Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs (House)) Share this | Hansard source

[by video link] The 70th anniversary of the ANZUS treaty is a significant occasion to celebrate and gives us cause to emphasise the strong and enduring Australia-US alliance. The bond between the United States and Australia cannot be overstated. It is a bond that goes back to before World War II. It was in 1941 when the wartime Prime Minister John Curtin's relationship with the US reflected the genuine Australian desire to establish a close strategic partnership under which, formally under the Menzies government, the ANZUS treaty was founded.

Today in this place we affirm the commitment of Australia to that alliance and recognise its fundamental important to our nation's security, sovereignty and prosperity. It is an alliance that has underpinned peace, stability and freedom in the Indo-Pacific region and beyond. Our nations have served together over more than a century, and we extend our gratitude to the service men and women of both nations who work to uphold this peace and stability. The alliance between our two nations is one that is underpinned by shared democratic values and principles embraced across nations.

Today is also marked with a significance by Labor's announcement that we will commit to a Defence Force posture review if elected in the next term. In February this year US President Biden tasked Secretary of Defense, Lloyd J. Austin III, to conduct a global posture review to ensure the footprint of American service members worldwide is correctly sized and supports strategy, with a strong focus on the Indo-Pacific. Australia has only conducted two fully-fledged Defence posture reviews in recent times—former defence minister Kim Beazley's mid-1980s review and former defence minister Stephen Smith's review in 2012. As a minister in the previous Labor government I did witness the significant reforms undertaken to strengthen the Australia-US alliance. The United States force posture initiative in our north was a program that began under Prime Minister Gillard and President Obama in 2011 amid the Defence Force posture review that Labor commissioned. This led to our current Marine Rotational Force in Darwin.

An Albanese Labor government will conduct the first Defence Force posture review since 2012. With six defence ministers in eight long years, the government has been neglecting planning on posture despite deteriorating strategic circumstances. A Labor Defence Force posture review would ensure the Australian government is considering both long-term strategic posture and whether the Australian defence units, assets and facilities are prepared for the military to take action in a timely way. This independent review will investigate the future security and strategic environment, the importance of domestic and demographic issues and their impact on defence facilities, as well as the strategic location of ADF bases and assets. This will also assist us in preparing for humanitarian and disaster responses, including those related to climate change.

The 2020 strategic update warned of the rapidly changing circumstances in our region and stressed that a 10-year strategic warning time for a major conventional attack against Australia is no longer an appropriate basis for defence planning. Reduced warning times means defence plans can no longer assume Australia will have time to gradually adjust military capability and preparedness in response to emerging challenges. This is particularly concerning when we know our major defence asset contracts are over budget and face years of delay and do not always represent value for money. We need to do better to deliver what our ADF and our country needs. We need to ensure our negotiations deliver assets on time, on budget and with appropriate local industry content. Labor's plan is to build on the foreign policy and defence traditions that have underpinned Australia's relations with our alliances, our region and the world to foster democracy and to maintain peace.

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