Radio Interview, ABC Radio National

SUBJECTS: Australia‑United States Ministerial Consultations; US-Australia relationship; AUKUS; US National Security Strategy

MELISSA CLARKE, HOST: Federal Government ministers have been meeting their US counterparts in Washington, D.C. this week. Discussions have centred around ways to improve the AUKUS security and submarine pact and continue expanding the US military footprint in Australia. Richard Marles is the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence. He joined us from Washington. Welcome back to Radio National Breakfast.

RICHARD MARLES, DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER: Good morning, Mel. How are you?

CLARKE: Good, thank you. Now, you’ve had a chance to see the Pentagon’s review of AUKUS, and you’ve had the opportunity to discuss it with your US counterparts. So, what’s going to change with AUKUS as a result of this review?

MARLES: Well, AUKUS is moving ahead at a pace — that’s the first point we’d want to make. And the review has really been done in the context of President Trump’s affirmation of American support for AUKUS. In using the words “full steam ahead”, he’s really given us all a motto, I think, and that’s in effect what we were doing anyway. The review, as we expected, seeks to look at how, in that context, we can do AUKUS better. And we have continually been working with the US and the UK on how we can move forward in the best possible way. Tomorrow, our time — in the US on Wednesday morning — we will be holding this year’s AUKUS Defence Ministers’ Meeting with my counterpart Pete Hegseth, but also John Healey, the Minister for Defence from the UK. So, that’s going to also be a very important opportunity to take stock of how AUKUS is going and look at how we can take it forward with urgency and momentum during the course of the next year.

CLARKE: So, if it’s full steam ahead and you’re going along as anticipated, does that mean nothing has really changed as a result of this months-long review by the Pentagon?

MARLES: Well, I mean, obviously this is America’s review, so I’m not going to go into the specifics. But the fundamental point here is that AUKUS is happening at a pace. Now, it’s really important that we are meeting deadlines in relation to what we have originally set out here. And we’ve got a really critical deadline looming, which is at the end of 2027, which will be the moment that we commence the Submarine Rotational Force–West at HMAS Stirling in Perth. So, you know, we have—

CLARKE: Has that deadline changed?

MARLES: No, it hasn’t, and we’re very confident that we’re going to meet that deadline. But, you know, it’s a challenge. Like all of what we are seeking to do here — it is an enormous uplift.

CLARKE: I appreciate it’s the Pentagon’s report and not yours to release. But I’m trying to get a sense of if there’s any change in approach here or if this is a reaffirmation of what currently exists.

MARLES: What we have from America is a reaffirmation of its support for AUKUS. I mean, that’s really clear. And that was clear in the statements that we had from President Trump. And this review is very much written in the context of that. But there are challenges: to make sure that our supply chains are being built in the appropriate way; that we do see production and sustainment rates grow within the United States; that we get more Virginias out to sea for the US Navy, which creates the space for the Virginias to be supplied to Australia in the early 2030s. We need to continue working at a pace in relation to that. There are going to be challenges for us around skilling our workforce to be able to do everything that we’re seeking to do, both in terms of building but also maintaining the submarines. And we need to be looking at that in a granular way and making sure that we are doing everything in the best possible way. And we continue to do that and be very self-critical along the way.

CLARKE: You’re listening to Radio National Breakfast, and my guest is the Minister for Defence, Richard Marles, the Deputy Prime Minister. Your counterpart, Pete Hegseth, has previously asked Australia to increase its defence spending. Did he make that request again this week?

MARLES: Well, we’ve made clear all along in relation to our defence spending that the way in which we do this is looking at what our strategic landscape is, what our strategic needs are, in the sense of the kind of defence force that we need to build, and then resourcing that.

CLARKE: But did Pete Hegseth ask this in the meetings that you had?

MARLES: Well, if I can just finish that answer. What that process has resulted in is the biggest peacetime increase in Australia’s defence spending in our history. And that is acknowledged in the US. And so that is the point that we continue to make in relation to what we’re doing in respect to defence spending. And I think that’s understood.

CLARKE: The National Security Strategy that the US just released mentions Australia as one of the countries they’re pressuring to increase defence spending. So I would have to presume they still are looking for Australia to spend even more?

MARLES: Well, the point is we are spending more. And that’s really the answer I’m trying to give here: the process that we have been going through — and the Prime Minister has been very clear about this — is not so much looking at a specific number, but rather looking at the needs that we have and then resourcing them. But the consequence of that has been to give rise to the biggest peacetime increase in our defence spending in our country’s history. So we are spending more. And the fact that we are spending more is something which is very much acknowledged by the United States.

CLARKE: You’ve said the Government has tried to increase the American military footprint in Australia at every one of these annual AUSMIN meetings that you’ve had since 2022. Well, take me through why having a larger American military footprint is important for Australia.

MARLES: Well, what we are both trying to do — both Australia and the United States — is to make our contributions, working collectively together, for the peace and security of the Indo-Pacific, and to do that through deterrence. And it’s very much articulated in the US’s National Security Strategy, and specifically in terms of how it speaks about the Indo-Pacific: about putting in place deterrence which contributes to the peace and security of our region. Now, they do that in a lot of ways. But operating from Australia is a key part of that. It very much contributes to the peace and security of the region. It also, of course, helps build our capability, because it gives us an opportunity to work with the United States. And we’ve seen that over, you know, the more than a decade in which we’ve had the Marine rotation in Darwin, which has been really advantageous in terms of American force posture and its contribution to peace and security, but also the opportunity it’s created for our Defence Force to work with the US. And we’re now doing that not just in respect of the Marines, but in fact across all the domains. We had a particular focus on the air domain in terms of the announcements that we made at this year’s AUSMIN. But the Submarine Rotational Force–West from 2027 will be an example of this as well.

CLARKE: The US has requested its embassy in Canberra to collect data on crime committed by migrants. Is that something that was raised in the discussions you’ve been having?

MARLES: Look, it was — but again, I’m not going to go into all the details of the discussions because, you know, quite appropriately, a lot of that happens in a confidential space. But we were focused on our security cooperation. I mean, that’s really where this meeting was at and so. And we —.

CLARKE: But you can say whether or not the discussion of migration and crime levels was an agenda item or came up in discussions — without saying the details of it?

MARLES: Sure, and I’m trying to respect the processes with the US here. But our focus, in answer to your question, was very much about working together in terms of our security relationship. And that’s where the discussion was at.

CLARKE: All right. And just one last question on the National Security Strategy that the US has released. We were talking about it just before. US President Donald Trump described European leaders as weak and has claimed that immigration is causing the continent to experience decay. Do you share those views?

MARLES: Oh, I’m not about to, again, get into a commentary in respect of the NSS and the President’s comments about Europe. I mean, we obviously have a very good working relationship with our European partners, and we continue to work very hard with NATO in respect of Ukraine, of course, and that’s very important. And we see that very much in Australia’s national interest — that the war in Ukraine is resolved on Ukraine’s terms. But we continue to work very closely with our European friends and allies, and we have the utmost respect for them. Of course, what we do see in the National Security Strategy is an emphasis on the Indo-Pacific. And obviously that is something that we welcome. The NSS is very strong in terms of the role that America should be playing in the Indo-Pacific, and that’s clearly where our focus is at, and that’s something that we welcome.

CLARKE: Richard Marles, thank you very much for joining us from on the road in Washington, D.C.

ENDS