Angus Taylor affirms the Coalition's ‘utter commitment' to AUKUS initiative
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
ABC News
4 hours ago
- ABC News
New Zealand's defence minister says Australia and NZ 'pretty slack' on defence spending
New Zealand's defence minister has sympathised with the Trump administration's push for partner countries to lift defence spending, saying Australia and New Zealand are among nations that have been "pretty slack" for decades. Judith Collins said for too long American taxpayers have had to "carry the burden", and while the United States has not directly asked New Zealand to boost its defence spending, Ms Collins said she understood the broader push from the Five Eyes partner and wanted to lift NZ's spend further. The White House has demanded Australia lift defence spending by almost $40 billion a year "as soon as possible", as it reviews the keystone AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine pact between the countries. Ms Collins said since the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, countries including Australia, New Zealand and some throughout Western Europe had "sat back". "People thought, 'well, there we go, peace is broken out, no one's going to be stupid' and then Putin came along and all of a sudden, things changed," she said in an interview with ABC News in Wellington. "Everyone's been pretty slack and the Americans have been carrying us. "While we've been going ahead and building our welfare states and making sure we have free health care and education and everything else, their people have actually had to fund a lot of the defence of the democratic world. "So, I have a certain sympathy to everyone doing a little bit more." New Zealand currently spends about 1 per cent of its GDP on defence, and earlier this year promised to lift that to 2 per cent within eight years. But Ms Collins — who is a conservative politician from New Zealand's National Party — insisted she was "looking to do more than that when we can", although she did not indicate how much more. For comparison, Australia's current defence spending is about 2 per cent of GDP and is forecast to hit 2.3 per cent in the same timeframe. But the actual dollar figure Australia is set to spend will equal tens of billions of dollars more than New Zealand because it has a larger economy. Regardless, both figures are much lower than the 3.5 per cent the Trump administration has been loudly calling on Australia to reach. The government has defended against repeated calls to lift defence spending, including from the Dutch defence chief last month, with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese repeating again over the weekend that the government would not pursue an arbitrary target. Speaking with ABC News, Ms Collins was also critical of China's recent behaviour in the Indo-Pacific region, including its live firing drills in the Tasman Sea in February, which caused commercial flights to change course. She said it was an "absolute reminder" to Australia and New Zealand of how close China is and the rising strategic competition in the region, warning that competition was already leading to an increase in foreign interference and "influence" of Pacific policing forces. Ms Collins was also particularly critical of China's recent deal with the Cook Islands on trade and the "seabed minerals sector", which Wellington felt it should have been aware of ahead of time. "We think was it was certainly unusual, it wasn't expected, and it is a wake-up call again, for New Zealand," she said. She explained the region's rich resources made it an area for great competition, but was mindful Australia and New Zealand had relatively small populations with which to defend it. "We have the ninth largest exclusive economic zone in the world with massive resources, particularly on our seabed," she said. "We are countries with enormous resources and actually not that much in terms of defence compared to what other nations might have." On top of that, she acknowledged her defence force had been struggling to attract and retain enough personnel, although those numbers have recently improved. While the Trans-Tasman allies have put a big focus on increasing the interoperability of their defence forces in recent months, it is still not clear if New Zealand will join the second stage of the AUKUS security pact. While Ms Collins talked up the benefits of AUKUS as an opportunity for peace, she said New Zealand had still not been invited to join Pillar Two, which largely involves the sharing of technology. "Obviously a lot of work's going on behind the scenes, but none of it has got to cabinet yet, so there's no decision yet." The US administration is currently reviewing the AUKUS commitment to provide Australia with nuclear-powered submarines in partnership with Britain.
Sky News AU
12 hours ago
- Sky News AU
Concerns Australia cannot ‘afford' to pay for AUKUS Pillar One
The Australian's Washington Correspondent Joe Kelly discusses the 'huge concern' around Australia's defence spending and the AUKUS deal. The US Defence Department is increasingly concerned that Australia isn't pulling its weight when it comes to defence. 'This concern has been relayed to me, in a number of ways, most recently the concern that we can't even afford to pay for Pillar One,' Mr Kelly told Sky News host Sky News host Sharri Markson. 'That comment suggests that one of the things we might expect out of the AUKUS review is a request for Australia to pay more.'
ABC News
15 hours ago
- ABC News
Pro-AUKUS Republicans and Democrats stress Albanese must secure sit-down with Trump
Members of a visiting delegation of US Congress members from both sides of politics have stressed the importance of a face-to-face meeting between President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. The delegation has been in Adelaide for the Australia America Leadership Dialogue, where the current state of the alliance has been under the microscope. The Republican and Democrat members have expressed their strong support for the AUKUS deal to go ahead and praised progress being made at the Osborne Shipyard in South Australia, where nuclear-powered submarines will ultimately be built. The agreement is currently the subject of a Pentagon review, which is due to conclude in the coming months. Democrat senator Chris Coons, who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has suggested President Trump make a trip to Australia to visit the prime minister. "When you're sitting in the same room as someone you have a better conversation," he told reporters. Mike Turner, a former chair of the House Intelligence Committee agreed an in-person meeting would be "helpful". Opposition Leader Sussan Ley has dialled up pressure on the prime minister to secure a meeting. "The relationship between Australia and the US feels as if it is drifting, and that Australia is indeed a bystander in that relationship," Ms Ley told reporters in Adelaide, where she also attended the Dialogue. On defence spending, members of the Congressional delegation have backed Australia's right to make its own sovereign decision, but have urged all US allies to lift military budgets. The Albanese government has pushed back on demands from US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to lift Australia's defence spending to 3.5 per cent of GDP. But Joe Courtney — a Democrat congressman and strong AUKUS backer — says it's a crude measure because different countries calculate defence spending in different ways. For example, America counts all capital expenditure at its military bases towards its overall defence spend, while Australia does not, he said. "You really need to get an apples-to-apples sort of metric of what is defence spending, before you're going to challenge other countries' efforts," he said. "If we're going to have a real discussion about this, then we really should have an accurate metric in terms of what each country is doing." Mr Courtney's comments could give the prime minister cover to argue Australia is pulling its weight when it comes to defence spending. The Democrat members of the delegation said they disagreed with President Trump's use of tariffs against Australia and other allies. Senator Coons also suggested differences over whether to recognise a Palestinian state would not create further difficulties in the US-Australia relationship.
