Press Conference, Australia-Philippines Defence Ministers' Meeting

Subject/s: Australia-Philippines Defence Ministers’ Meeting; U.S. Election; Regional security

DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER, RICHARD MARLES: Well welcome everyone this afternoon. And it's my real honour to be able to welcome Secretary Gilberto Teodoro, the Secretary of Defense of the Philippines, for his first visit to Australia. But Gilberto and I have met on a number of occasions, and are good friends, and it's a real honour for me to be able to host Gilberto here in Parliament House today. Today we have had the first ever official Defence Ministers’ Meeting between Australia and the Philippines, and this emanates from the strategic partnership agreement that was reached between Prime Minister Albanese and President Marcos in 2023. We are two countries which have shared values as democracies, democracies which are about the rule of law at home, but also promoting the rule of law internationally. And in that we are two countries which also have a deep interest in the global rules based order; the assertion of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, freedom of navigation in areas like the South China Sea, the East China Sea, but also the West Philippine Sea. And as two countries, we have, over the last two years, been working increasingly closely, more closely together, on strategic affairs. Of course, there is a very significant Filipino community in Australia. For a long time, we have had very close people-to-people links, and our two countries have, in that sense, been close together. But what we have really seen grow over the last two years is the strategic dimension of our relationship, based on our shared strategic alignment and our shared values. 

In May of this year, Gilberto and I met with our counterparts in the United States and Japan, in Hawaii. And so as we work more closely together bilaterally, we are also working more closely together with both the United States and with Japan. And there has been significant progress in terms of the way in which our four countries have worked together in both programs of exercises and activities. Since May, bilaterally, we are also seeing a growing tempo of exercises between Australia and the Philippines. In 2023, the largest exercise that Australia undertook outside of our country was Exercise Alon, which both Gilberto and I were present at in the Philippines. And we look forward next year to Exercise Alon again in 2025 which happens on a biennial basis- we look forward to that occurring on an even expanded basis. We will also next year participate in Exercise Balikatan and Exercise Saliknib, which have historically been bilateral exercises between the United States and the Philippines, which Australia will participate in next year. And of course, next year is the Talisman Sabre year, and for the first time, in Talisman Sabre 2025, the Philippines will be participating in that as well. And so all of that speaks to an increased tempo of exercises, but also operational activities. Over the last 12 months, we've conducted four Maritime Cooperative Activities between our two countries and with other friends, and that is a really significant engagement between our two countries in terms of asserting the global rules based order, freedom of navigation within our region. 

All of this we've discussed today. We've agreed that we will seek to update the 1995 MOU on Cooperative Defence Activities with a view to signing a new MOU at next year's Defence Ministers’ Meeting. This, of course, does build on an existing visiting forces agreement that we have between our two countries. We've also agreed to send a defence engineering assessment team to the Philippines in the first quarter of next year to look at ways in which Australia can support the growing defence infrastructure in the Philippines. It's been a really productive meeting today. It's befitting a relationship which has really gone to a transformatively new level over the last two years. And it's really an honour, but a real pleasure, Gilberto, to have you here, and we've really enjoyed- well, I've enjoyed working closely with you, but it's so important in terms of the respective national interests of both of our countries. 

PHILIPPINE SECRETARY OF NATIONAL DEFENSE, HON GILBERTO C TEODORO JR: Thank you very much, Richard. And good afternoon everyone. It's indeed an honour to be here for the first Defence Ministers’ Meeting between the Australian Defence Ministry and the Department of Defense of the Philippines, coming on the heels of our strategic partnership between our two countries. And I thank Richard for his hospitality. And with Richard here, we have been able to deal with each other in a straightforward and a very productive manner. We have, we share common threats- those are threats to the stability and peace and security in the Indo Pacific, and we seek to address these challenges by upholding international law, particularly the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and the arbitral award that spelled out the primacy of UNCLOS on the rights and obligations of states at sea. Richard gave you a comprehensible overview of what we have done, what we intend to do, where we intend to converge even further. We thank Australia for hosting Pitch Black this year- it's the first time that the Philippine Air Force, has been able to participate in a foreign exercise in on such a scale. I think the last time that the Philippine Armed Force was able to participate on an air campaign was in 1962 or 1960 in the Congo UN peacekeeping operation. 

