House debates

Wednesday, 1 September 2021

Motions

ANZUS Treaty: 70th Anniversary

10:38 am

Photo of Richard MarlesRichard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | | Hansard source

[by video link] In truth, independent Australia, the modern nation that we are today, had from its very beginnings a deep connection with the history of the United States. Australia truly became independent in 1942, after the attack on Pearl Harbour in December of 1941 and the fall of Singapore in February of 1942. These events led the Curtin government to enact the Statute of Westminster Adoption Act 1942, which severed our ties with the United Kingdom. So much of our nation began then—our federal relations, the direction of our economy but also our foreign policy, the foundation of which was laid in Curtin's famous declaration on 26 December in 1941, when, without inhibition, he made clear that Australia looked to America. A decade later, under the Menzies government in Australia, the Holland government in New Zealand and the Truman administration in the United States, the ANZUS treaty was signed on 1 September in 1951 in San Francisco.

This treaty underpins the most important relationships that Australia has, with our sibling New Zealand and with our security partner the United States. Article IV of the treaty provides that if any of the treaty parties are attacked, then the others will come to their defence. It's been invoked once in the last 70 years after the September 11 attacks on the United States in 2001. And it was only last week, with melancholy, that we noted the tragic events in Afghanistan and the 20-year participation with the United States that Australia has had in that country.

From the point of view of Australia and New Zealand, one of the ideas behind the ANZUS Treaty was to focus American policy on East Asia, and in the last 70 years our part of the world has seen quite remarkable change—the growth of great economies, Korea, Japan and of course China. We have seen an amazing proliferation of technology. We've seen countries in the region be on the very front line of climate change—the coral atoll nations of the Pacific. And, with the rise of the economies, we've also seen a rise in militaries—a militarisation of the East Asian time zone, which is on an enormous scale and which is very profound. It means that the strategic circumstances that we face today are more complex than at any point since the end of the Second World War, and, as confusing, as complex and as changing as this landscape is, one fact remains crystal clear: the centrality and the importance of our alliance with the United States has never been more significant.

With the United States we have partnered in the constructs of the economic architecture of the world in the region, through the establishment of the WTO, through APEC and through the beginnings of the negotiation of the TPP, but with the American withdrawal from the TPP the economic rules of the road in East Asia, through RCEP and through the evolution of the TPP, are now being written without an American participation. We really must, through the alliance, continue to advocate for the United States to develop an economic strategic agenda for East Asia.

We've had a deep scientific relationship with the United States, which is best characterised by our cooperation in space and, indeed, there is a formal agreement between the CSIRO and NASA, which is now in its 62nd year, which has seen Australia participate in rescues in space, in landings on the moon and in the tracking of the furthest human objects from the Earth, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, from the Tidbinbilla base of NASA's Deep Space Network. But it's critically important that we continue to evolve our scientific and technological engagement with the United States, particularly in respect of cyber and artificial intelligence.

It is so welcome to see the United States return to a position of global leadership in respect of climate change, and now it is essential that Australia stands side by side with America in dealing with this global challenge, both in terms of dealing with our own emissions but also in helping to tell the story of the Pacific Island countries which are on the front line of climate change. Of course, it's critically important that we continue to evolve our very special defence relationship with the United States. Last year's defence strategic review made the observation that the 10-year warning that we have always assumed of a major conventional attack on Australia is no longer a sound basis for defence planning. This is a seminal moment in our strategic policy history, but it demands action from the government in terms of responding to that. It obviously raises challenges about our procurements. It raises challenges in respect of our force posture, which is why the announcement today of the Leader of the Opposition of a defence force posture review under a future Labor government is so important, and, in that, we will continue to look to the United States to help us navigate our way through these challenges.

At the end of the day the ANZUS Treaty has been so enduring because we have shared values between our three countries—the rule of law at home, a belief in government of the people by the people for the people, and because of shared aspirations on the global stage. The very first paragraph of the ANZUS Treaty invokes the UN charter, which itself says:

WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED

  …   …   …

to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and

to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained …

This is the great call to establish a global rules based order, and we remain hand in hand under the banner of the ANZUS Treaty, this being a clear and abiding goal of all three nations.

Debate adjourned.