Radio Interview, Newstalk ZB

SUBJECTS: Australia-China relationship; ANZMIN 2024; Defence cooperation with NZ; AUKUS. 

ANDREW DICKENS, HOST: Australia and New Zealand are set to discuss foreign policy, security and defence during high level talks tomorrow. It comes after Defence Minister Judith Collins warned earlier this week that China's recent use of the intercontinental ballistic missile in the Pacific had changed everything. Australia's Deputy Prime Minister, Richard Marles and Foreign Minister Penny Wong will meet with Judith Collins and Winston Peters, and the Australian Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Richard Marles himself joins me now. Hello Richard, and welcome to the program, and welcome to New Zealand.

RICHARD MARLES, DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER: Good afternoon, Andrew. It's great to be talking with you.

DICKENS: So, this week we delayed our defence plan because of the ICBM. How did Australia view China's use of that missile?

MARLES: Well, I think what it tells us is that we- well, firstly, we are living in a world which is much less predictable, where there is much greater contest, strategic contest, and that contest is playing out in the Pacific as well. It's you know- for those of us who are living in the Pacific, as well as our neighbours the Pacific Island countries, we’re not immune from the strategic contest which we're seeing throughout the Indo-Pacific and I think the test of the ICBM by China is a perfect example of that, but it's not the only example, and it really does remind us that what this requires is a rethinking, and certainly we've been going through this process. I know New Zealand is now going through itself about what our strategic challenges are and therefore what kind of a defence force we need to meet those challenges, and therefore what we need to build in the future.

DICKENS: While also trading with China, who is, for both of our countries, one of our biggest trading partners.

MARLES: And that's true, China is Australia's largest trading partner, it’s obviously a very large trading partner for New Zealand as well. And so, you know, it's a complex relationship, it’s a difficult relationship with China. I mean to be clear, we want the most productive relationship we can have with China and a key part of what we've sought to do since coming to power back in 2022 is to try and stabilise our relationship with China, and we've seen the fruits of that with much greater dialogue at a ministerial level, we’ve seen the reinstitution of the better part of $20 billion of trade between China and Australia. But at the same time, there are significant security anxieties with China, and so we've just got to manage all of that. And so in that sense, we talk about working with China where we can, disagreeing with China where we must, and that's the challenge that we face. Nothing here is obvious, the way through is complicated, but one thing is clear: this is a time to be doubling down with friends. So many countries in the region face the same challenges, but for Australia and New Zealand, there are no two countries as close to each other as Australia in New Zealand, this is the time to be doubling down in our relationship.

DICKENS: Yes and we need to be clear with China that we want peace, but we also need to be clear that they can't take advantage of our smaller South Pacific nations, and therefore we have a responsibility to be able to protect our brothers and sisters throughout the Pacific. And so on that, New Zealand spends 1.17% GDP on defence, you on the other hand spend 1.9%. There's the old rule of thumb that 2% is the optimum level. Would you, in an ideal world, like to see New Zealand spending more money on its defence capability so that you and I, we can actually defend our patch better.

MARLES: Well, the last thing I'm going to do is give advice to the New Zealand government about how it allocates its budget. From our point we’re at about 2% now, and we're growing our defence budget to 2.3%, 2.4% over the course of the decade, and that does reflect a much more challenging strategic landscape in our view. And so we are dramatically increasing our military capability. I mean to put that into dollars, that’s about an additional $5 billion Australian over the next four years, about an additional $50 billion  Australian over the next decade in terms of our defence budget. And those represent as significant increases in peace time in our defence spending really since the end of the Second World War. So that gives you a sense of the strategic landscape that we observe and that we are responding to.

I think what we will be talking to New Zealand about during the course of today, tomorrow is really making sure that whatever either of us are spending on defence, we need to be maximising that spend through a much greater coordination between our two countries, and we've actually done so much in the last year or two in relation to that. And so the real opportunity not just in terms of how much we spend, but the quality of that spend is where we can get so much value through the very strong relationship that our two countries have.

DICKENS: So in terms of that cooperation, AUKUS Pillar II, do you want us to join that?

MARLES: Well, AUKUS is a technology sharing arrangement. Obviously, AUKUS Pillar I is particularly around Australia acquiring a submarine capability or a particular submarine capability, but Pillar II is about looking at new innovative technologies in the defence space. We are consulting with a number of countries, including New Zealand, exploring opportunities where on a project by project basis, there might be an ability for us to work together. None of this is going to happen tomorrow, but over the longer term, clearly New Zealand has capability, and clearly New Zealand is a country with whom we have great strategic trust.

DICKENS: But do we need AUKUS Pillar II to be able to work together with you? In other words, is our current information and technology sharing arrangements not up to par?

MARLES: I wouldn't put it in those terms at all. I mean there's nothing about AUKUS Pillar II which becomes conditional in the context of our relationship. We want to be as close to New Zealand as we can possibly be, whatever happens in terms of working on particular projects in relation to AUKUS Pillar II. And in fact, if you look at what we’ve been doing over the course of the last 12 months, we've seen dramatic increases in the way in which our two countries have cooperated around military planning, for example, looking at how we can better kind of get bang for our buck in terms of our procurement spend. We're looking at every opportunity to create a more ANZAC feel, if you like, in terms of the way and which our two defence forces operate. And that, as I say, it goes back to maximising what both of our countries are spending on defence, the quality of that spend, and reflecting the fact that our two countries have complete trust. It's our closest relationship, it is for New Zealand as well, it makes sense for us to be working as closely together as we can be.

DICKENS: Well, let's talk about relationships, because obviously the Australian Labor Party is clearly convinced that AUKUS is a good idea, and yet the New Zealand Labour Party voted last weekend that it would not join AUKUS. They went further than that, they said they would exit AUKUS if New Zealand were to join and they ever become the government again. Should you be talking to your brothers across the Tasman about a bipartisan agreement.

MARLES: Well, obviously what the New Zealand Labour Party says and does is a matter for it. From our point of view, in terms of the Pillar I which is around Australia acquiring a particular submarine capability, that is clearly specific to Australia. The idea of Australia and New Zealand working together in terms of new technologies is not a particularly new idea. It really is just exploring what opportunities there might be on a project by project basis going forward. As I say, none of this is happening tomorrow, we are very much in an exploratory phase, we’re not just talking to New Zealand, but we're also talking with Canada, Japan, Korea. And you can see what we're looking at is countries that have capability, that they have technological expertise, but countries with whom our selves, the United States and the United Kingdom shared deep strategic trust and it's really no more complicated than that.

DICKENS: Richard, I trust you have a very fruitful meeting tomorrow. Thank you so much for coming over and thank you for your time today. That is Richard Marles, Australian Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister, and of course the summit happens, the high level talks happens tomorrow.

ENDS