On bilateral ties, our ties are very strong on a defence basis, on a country-to-country basis, because of shared values of our people. And we intend on the defence side to make sure that our institutional arrangements are enduring and are strong, because we want to lay the foundation of principled cooperation between the two of our countries. Given the fact that we live in the same part of the world, we have an interest in ensuring peace and stability here, and the only framework we can operate on is on the basis of the UN Charter and international law and to resist any unilateral attempts of redefining it to the selfish interests of any one state. Secondly, we have also talked about pursuing institutionally more people-to-people exchanges in both of our departments, which is necessary in order for us, on both our sides, to have a clear picture of the evolving trends in any one place and in the dynamics in the world which will be crucial to our future planning and our future capabilities. We also agreed to share further intelligence information on counter terrorism and on other mutually-on security threats that we feel affect our countries- on both our countries. 

Lastly, we committed to a more concrete exchange of bilateral and multilateral activities that will strengthen our partnership, breed familiarity and interoperability between our forces and our authorities, so that we can enforce international law norms in our areas of responsibility. So once again, thank you Richard, for hosting here.

JOURNALIST: Thank you Minister. If I could ask Minister Teodoro, what are your expectations about Donald Trump's support for the Philippines and activities in the West Philippine Sea, slash South China Sea. Do you expect him to demand, as he has at Taiwan, that Manila pay for U.S. support protection? And if I could ask Mr. Marles, Donald Trump has picked two China hawks for key positions, Marco Rubio, Secretary of State, and Mike Waltz as National Security Advisor, what's your reaction to that, and what message do you think he's sending to Beijing?

TEODORO: To answer your question, I really don't expect some sort of statement from Mr. Trump. Hopefully not. I really don't have any preconditions or any assumptions as to what will be the outcome of this Administration, except on what we are working on, on institutional ties this time. The institutional arrangements that have been made, our mutual defence treaty, our squad partnership, are enhanced cooperation, which are based on the fact that we have an interest, both the United States and the Philippines, in ensuring that our partnership continue because, not totally, but principally because of shared threats. And that is undoubtedly the overreach and the aggressive and illegal activities of China. And if that changes, then maybe the calculus changes. So, but then again, our ties go back several years, and there may be some nuances in but in our relationship, but the general policy remains the same, and we are very thankful for the bipartisan support that the Philippines has received from the US Congress.

MARLES: Well, thank you, Ben. As we said repeatedly, actually, in the lead up to the American election, we were very confident that no matter what the result of the election would be, that- well, first of all, the Australian alliance would be in good shape, and that our equities within that alliance would be in good shape. And we very much remain confident now that we know that we will be seeing the second Trump Administration. That is because we see America's role in the world in terms of supporting the rules based order as being fundamentally important, that American leadership in respect of that is fundamentally important. And we absolutely expected that whoever won- and now that we know that we will be seeing a Trump Administration- that that will be maintained by America. So in answer to your question, what we see in the election of President Trump and in the formation of his Administration, is an Administration which will maintain America's role of leadership in the world, which is really important in terms of maintaining the global rules based order, which is very much in Australia's national interest. 

JOURNALIST: Earlier today, Secretary, you talked about needing to steel up to protect ourselves from the ravages or ambitions of these people. I assume that was referring to the PRC. What have you talked about with your Australian counterpart, about more action, and what will the Philippines do, given the PRCs gradual encroachment in your territorial waters, nothing has worked so far. What do you think can?

TEODORO: Well, of course, with the approach to the incursions by China in its aggression is a whole of government approach. On my end, my mission at this time in the state of defense development of the Philippines is to steel up our internal processes, our human capital capabilities and our capabilities to have a credible deterrent force in the Armed Forces of the Philippines and our defense establishment and the security establishment. We are also putting a lot of effort into building alliances of like-minded countries, and on this part of the job alone, it is a big thing to do, and it takes a lot of effort and work and time, and frankly, very, very thankful that we have partners like Australia and the leadership of Richard here that makes the job much easier. Now, having said that, I really was referring to the actions of China and the leadership of China, because although they claim to act under the ages of international law, everybody knows that what they're doing is contrary to the tenets of international law. And the biggest evidence and biggest proof of this is that nobody has actually supported their actions or activities in the West Philippine Sea, in the South China Sea, and a lot of condemnation they have earned from what they're doing there. So on this score, my mission is clear, and I will focus on my mission and our Department of Foreign Affairs, our National Maritime Council is also doing their share. We converge through the National Maritime Council, and through that we subsume our individual capabilities. We have direct instructions from the President, and we subsume it under the ages of the National Maritime Council, which then reports to the President.

