Television Interview, Sky Afternoon Agenda

SUBJECTS: Conflict in the Middle East; Fuel; ADF assistance with flood recovery

TOM CONNELL, HOST: Joining me Well, Donald Trump is calling on more help in and around Iran to try to shore up the world's oil supply. Iran has managed to effectively shut the Strait of Hormuz. Joining me live now is Assistant Defence Minister, Peter Khalil. Thank you for your time. Can you tell us the latest in regards to Australia’s potential involvement? Is this something we've been asked to do or are we weighing it up anyway, given the broad call has gone out from the President?

PETER KHALIL, ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR DEFENCE: Yeah, g'day, Tom. I'm not aware of a specific request on that front. What I am aware of though, is that we have actually deployed our E7 Wedgetail aircraft as well as deploying AMRAAM, which is the advanced medium range air to air missiles. And that deployment is specifically about defending against the barrage of missiles that are targeting civilian airports that you've seen obviously in Dubai and also hotels and other civilian sites. And it is about protecting civilian life. It's about supporting a friend in need who's requested that support, the UAE. And it's also about protecting our own civilians as well. We have 24,000 Australians living there and that's a significant deployment in defending and protecting civilians from those attacks.

CONNELL: Some of the commentary, you know, people are fairly well informed, suggests that even if we wanted to send some sort of naval assistance, such as a warship, we can't do it at the moment. We don't have the capability. Is that accurate?

KHALIL: Look, all these operational matters are determined by the National Security Committee of Cabinet. I'm not going to get into hypotheticals about that. As I said, we have responded to a request by the UAE to help support them in defending their civilian population and their civilian sites from the barrage of missile attacks. And I think that is an appropriate deployment. It's an important one. Protecting civilians, protecting civilian infrastructure and sites is something that we're doing with our E7 Wedgetails as well as the AMRAAMs.

CONNELL: The spending to Defence overall is scheduled to go up under Labor, but pretty slowly. Has this conflict meant that Labor is now considering earlier or bigger increases to the overall defence budget?

KHALIL: I mean, Tom, since we came into government we’ve increased defence spending by $70 billion. It's the largest increase in defence spending since World War II, in peacetime. It's a significant increase in defence spending because we know that spending and investment in Defence is about investing in peace in the long term. Might sound strange for people listening to spend on defence is investment in peace, but what it is about investing in capabilities that can deter, that are strong enough to deter adversaries from using force and putting people back onto the diplomatic channel, if you like. And that capability is, we're seeing obviously throughout AUKUS spending, but also in many other areas around unmanned aerial vehicles and underwater vehicles as well, significant spending in drones and missile capability. And that is significant because it is the largest, as I said, in decades and the largest in peacetime.

CONNELL: But you've used dollars, percentage of GDP, which essentially is, you know, allocation of defence spending compared to size of the budget. This is the metric a lot of experts go with. So, that goes from what, 2.03 per cent in the 2024 budget, I think it's ticking up to 2.08 per cent. That's what I'm asking. Are you looking at actually increasing that amount, given the uncertainty now in terms of the global world order?

KHALIL: Well, a couple of points about that, Tom. That is one metric that is used, the percentage of GDP, but obviously it is quite relative in a sense, because many other countries might use that metric, but also include various infrastructure spending. I don't want to pick on any countries, but some countries include bridges that they build in their defence spending as a percentage of GDP. We don't do that. Some countries include their intelligence spending. For example, we outlay the Labor government $10 billion into REDSPICE, into intelligence and cyber security. And that's not included in our overall defence spending. So, it is, it's a relative term. The point is that we are increasing defence spending. We have increased defence spending because we know that that is.

CONNELL: You’re comfortable with where it’s at, is that what you're saying?

KHALIL: Well, I'm just saying this is always assessed and the reason it's continually assessed is because we have a National Defence Strategy and a biannual strategy that we are about to announce that flows into the defence spending on capability, assessing what we need, what our ADF needs for its current and future force structure and capability. And that is an ongoing process which we've put in place off the back of the recommendations of the National Defence Strategy.

CONNELL: Bill Shorten in 2019 announced an increase to fuel supplies, a pretty large increase, to get closer towards the 90 days of actual supply, whether it be onshore or ships that Australia could actually rely on. Is that something that needs to be looked at again?

KHALIL: Well, I think certainly the Albanese Government has had to actually do a fair bit of, take a fair bit of action and heavy lifting since Angus Taylor, when he was Energy Minister, decided to put our reserves over in Texas or wherever it was on the other side of the world. The fact is, the actions we've taken since the Iran war have included increasing the supply or releasing domestic reserves of 762 million litres of petrol and diesel to get those that fuel to the region. We've actually got the highest amount of reserves, fuel security any time over the last 15 years, largely because of some of the actions we've taken. We've also made an announcement recently to increase another 100 million litres of petrol and petrol supply per month by changing the Sulphur levels over 60 days to increase again fuel to go to the regions. We've also secured a deal with Ampol to ensure that the flow of that supply chain gets to the regions as quickly as possible to address that distribution challenge. And we've taken all these actions as well as very strong penalties, Tom, by giving powers to the ACCC, penalties of up to $100 million if there's any misleading or cartel like behaviour or price gouging by the petrol companies. 

CONNELL: Any fines at all on that as yet, because there's all these reports and anything at all.

KHALIL: I'm not aware, but I think that, the powers, Tom, of the ACCC to investigate misleading conduct have been increased. So, they're onto the job and we've given the power to do so.

CONNELL: Just want to ask quickly about Defence, or the ADF, has been sent in to Katherine. What's the initial damage assessment there?

KHALIL: Look, it's pretty significant, Tom, and there's been a request made, as you point out, to the Australian Defence Forces to provide some support in helping clear debris and so on. And that request came from the Northern Territory Government and we've responded to that request with a deployment of ADF personnel. I think up to 50 personnel going up there to help in the cleanup and the debris, that'll probably go for a couple of days. When the ADF is called for disaster relief, it's usually in that initial stage, given the ability to actually provide that support when it's most needed. But then obviously the emergency services of state and territory governments kick in after that as well. So, we'll, we'll do that job. It's not the core business of Defence, but we're always there to support our communities.

CONNELL: Peter Khalil, appreciate your time. Thank you.

KHALIL: Thanks, Tom. 

ENDS