Doorstop, London

SUBJECTS: AUKUS; Middle East conflict; Support for Ukraine. 

JOURNALIST: I wouldn’t mind finding out a little bit more about the treaty you’re looking to sign, cementing this partnership with the UK. 

DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER, RICHARD MARLES: Today, we have announced that we will be negotiating a treaty, a bilateral treaty, between Australia and the UK to enable our portion of AUKUS. So to put this in context: what we announced in March of last year as a trilateral Optimal Pathway by which Australia would acquire a nuclear‑powered submarine capability, was legally underpinned by a trilateral treaty that we signed between our three countries in August. From that emanates a number of bilateral arrangements between the three parties, and we've today announced that we will begin the negotiations for those arrangements as they pertain to Australia and the UK. Now, when you look particularly at that dimension of AUKUS, it really centres around the build of SSN-AUKUS in Australia, but also here in the UK. So we will establish a production line in Adelaide to build our future nuclear‑powered submarines. There will be a production line, there is a production line at Barrow-in-Furness here in the UK which is building Astute class submarines today, will build the future SSN-AUKUS submarines in the future. We will be operating the same class of submarine. So when you look at the industrial cooperation, the technology transfer, the way in which all of those mechanisms operate to do that, that is the subject of the treaty that we will be negotiating with the United Kingdom. And it's a really important step in the league of arrangements which allow AUKUS to transpire.

JOURNALIST: Minister, you spoke about contingency plans for Lebanon. The US and UK are obviously sending troops to Cyprus. Are we doing the same? 

MARLES: I'm not going to go into the detail of what we are doing, other than to say that we've had contingency plans in place for some time now, really through most of this year, as the potential for contingencies to arise has grown and we are ready to act on those preparations at very short notice. I think the important point to make now is that if you're an Australian citizen in Lebanon as we speak, now is the time to leave. While the airport remains open, now is the time to exercise your choice to leave Lebanon. There's a considerable number of Australian citizens who are in Lebanon at this moment. It is really important that people take this advice as we speak, and of course, now is not the time to travel to Lebanon. 

JOURNALIST: Flights are being cancelled, though. So what's the advice to people if they're stranded? 

MARLES: Well, precisely because we don't know how long the window remains open, now is the time to exercise your choice to leave and it's really important that Australian citizens do that in Lebanon as we speak. But we do have preparations in place. We've obviously been thinking about this for a considerable amount of time, and we are ready to act on those preparations at short notice. But the message today is, if you are in Lebanon and you want to leave, now is the time to do so. 

JOURNALIST: Inaudible

MARLES: Well we have that in mind, that's freshly in our mind. I mean, what that tells us is just the size of the Australian population in Lebanon. We're talking about thousands of Australian citizens who are in Lebanon today. So we are very mindful of the challenge that represents, but the situation is uncertain, to state the obvious, and we are watching this play out in real time, which is why it is so important that while a window remains open for people to exercise their choice to leave, people exercise their choice now. 

JOURNALIST: So is it correct to say then that we don't have any troops that have been sent just yet?

MARLES: I'm not going to go through the details of that. We have been working on contingencies over a number of months now and we are ready to act on those contingencies at short notice. But now is the time to leave if you're an Australian citizen.

JOURNALIST: Last week, there was a Senate committee into Australia's support for Ukraine released. One of the recommendations was that the government move to a default position that all retiring defence material be gifted to Ukraine unless there's a compelling reason to do so. Is the government considering that recommendation or to adopt it? And in particular, I guess, tanks?  

MARLES: I'm not going to go into the particular capabilities, but I understand the question and the sentiment behind that. We are definitely looking at all the material that we have and all the material that is coming to its end of life within the Australian Defence Force about suitability for Ukraine and we've been doing that from the outset. There’s some platforms that work and some that, frankly, will not work in Ukraine. And having operated those platforms, whilst we understand Ukraine is a different context to the context in which Australia has operated those platforms, we are the experts in terms of how those platforms operate, and we do have a sense of what's going to be useful for Ukraine and what is not. But we are very mindful of platforms which are coming to their end of life within the Australian Defence Force about their usefulness, their potential usefulness for Ukraine. I think that the other point to simply say is we are in an ongoing conversation with Ukraine about what capabilities we have, including those which are coming to the end of their life within our Defence Force. And that conversation with Ukraine really looks at the ways in which we can best support Ukraine through the platforms that we have, and indeed those that are coming to (inaudible). 

JOURNALIST: Ukraine has repeatedly asked for those M1A1 tanks. If we were to move ahead in giving those to Ukraine, what's the mechanism to do that, the logistics around that? Do we have to give those tanks to America to give them to Ukraine? Can you tell us a little bit about how that might look?

MARLES: Again, I'm reluctant to go into the specifics of tanks, but perhaps to answer your question in greater generality. You are right that there are often real questions that need to be answered in terms of the handling of technology with the original supplier of the technology, which is often the United States. So there will always be a conversation around that in terms of then on supplying that technology to Ukraine. And that does form part of how we consider the usefulness of assets which are coming to their end of life within the Australian Defence Force. Of course, having said that, the United States is absolutely committed to supporting Ukraine in this moment. So we're all trying to achieve the same outcome– 

JOURNALIST: Can you confirm whether you've had discussions with the US about handling tanks and removing tanks back to the US to then pass them? 

MARLES: No, I'm not going to confirm that, because I'm not going to go into the specifics of a particular platform. But in the general sense, we definitely do talk to the US about the platforms that we have. There is then, whatever platform we're talking about, there's a logistical exercise and actually getting it to Ukraine, but we've been able to meet those challenges in the past with the various platforms we've managed to get to Ukraine. 

JOURNALIST: 155 millimetre munitions, very specific. I understand there's a high demand for those in Ukraine, and that some of those are produced in Australia. Has there been any requests for us to supply more of those? Is that something that we can facilitate?

MARLES: Look, 155s have definitely been on the agenda. We've done a lot of work in this space. We continue to talk to Ukraine about this. We've worked closely with France, for example, in relation to this as well in terms of supporting Ukraine. So we'll continue to look at what options are available in terms of getting those kinds of munitions to Ukraine.

ENDS