Speech to the 2026 Defending Australia Summit

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Can I acknowledge Sam Paparo in absentia? We are enormously lucky to have Sam Paparo as the Commander of the Indo-Pacific Command. So, much of what we do in terms of the way in which we think about the operational footprint of the Australian Defence Force is done in cooperation with INDOPACOM, and specifically with Sam.

We now, I'm sure people in this room understand, institutionally have the Deputy Commanders in the US Navy in the Pacific, US Army in the Pacific, US Air Force in the Pacific, as Australians. We have senior Australian officers embedded in INDOPACOM itself, which says a lot about the emphasis that we place on the Indo-Pacific Command.

And we've been blessed, really, with a series of absolutely top-notch American commanders of INDOPACOM. And Sam Paparo is definitely one of them. And perhaps it is worth noting that we are doing more in terms of our cooperation with the United States across every domain, including space and cyber, than we really have at any point in terms of the Australian continent since the end of the Second World War, and that is growing.

We will see an increasing American military footprint on our continent over the course of the next few years. And that speaks to the fact that nothing replaces the significance of American power in terms of providing deterrence and balance within the Indo-Pacific. And our alliance with the United States is as important today as it has ever been.

Can I acknowledge Michelle Gunn, the Editor of The Australian, and thank her for hosting tonight. And through Michelle, acknowledge the many members of the media who are here tonight.

Can I acknowledge Luke Gosling, the Member for Solomon, but Special Envoy for Defence. I'm very lucky to have Luke as a part of our defence team.

And can I also acknowledge Lia Finocchiaro, the Chief Minister of the Northern Territory. Both from Darwin.

Darwin is really, I think, one of the great garrison cities in our nation. We need to see Darwin as a national security asset. It has all of our services based there in significant number. And that, combined with the joint facilities at Alice Springs and, of course, RAAF Base Tindal, means that the Territory well and truly punches above its weight in contributing to the defence of Australia.

And through Luke and Leah, can I acknowledge the other parliamentary colleagues who are here tonight. Can I also acknowledge members of the diplomatic corps, it is great to see you. 

It is hard to explain just how extraordinary the decision was that was taken by Prime Minister Ben Chifley to recognise Indonesia in 1949. In the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, when a million Americans had been operating from Australia to help us in dealing with a threat which was emanating from Asia, the notion of the peoples of the Dutch East Indies seeking their independence could have been met with a different reflex. But Ben Chifley understood that our geography meant that we have a shared destiny with the hundreds of millions, the billions, of people living across the Indo-Pacific, and that this required us, on the one hand, to be good neighbours and good partners, and on the other, represented an enormous opportunity for our country.

From that moment onwards, our journey and the countries of the Indo-Pacific have been increasingly intertwined. There have been big political decisions, like the recognition of Indonesia, but also the recognition by the Whitlam government of the PRC. What has followed in the wake of that is an incredible growth in trade and economic interaction.

We take for granted today that three of our top five trading partners are Korea, Japan, and China. But this story of growing economic interaction is still a work in progress. We should do more with Indonesia, which is why the fantastic work of Nicholas Moore as our special envoy for Southeast Asia is so important.

As we have seen the sovereignty of Asia combined with this growing commerce, over the decades what has also emerged is a shared interest – the peace and stability of the Indo-Pacific – combined with the rules that allow a free flow of commerce and particularly the freedom of navigation in the sea and in the air. All of this has underpinned the growing prosperity of all of our respective nations.

Over the last few years, we have seen ever increasing great power competition around the world. We have seen a growing connection between the Indo-Pacific and the Euro-North Atlantic. The moment we saw China and Russia sign a no-limits agreement on the eve of Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine was the moment that a war in Eastern Europe had enormous relevance for us here in the Indo-Pacific.

Because the lessons that will be learned there, good or bad, will be applied here, that is why from the outset we have been supporting the people of Ukraine. And tonight, I am very pleased to announce a continuation of that support. As we see changing arrangements for Operation Interflex, the UK training of Ukrainian armed forces in Britain, we are shifting Operation Kudu, our participation in that, to a new mission, Operation Legio, led by the Norwegians and will be conducted in Poland. And in this way, the serving men and women of the Australian Army will continue their crucial work to train the new recruits of the Ukrainian Armed Forces for as long as it takes.

Both in Europe, in the Middle East, and here in the Indo-Pacific, we are increasingly seeing the rules-based order placed under pressure. In recent months, we have seen exactly what it looks like when a sea lane is disrupted. In response to that, the countries of the Indo-Pacific are building up their defence capabilities and increasing their defence spending. Of course, this is happening here in Australia as well.

