Doorstop Interview, Washington D.C.

SUBJECTS: AUSMIN; Combined Maritime Activity with the US, Philippines and Canada; US-Australia Alliance.

JOURNALIST: Minister, do you want to take us through what came out of AUSMIN yesterday?

RICHARD MARLES, DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER: Well, firstly, this is the 34^th AUSMIN, but it's the third AUSMIN where the four of us have conducted it. And it's actually quite unusual that you'd have the same quartet in place over three successive AUSMINs. And I think what that means is that we've been able to reflect back on the work over the last two years, but also accelerate that work going forward. So, key movements in terms of American force posture in Australia – the heart of that is the Marine Rotation in Darwin, but in the next few years we will see the Submarine Rotational Force in Perth – but actually across all the domains; land, sea and air, cyber and space, we now have an American force posture in Australia, US Army watercraft for an example, a logistics base at Bandiana near Albury, which will greatly enhance America's ability to operate within Australia. So this is a really important outcome from AUSMIN. 

In relation to the establishment of a guided weapons manufacturing enterprise in Australia, we've taken significant steps around commitments to have the necessary memorandums of understanding to co-assemble GMLRS – this is land based rockets – in Australia. A commitment to have a MoU in respect of the transfer of data for the manufacture of 155s. A commitment to have a MoU in respect of the co-development of Precision Strike Missiles in Australia. Again, this takes the guided weapons manufacturing enterprise a really big step forward. This is a big commitment in the Integrated Investment Program over the next decade, we'll be spending more than $16 billion on this, and so this really unlocks that. 

I think the final point is that we spoke at length about the network of relationships that we are building in the Indo-Pacific: the trilateral that we have with Japan; the group of four which will include the Philippines, as well; the work that we are doing with Korea; our deepening relationship with Indonesia. I mean, we're seeing real American presence in the Indo-Pacific, but we are working very closely with the United States as partners in asserting the rules‑based order in our region and that is profoundly important. 

JOURNALIST: What detail can you provide about Australia's involvement in the latest combined military drills in the South China Sea?

MARLES: Well, we are working closely with the Philippines and closely with the United States in relation to this. We've made clear that in our work with the Philippines, having combined maritime activities has been a key commitment that we've made to the Philippines, and we announced joint sails at the beginning of last year. Since then, we've now undertaken a number and that continues, and so we will continue to work with the US, with the Philippines, with other countries, fundamentally in asserting the rules‑based order within our region. 

JOURNALIST: Can you provide any detail about Australia specific involvement, what

we're doing in these drills? 

MARLES: Look, I wouldn't go into the operational specifics of it, other than that we will definitely be a part of it.

JOURNALIST: President Biden obviously only has a few months left in office having bowed out of the election campaign, is there anything specific that Australia is looking to him to achieve in those final few months? Anything that Australia will be looking for before a potential change in administration?

MARLES: Well, we've worked really closely with the Biden Administration over the course of the administration, and certainly since we've come to power in 2022. And one of the things we reflected upon yesterday at AUSMIN is just how much we have achieved over the past couple of years. We couldn't be happier with the presence of America in the Indo-Pacific, which is a considerable effort given what else is happening in the world. But in Tony Blinken and Lloyd Austin we've had two senior American officials being ever present within our region and deeply focused on the challenges that we face. And as I've described, I think there is a real sense of partnership that we have with the United States in terms of doing what we can to uphold the rules-based order within our region and we are succeeding in that, and succeeding in working with countries like Japan, Korea, the Philippines in also being able to achieve that. We want to continue that through the course of this administration, obviously we look to doing that work with whoever will be governing the United States after next January.

ENDS