We cannot do this alone, and part of our military role, ensuring the safety and security of our people will be active and entrenched alliances throughout the region.
CONNELL: So, Patrick, that trade off, if you like, of more security for Australia, the presumption of more involvement with our key ally, the US, but more expectation on us to be involved in whatever else might be happening out there is that overall a good trade off?
GORMAN: Well, I don't want to sort of buy into the hypotheticals that Jason just did about potential conflicts, but I do want to say, Australia has a strong history where we are called upon to step up to preserve peace both in our region and across the world. We have a strong history of stepping up. Sometimes that is because of our alliance partners, sometimes it's because of decisions of the United Nations or other international organisations. So we do our bit and I think that’s something that Australians stand proudly in the world, continuing to say we will continue to do our bit to preserve peace and stability across the globe.
CONNELL: Does do our bit mean potentially being involved, though, in something that involves the US and China?
GORMAN: Tom, I just don't feel comfortable talking about a hypothetical like that. There are plenty of foreign policy experts who might.
CONNELL: OK, but do you think this increases the onus on us? Sure, but without mentioning a country or a conflict, whatever it might be, do you think this does increase the onus on Australia in the eyes of the US and the UK?
GORMAN: Well, I think Australia will always be expected with our traditional partners to step up where we are needed, as we did in Afghanistan. So I don't know that that expectation will be higher than it already is. I mean, these are some of our closest enduring allies. But we've also got to always got to make those decisions based on Australia's national interest. We can't be basing them on anything other than that decision that has to be the way that we come to these decisions. And one of the concerns I do share is about our capacity in terms of sovereign capability, if we look at what we've learnt over the last 18 months around Australia's sovereign capability, when it came to medical supplies and other things as COVID sort of ripped around the world, we learnt that we haven't invested enough in our domestic capability. And now we're just buying, and again, it's very unclear, I am speculating now because we haven't had the detail from the Prime Minister, if we're just buying stuff off the shelf and we're not building at domestic capability.