As we start to think about how each of us defends our nations, we are increasingly realising that what we must defend is a collective and shared interest – the rules-based order upon which our peace and prosperity is based. This, in turn, is driving huge growth in the defence engagement, defence diplomacy, and the defence cooperation across the Indo-Pacific. This was on full display at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore over the weekend.

There, I met Minister Ahn from Korea. This year, we commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Kapyong. Our shared military history, dating back to the Korean War, cements the fact that we are one of Korea’s principal defence partners. In a contemporary sense, the decision by Hanwha to base its largest facility outside Korea here in Australia is hugely significant. I will be meeting with Minister Ahn again later in the year to further our defence corporation. 

I also met Shin Koizumi, the Japanese Defence Minister. I would see Minister Koizumi as much as I would see any of my defence counterparts from around the world. Today, we are doing more than ever in exercises and operations together. Japan is increasingly seeing the value of Australia’s continent to build its strategic depth. The decision that we have made to purchase the Mogami-class vessels as our general purpose frigate in the future, is unlocking Japanese industry to be able to contribute to building the capability of the defence forces of Asia.

Indonesia, we have a defense cooperation agreement, which underpinned the Treaty of Common Security that was signed by Prime Minister Albanese and President Prabowo earlier this year. We owe a debt of gratitude to the vision of the Keating government back in the 90s, but today we are now seeing the strategic relationship between Australia and Indonesia at a high water mark.

I met Gilberto Teodoro, the Philippines Defense Minister. They have just completed Exercise Balikatan, which is their major exercise that they do with the United States, but we sent our largest contingent ever. Next year, we will do Exercise Alon, our major bilateral exercise with the Philippines. We do it every two years, and when we do it, it is the largest defence exercise that we do outside of Australia.

And, of course, I met C.S Chan, the Defence Minister of Singapore. Today we are seeing a fast jet fighter detachment of the Singaporean Air Force operate from RAAF Base Pearce, in addition to the fighter training which occurs at Pearce, and that, in turn, is in addition to the infantry training which Singapore has done for a long time at Shoalwater Bay in Queensland. Singapore's defence footprint in Australia is almost as large as any country, and it leads to the rather extraordinary fact that fully 30% of the adult male population of Singapore have been to Rockhampton.

We've doing more with Malaysia, more with Vietnam, and the list goes on. Yesterday, I participated in the second annual Indian Australian Defence Dialogue, which has been established by myself and my counterpart, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh. This is an elevation of our defence relationship, which is seeing on-the-ground cooperation, particularly in maritime security collaboration and maritime domain awareness.

And as Prime Minister Modi prepares to visit Australia shortly for this year's annual leaders summit in a broadening bilateral relationship, we will see the strategic and defence dimension to that be enormous. All of that is seeing the high water mark in our defence relationship in respect of each of these countries. We are literally living Paul Keating's aphorism that we finding our security in Asia, and not from Asia.

But the risk in articulating the narrative in the way I have is that it almost feels inevitable, that if we jump in the seat and buckle up, the gravity of history will take us where we need to go. But, of course, nothing could be further from the truth. Just as we have had to work really hard to see the historic increases in defence spending, the largest peacetime increase in defence spending in our nation's history, to meet this strategic moment, so too we need to be working really hard to build these relationships so that we can defend our shared and collective interests, and what this requires is for us to constantly engage. 

It requires us to have an open mind. It requires us to build personal relationships. At times, it requires us to challenge decades-long, hardwired reflexes in our own institutions so that we can offer trust and receive trust in return, and what it requires is for us to offer respect.

But the single most important platform upon which we can build these relationships is the way in which we are building our own society, because, rightly, the countries of the Indo-Pacific keenly observe what we are doing here, and so, for those who attempted to walk down the path of xenophobia, not only does that undermine our social cohesion, it fundamentally means that we are less safe, and for an audience such as this, which is gathered around the proposition of defending Australia, it is fundamentally important that we all understand that point.

Ours needs to be what it is, which is a modern, multicultural society, diverse, outward-looking, and engaging. It is obviously completely unacceptable that for a country where fully one quarter of our citizens are born overseas, that we have people distinguishing between migrants and Australians, particularly when so many Australians are Indian Australians, Chinese Australians, Filipino Australians, and Korean Australians.

Clearly, each of our heritages are enormously important to our identity, but what all of those communities have in common with everyone in this room is the fundamental that we all share, which is that all of us are Australian. Now, none of that is a new thought, but in the context of defending Australia, the diverse, multicultural, socially cohesive society that we seek to be is utterly fundamental to our national security, it is utterly fundamental to defending Australia.