Television Interview, ABC 730

SUBJECTS: Australia-US Relationship; Defence Spending; AUKUS; Australia-UK relationship; US Beef Exports

SARAH FERGUSON, HOST: Meanwhile, Defence Minister Richard Marles and Foreign Minister Penny Wong will hold talks tomorrow with their visiting British counterparts, as both countries wait for the Pentagon to complete its review into AUKUS. Defence Minister Richard Marles joint me now. Richard Marles, welcome to the program.

DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER, RICHARD MARLES: Good evening Sarah, how are you?

FERGUSON: So, Scott Morrison is telling Congress that China is trying to neutralise public support in Australia for actions against China, including - and this is important - against higher defence spending here. Is that what China is trying to do?

MARLES: Well, I think we live in an era of strategic contest and I think what really shapes the landscape that we face is the very significant increase in defence spending that we've seen from China itself, which is the biggest increase in conventional defence spending that we have seen since the end of the Second World War. Now, that's what fundamentally shapes the region in which we live. It's happening without strategic reassurance- in a sense that there's not a clear articulation of why that defence spending is occurring. And it's in those circumstances that we clearly need to be making sure that we are facing the complex strategic circumstances that we are in the best possible way and it's why with we have engaged in significant defence spending to this point in time.

FERGUSON: But at the same time- and I'm sure this is part of the reasons for Scott Morrison giving that testimony in the United States is- that we're not spending anywhere near the level the US wants. They want $40 billion more spending from us. But this is my question: when Donald Trump finally engages fully with AUKUS and with the Australian relationship, do you anticipate a reckoning on spending?

MARLES: We have made really clear and the Prime Minister has made really clear that we will go through the process in our own national interests in terms of assessing what our strategic challenge is-

FERGUSON: Sure, everyone is going to say that and they expect Australia to do that- 

MARLES: And we will resource it. 

FERGUSON: Well, what does that mean? Does that mean that you will increase spending to the level the US wants?

MARLES: It means we can point to the process that we've been undergoing, which has seen the biggest peace-time increase in defence spending in Australia-

FERGUSON: But you know they want more. When you met the US Secretary for Defense in Singapore at the Shangri-La Dialogue, you said Australia was up for the conversation. Are you up for - I've asked you this before - the question about whether you're up for a conversation at the levels that the US has made very clear they want?

MARLES: The process that we’re going to go through is assessing our own needs in our own national interest. And the Prime Minister has been really clear, as have I, that that's the methodology that we are going to use here-

FERGUSON: Do you expect a reckoning from Donald Trump? He won't be as interested in the process. He wants to know how much and will there be a reckoning?

MARLES: People will look to outcomes. But the point I'm really trying to make is that the process and method we've adopted to this point in time has yielded the biggest peacetime increase in defence spending in Australia's history. The process that we are going through is every two years updating our National Defence Strategy- that's due in the first or second quarter of next year and we will continue the process of assessing our needs and the point I'm trying to make is that we actually have a story to tell here and a story which has been well received by the United States in terms of what we've done so far. And we'll continue to go through that in terms of working out how this evolves and what our needs are and then resourcing them. But we have got runs on the board here.

FERGUSON: There's a series of questions the US is posing at the moment. We understand the US wants further clarity from Australia on what we would do in the event of a war between the US and China over Taiwan. Are there conversations, discussions taking place, between Australian military and the US military about that prospect?

MARLES: Well, the last thing I'm going to do is go into the kind of conversations that happen between our two Defence Forces. Nor am I about to speculate on, you know- 

FERGUSON: The question is really- I’m not asking you to detail conversations, but are they taking place?

