House debates

Monday, 20 March 2023

Questions without Notice

International Relations: Australia and India

2:57 pm

Photo of Andrew CharltonAndrew Charlton (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

My question is to the Deputy Prime Minister. How is the Albanese Labor government strengthening defence ties with India as a key strategic partner in the region?

Photo of Richard MarlesRichard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Defence) Share this | | Hansard source

I thank the member for his question and acknowledge his commitment to the growing and vibrant Australian-Indian community, which he represents so many people from in this place. Last week, when the Prime Minister visited India, he went aboard INS Vikrant, an Indian aircraft carrier. I was very envious. It is a formidable capability. It was an important symbol about the growing part that security plays in the Australian-Indian bilateral relationship.

Australia and India have never been more strategically aligned. When I visited India last year, I had the opportunity to fly aboard an Indian Navy P-8 aircraft from Goa to New Delhi. I did that to highlight two other flights which occurred last year in April and June, where an Indian P-8 flew from Goa to Darwin and then an Australian P-8 flew the same journey in reverse. Both of these exercises built interoperability between our two defence forces. In these exercises, India and Australia were using each other's facilities. Most importantly, in this cooperation, allowing P-8s to fly from India to Australia greatly leveraged—almost doubled—the effective capability of this reconnaissance and surveillance platform, relative to having a P-8 do a round trip from a single airport. It is a practical example of how we are looking for every opportunity to have our defence forces work more closely together, and this year we take the next step.

Exercise Malabar began in 1992 as a bilateral naval exercise between India and the United States. Today it's an exercise which involves India, the US, Australia and Japan. In its most recent iteration, Australia has been participating since 2020. Last year, we contributed an oiler, a frigate, a submarine and a P-8 to this exercise, and this year we expect to make an even larger contribution. As the Prime Minister said earlier, this year Exercise Malabar will be happening off the coast of Sydney, because for the first time Australia will be hosting Exercise Malabar. This represents an enormous leap forward in the defence relationship between Australia and India, because both of our countries understand that, by having our two defence forces work more closely together, we can provide far better for the security of the Indian Ocean and of our region.