JOURNALIST: Mr. Secretary, you talked about evolving trends. Can you give us an insight, please, on some of the tempo, the increasing tempo that we're seeing in the West Philippine sea and whether you suspect Beijing is working to a particular deadline, maybe 2027? Mr. Marles, with regards to 2027 is that sharpening the focus of the meeting that you're having this weekend with the trilateral talks? 

TEODORO: In so far as the Philippines is concerned, we are not seeing a 2027 deadline as the reason for increased tempo of illegal Chinese activities in the West Philippine Sea. What we see is an increasing demand by Beijing for us to concede our sovereign rights in the area because of our need to explore and exploit the resources in these areas for the benefit of our own people. And that is clear, we don't need to enter into a geopolitical nexus for determining the root cause of the problem, because we are direct victims of Chinese aggression in this and in a concentrated area so far, thus far, in the West Philippine Sea. But we continue to be vigilant in other areas, on the exclusive economic zone of the Philippines on a 360 degree basis. We are also combating malign influence of Chinese nationals in the illegal economies in the Philippines, in proliferation of criminal activity, in fake citizenships and the like. I'm not saying that there's an overt connection, but what I'm saying is Chinese nationals are involved, and for us to make an assumption that there is no connection, means to say we are not doing our job as security officials.

MARLES: Andrew, the call to action is not a specific year. The call to action really is that we see the global rules based order under increasing pressure around the world, but within our region, and we have a clear national interest in the international rules of the road, international rules of the sea, being maintained. When we look at our region, bodies of water like the South China Sea, I mean these are areas where a significant proportion of Australia's trade traverses, where a significant proportion of our national prosperity is dependent. And so in this moment, we are working increasingly more closely with countries which share values and share a commitment to the global rules based order that does very much include, obviously, the United States, and that includes Japan, and no doubt that will form a key part of the discussion that we have on the weekend, but it very much includes the Philippines, which is why you've seen such a growing relationship between our two countries over the course of the last two years. And it's not limited to those three countries either. I mean, you can look at what we have been doing in Southeast Asia and Northeast Asia and South Asia in the Pacific over the course of the last two and a half years. What you see is us building our relationships with the countries of the region who are supportive of the rules based order, an order which gives agency to smaller countries, an order which means that we're not living by virtue of the rule of power, but where countries of our size do have the agency to make our way and to make our decisions, our own sovereign decisions in the world. Those are the relationships that we are pursuing to build our combined national interest, and that speaks to the kind of meeting that we'll be having on the weekend, but very much speaks to the meeting that we've had today. 

JOURNALIST: The Philippines is spending a lot of money to modernise its military. Will Australia provide any military equipment to the Philippines as part of that modernisation. And is that something that the Philippines would like to see? And can I also slip in a question on these joint exercises in the South China Sea? You spell out how more of this is going to happen. Do you feel as if that needs to grow even further?

MARLES: Well, I suppose, in respect of your first question, we are looking at ways in which our defence industries can work more closely together, and we're looking at ways in which Australia can support Philippines in terms of the building of its capability. And that's why the specific announcement we've made coming out of today around the sending of an engineering assessment team to the Philippines in the first quarter of next year is a really important part of that. But you know, we do look to opportunities where we can help support the Philippines in terms of the building of their capability. The whole tenor of our discussions, of what we've announced today, has very much been focused on building the opportunities to work more closer together and that does include operational activities, like the maritime cooperation activities that we've undertaken for in the last 12 months, but also the tempo of exercises, and I outlined those earlier, and we will continue to try and look at more opportunities for us to be working more closely together. At the end of the day building the most interoperable defence forces between Australia and the Philippines is very much in the national interest of Australia, it's in the interests of the Philippines and it speaks to a partnership which is going from strength to strength. 

TEODORO: Well, just to answer whether the maritime cooperative activities need to go a step further, I think everything will depend also on feedback from the ground, which is why we have the institutional arrangements under our defence cooperation framework where we will review on a mutually advantageous or necessary basis whether the tempo is right, whether more exercises in what areas are necessary, and we are also giving some room for our planners and thinkers to exercise what they think is responsible for us to be looking at and what we should be interoperating against or for. Thank you everyone. 

ENDS