MARLES: We work really closely with the United States, intimately with the United States on a day-to-day basis and it is about deterring conflict. It is about seeking to maintain peace and stability. Part of the alliance is a deep, organic engagement between our two defence forces which sees Australians embedded at a very senior level in the US Defense Force- Americans engaged here. It sees, for example, our biggest exercise that we undertake every two years being a bilaterally planned exercise between ourselves and the United States, Talisman Sabre, which is happening as we speak. All of that interaction is deeply engaged, but it is about demonstrating an effect which deters conflict and which maintains the peace and the last thing we're going to do is speculate about conflict in the future.

FERGUSON: Presumably what they're looking for actually is clarity- clarity as much about the political decision-makers as well as the military. You've described all of those interactions with the military. But on the political side they must be looking for reassurance. That's what the reporting is telling us. Are your defence officials talking to US defense officials about that prospect?

MARLES: Again, I'm not going to answer that specific question because I'm not going to speculate about the future. But our defence officials at a departmental level talk to America on a daily basis and what I've just described in terms of our Defence Forces is replicated-

FERGUSON: Is that subject coming up in those discussions? You're not going to say-

MARLES: And I shouldn't answer that question. I think the point about trying to draw a contrast between what happens at a systemic level and a political level, one is a function of the other. And, you know, as the first Defence Minister in the world to meet Pete Hegseth after he was nominated- and, you know, I think there is a very close relationship at a political level which flows through-

FERGUSON: OK, let me ask you about the close relationship. Do you know when the AUKUS review is coming?

MARLES: Again, this is a matter for the Americans. 

FERGUSON: Do you know? But do you know?

MARLES: We are very comfortable with the process. Again, there is a very close dialogue, specifically about how the review is-

FERGUSON: So has the Secretary of Defense spoken with Elbridge Colby?

MARLES: I can't answer a question about internal conversations within the American system- 

FERGUSON: Well, our Secretary of Defence, sorry, I mean Greg Moriarty, your Secretary of Defence.

MARLES: Oh, well, we speak to each other's counterparts. So, we are in contact with the Pentagon and those who are running the review in the Pentagon and again we have a very clear line of sight about what's happening with the review, the time frame of the review and the way in which it will be conducted.

FERGUSON: You've got the UK Defence Minister and Foreign Minister coming tomorrow- I'm a little short of time but I want to ask a quick question about the amount of money, the $5 billion, we've pledged to the United Kingdom as part of the AUKUS program to help with the shipbuilding and the building of the nuclear reactors- 

MARLES: Reactors, yeah. 

FERGUSON: Question: what guarantees do we get about how they spend that money? They've got some problems in their defence industry history, as much as we do.

MARLES: We will work very closely with the United Kingdom- 

FERGUSON: Guarantees is what I want to know about. 

MARLES: It is about increasing the rate of production, particularly of the nuclear reactors and because the reactors that will be in Australia's submarines that we will be building here will comes from Rolls-Royce in Britain-

FERGUSON: But what sort of guarantees do we have about the money being well spent?

MARLES: We will work really closely with the United Kingdom on the way in which that's spent. But to give you a sense, I've visited that factory, I've seen the plans on how that expansion is going to occur. I have seen parts in that factory which are going to be in the submarines that will be built in Adelaide coming off the line in the early 2040s, those parts exist right now.

FERGUSON: Alright. I need to ask you about beef. Are we trading Australian biosecurity for a better relationship with the mercurial, ever-difficult Donald Trump?

MARLES: No. What we're doing is concluding a process which has been under way for a decade-

FERGUSON: So what's changed in the supply chain in the United States that makes imported Mexican beef into America - because that's the question - safe now when it wasn't a short while ago?

MARLES: This has been a process the Department of Agriculture has been working through to assess exactly how that supply chain works in the United States to make sure that the strict biosecurity controls we have in this country are met and we're confident now that they are in terms of what is occurring there. And I guess that's against the backdrop of being a country which wants to see an open global trading system because as a country which exports meat, such a system is in our national interest.

FERGUSON: Richard Marles, thank you very much indeed for joining me.

MARLES: Thanks, Sarah.

ENDS