Europe invites Australia to join security pact

Australia Broadcast Center

19-05-2025

Samantha Donovan: Hello, welcome to PM. I'm Samantha Donovan, coming to you from the lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation in Melbourne. Tonight, Australia considering an invitation from the EU to be part of a new security pact. Also, the Liberal and National parties grappling with the direction of their energy policies and a West Australian police officer hunts down a freshly fallen meteorite.
Marcus Scott: The dead giveaway was obviously the impact it made in the ground. But then the other giveaways is the dark sort of outer layer of the meteorite, obviously from its when it's heated up and burnt coming through the atmosphere.
Samantha Donovan: First this evening, the Prime Minister says Australia is prepared to consider a proposal from the European Union to enter into a defence and security pact. The matter was raised with Mr Albanese by the European Commission's president during his visit to Rome for the Pope's inauguration mass. International politics experts say it's part of a push by world leaders to strengthen ties outside their regions as the United States becomes less reliable under President Trump. Kathleen O'Connor filed this report.
Kathleen O'Connor: With world leaders in Rome for the Pope's inauguration mass, they took the opportunity to discuss politics. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese revealing a possible deal with one of our closest allies.
Anthony Albanese: We're up for a deal with the European Union. We support free and fair trade, but not any deal at any price. We're up for a deal that's in Australia's national interest.
Kathleen O'Connor: As the Prime Minister sat down with European Commission President Ursula Von Der Leyen to discuss trade and defence, Australia was given an invitation to boost security ties with Europe.
Ursula Von Der Leyen: Australia and Europe are reliable partners. We're predictable. We share the same values as you just said. So we can offer to each other stability. And we're very grateful for that. And this is the reason also that we do not only see you as a trading partner, but we see you as a strategic partner. And we would very much like to broaden this strategic partnership.
Kathleen O'Connor: But what that strategic partnership might look like has experts guessing. Paul Dibb is Emeritus Professor at the Australian National University Strategic and Defence Study Centre and former Deputy Secretary of Defence.
Professor Paul Dibb: I think for Europe it's good. They're waking up to the fact at long last that under President Trump and maybe whoever might be his successor, America cannot be lent on and guaranteed that it will come to the rescue of Europe going to war with Russia. And that is a dramatic change.
Kathleen O'Connor: There's limited detail on what is being proposed in the defence pact, but Professor Paul Dipp says Prime Minister Anthony Albanese needs to think carefully.
Professor Paul Dibb: I think we shouldn't con ourselves into thinking that all of a sudden Europe is treating Asia, our part of the world, as equally important as to us. It is true that we should do our bit for Ukraine in terms of training their troops, giving them some tanks and other equipment that we no longer have use for. But who actually believes that in a formal security treaty with Europe that if America goes to war with China over Taiwan and we're with the Americans for argument's sake, who believes any of the Europeans, the French, the Germans, the British are going to come to fight on our side against China. I think we would fool ourselves.
Kathleen O'Connor: He says Australia needs to keep its options open.
Professor Paul Dibb: I think we have to recognise, however privately and carefully we handle it, that the United States can no longer be lent on, as it has been for the last 70 or 80 years by us, as inevitably come into our assistance no matter what conflicts we get into. That is the past. This is the future. And I think we have to wake up to the fact that we need to be able to handle our own region of primary strategic concern. That is a dramatic change of view for Australia. It is revolutionary.
Kathleen O'Connor: Expert on international politics and foreign policy at Deakin University, Emeritus Professor Damien Kingsbury agrees.
Professor Damien Kingsbury: Australia's relationship with the United States as its main security guarantor has been put under a bit of a question mark in recent times. So it has been discussed that perhaps Australia does need to broaden its security relationships, certainly within the Asian region, but possibly also further abroad, including with Europe.
Kathleen O'Connor: Anthony Albanese also met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, reassuring him that a fleet of second-hand Abrams tanks promised to Ukraine last year are now on their way. But one US defence official says America is frustrated by the donation. They told the ABC, We are starting to doubt if the Ukrainians actually want these vehicles. The tank roof is the weakest point of the Abrams, and this is a drone war. Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles is defending the condition of the tanks and dodging questions on the timing.
Richard Marles: We are confident about the performance of these vehicles and their utility for Ukraine going forward. It's why we were really pleased to be able to make this contribution to Ukraine in their ongoing war with Russia. The first tranche has been on their way now for some time, but I'm not going to go into the specific details of that for obvious reasons.
Samantha Donovan: The Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles, Kathleen O'Connor with that report. The future of the Liberal and National Party's nuclear energy policy remains unclear as they consider whether to enter into a new coalition agreement. The National's leader David Littleproud has reiterated his view today that nuclear must be part of the energy mix if the nation is to reach its net zero target. But after their dire election results, it seems many in the Liberal Party are unconvinced by his argument. Myles Houlbrook-Walk has more.
Myles Houlbrook-Walk: Once again, internal politics within the Nationals and Liberals is focused on energy policy. Nationals leader David Littleproud this morning telling Channel 7 any energy policy aiming to reach international climate targets would need to include nuclear power.
