Television interview, ABC News Breakfast

SUBJECT/S: Interaction with China in the South China Sea; Chinese Naval Ships off the coast of Australia; Ukraine; Federal Election; Valentine’s Day

JAMES GLENDAY, HOST: Now, the Defence Department has lodged an objection after a Chinese fighter aircraft released flares within 30 metres of an Australian military plane in the South China Sea. For more on this, we're joined by the Deputy Prime Minister and the Defence Minister Richard Marles. He is in the lovely city of Geelong this morning. Deputy Prime Minister, good morning. Well, I think we might have Richard Marles with us now. Deputy Prime Minister, I just wanted to start off, I mean this incident happened earlier in the week. Why did you, what was your thinking behind waiting to release this information.

RICHARD MARLES, DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER: Well, the, the incident happened on Tuesday at about 1:00 o’clock Australian time. When an incident of this kind happens, we go through a process firstly of assessing all that occurred to really make a judgement as to whether we regard the interaction as being unsafe. That is a process of itself. And on this occasion we did deem it to be unsafe and I can explain that to you. But we then go through a process of raising our objections with the Chinese Government, which we did during the course of Wednesday and Thursday. And having done all of that, we then made this public as soon as we could. All of this meant that we made this public about two days after it occurred. That's actually relatively swift in terms of how we do these processes. But it's important that you get your facts straight when you make an attribution of this kind. And we don't do it lightly, but we do do it when Australian personnel are put in danger. And that is what has occurred here because these, these flares were released, as you said, at a very close distance to our P-8 aircraft in international airspace, the important point to make is the proximity within which they were released is such that there was no way that the pilot of the Chinese J16 could have been able to control where the flares then go, they could have hit our P-8 and had that occurred it would have done significant damage to our aircraft and that obviously puts in danger the lives of our personnel. were in such close proximity that there’s no way that the pilot .

GLENDAY: This is not the first incident like this, it’s certainly not going to be the last. How worried are you that something could go wrong and that people could die in an exchange like this?

MARLES: Well, I certainly am not sanguine about this. And we have observed that the sort of work that we do in the South China Sea but in our broader region is being done with increasing risk. But it's really important work to do. I mean, why we're there and the reason our Navy is there as well is to assert the rules based order, to do freedom of navigation, and to make it clear that freedom of navigation on the high seas remains the way in which the law of the world, and that's important because we are a trading nation where a greater proportion of our national income is being derived from trade. So, so much of what our Navy and our Air Force do now is this kind of work. We do it in accordance with international law. We're not the only country that does it. But it is really important that we are asserting the rules of the road, as it were. And we understand there will be interactions between our two defence forces. That is fine. But where those interactions happen, they need to be professional and safe. And we have determined that where they are unsafe, we will call it out and that's what we're doing.

GLENDAY: Okay, just staying on the high seas then. Defence is separately monitoring three Chinese warships in the Coral Sea just to the northeast of Australia. Do you know what they're doing there?

MARLES: Well, we're watching is the answer. And to be clear, those ships are abiding by international law, so within their rights to be there, but we're also within our rights to monitor them. This is a Chinese navy task group. It comprises of three ships, one a cruiser, another a frigate and then a tanker which supplies oil to or fuel to the ships. The frigate, the smaller of the two service combatants, detached from the rest of the group and traversed across the North of Australia, went through the Torres Strait on Tuesday. It's rendezvoused with the tanker in Australia's exclusive economic zone and the cruiser is further to the north. I won't speculate on what's going to happen here. There are a range of options that this task could now pursue. But what, what we will do is watch. And so I've instructed that Navy and Air Force assets be deployed to make sure that we are watching exactly what the task group is doing. We'll do that in a manner that is safe and professional. That's very much our right. And whenever this mission is over, we will assess it to understand exactly what the Chinese were trying to achieve. 

GLENDAY: On a slightly separate topic, Donald Trump announced this week peace talks with Russia over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. At a minimum, would you expect Ukraine should also be involved in these talks? 

MARLES: Well look, obviously we welcome efforts to bring about peace, of course the world will do that. It can’t be any peace. And we’ve long said this conflict can be, must be resolved on Ukraine’s terms and we need to be supporting Ukraine to ensure that the conflict is resolved on its terms. Now, that's been the position of the Australian Government for a long time and it hasn't changed. Obviously. Ukraine therefore need to be empowered in any process here and we will continue to support Ukraine to see that this conflict is resolved on its terms.

GLENDAY: Just back directly to the question. So, Ukraine has to be involved in these talks in your view? 

MARLES: Ukraine must be empowered, the answer is yes. From our view, and I think it would be the world’s view and to be fair I’m sure Donald Trump is not about to pursue peace on any terms and there’s not any suggestion this is what is going to happen here. But it really matters this conflict is resolved on Ukraine’s terms and the reason for that is it was Russia who was the aggressor. It was Russia who broke international law, it was Russia who invaded a smaller neighbour, not, not by reference to international law, but really by reference to power and might. And that example cannot be allowed to stand. That's why we've been supporting Ukraine from the outset. And what matters going forward is that in terms of any peace, it is a peace which is on Ukraine's terms

GLENDAY: Just finally, Richard, yesterday in Parliament, the Prime Minister was wearing his Rabbitohs tie. I didn't catch what sort of tie you were wearing. There's been a lot read into this. Some backbenchers were talking about comments in Parliament, is that it for the final term of Parliament? Are we in for a pre-Easter federal election? 

MARLES: Well I suppose the first thing is, it doesn’t take much of an excuse to have the Prime Minister wear a Rabbitohs tie. I was not wearing my Geelong tie, but I often do. So I have complete sympathy for that. Look there’s a parliamentary schedule, it has us coming back. That’s what I’m assuming is going to happen and that’s the basis upon which I’m doing my own planning. 

GLENDAY: Fair enough. Okay, very last one. Catherine Murphy next to me really wants to know an answer to this. David Spears is cooking dinner for his wife and family. What are you doing for Valentine's Day?

MARLES: It's Valentine's Day. Well, probably. I'll need to be going past the servo to get some flowers, I suspect.

GLENDAY: Oh, goodness.

MARLES: I'm only kidding. I'm only kidding. I'm taking my bride out to dinner tonight. So, I'm being a good valentine.

GLENDAY: Lovely, glad to hear that Deputy Prime Minister. Thank you for joining us on News Breakfast.