David Littleproud: I think you can't get to net zero without nuclear energy now, whether it's specifically the policy that we took around government owned or whether it's simply removing the moratorium. I think you have to be pragmatic. You cannot do an all renewables approach and keep the economy going. And we're starting to feel that.
Myles Houlbrook-Walk: The comments come just days after Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, now part of the Liberal Party room, made the same claim to the Australian newspaper. She also questioned whether the target of net zero is something Australia should still pursue. That's in stark contrast to what her senior Liberal colleague Jane Hume has told Sky News today.
Jane Hume: The electorate has sent us a very clear message what it is that they want in their government. Abandoning net zero I don't necessarily think is consistent with that. That's a discussion for the party room.
Myles Houlbrook-Walk: Anne Ruston the deputy Liberal leader in the Senate, conceded in an interview with the ABC yesterday that views in the Liberal and the National parties were not unanimous and that any agreement for the two to remain in coalition should not include guarantees on energy policies.
Anne Ruston: Emissions reduction is an important part of policy going forward because energy is the economy and we need to get energy policy right. But there's no secret there is a divergence of views in our party room about how we achieve that. But right now I absolutely think the thing we need to concentrate on is making sure that people can afford their power bills.
Myles Houlbrook-Walk: So would net zero emissions by 2050 require nuclear power, as claimed by David Littleproud and Jacinta Nampijinpa Price? He is deputy program director of energy and climate change at the Grattan Institute, Alison Reeve.
Alison Reeve: When I hear David Littleproud say that it's not possible without nuclear, I think that statement's not correct.
Myles Houlbrook-Walk: Alison Reeve says there's several ways to meet the targets that don't involve using nuclear power that are cheaper and quicker, including offsetting emissions.
Alison Reeve: To get to net zero, we have to eliminate as much fossil fuel consumption from the economy as we possibly can. Most models of that show that you can get to sort of 85 to 95 percent renewable energy at a very low cost. It's just that very last bit that becomes very expensive and difficult to do. Most reputable estimates usually use gas for that last bit and they offset the emissions somewhere else, perhaps by planting trees or carbon capture and storage or something like that.
Myles Houlbrook-Walk: Ms Reeve says the process of transitioning Australia's energy grid to meet the Paris targets is urgent and a fixation on nuclear is an unhelpful distraction.
Alison Reeve: I just think from the perspective of thinking about what's right for the energy system right now and what we need to get done, I don't think it's the best use of everyone's time to keep responding to and having commentary on should we or shouldn't we have nuclear. It's actually becoming a little bit self-indulgent, to be honest.
Myles Houlbrook-Walk: One person who knows the delicate balance of the National and Liberal Alliance is former Liberal frontbencher Amanda Vanstone, who served in Cabinet from 1996 to 2007.
Amanda Vanstone: Look you get four people in one family together, they won't order coffee the same way. Some will have a latte, some will have a cappuccino, la da da. So of course there are disagreements. But you have to find a way to work together to come to one resolution. That's just a fact of life, it's not just in politics.
Myles Houlbrook-Walk: She says nuclear energy is not only something she supports, it should be prosecuted as a viable alternative to Labor's plan.
Amanda Vanstone: I think we've got to focus on Australia's problems. They've got to stop looking at themselves and preening up who's going to be leader here. Who damn well cares? People are going to work, working hard. They're not interested in all that drivel. They just want the government and opposition to get damn well on with it.
Myles Houlbrook-Walk: Meanwhile, there's more news on the election count. In the seat of Bradfield and North Sydney, the Australian Electoral Commission has declared independent candidate Nicolette Boele the provisional winner. She's finished ahead of Liberal candidate Giselle Kapterian by the slim margin of just 40 votes at the conclusion of the count. But it doesn't end there. Because the margin is under 100 votes, there'll now be an official recount of preferences.
Samantha Donovan: Myles Houlbrook-Walk, this is PM, I'm Samantha Donovan. You can hear all our programs live or later on the ABC Listen app. Ahead, Joe Biden's cancer diagnosis renews speculation about the state of his health while he was president. Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in the last few days, and it appears the death toll will soon rise. Israel has begun what it's calling extensive ground operations in the northern and southern parts of the enclave, and it's issued evacuation orders for several areas facing imminent attacks. Israel has also announced it will introduce, quote, a basic amount of food to Gaza, but humanitarian groups say it won't be enough. Alison Xiao filed this report.
Alison Xiao: Day after day, Palestinians are mourning the dead.
Gaza Resident: Every day, children are slaughtered, women die. What is their fault? What is the fault of these children? What is the fault of these women?
Alison Xiao: Cookware, blankets and toys are left smouldering in the rubble in Khan Younis after an Israeli airstrike hit a camp sheltering displaced Gazans. Around 500 Palestinians have been killed in the past week, according to Gaza's health ministry. And Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has announced an expansion of ground operations in Gaza, sending more troops into northern and southern parts of the Strip.
Benjamin Netanyahu: As we promised, we've launched a powerful campaign against Hamas, Gideon's chariots. IDF forces are simply entering with force into the Gaza Strip with a dual goal, defeating Hamas and freeing our hostages.
Alison Xiao: Since the announcement, families like Abu Yassin's have fled Jabalia in the north, travelling on foot, in donkey carts or by car.
Abu Yassin: For God's sake, have mercy on us. We are tired of being displaced.
Alison Xiao: Israel flagged its operation a fortnight ago, but experts say the timing of this announcement is notable. Professor Yossi Mekelberg is an associate fellow at Chatham House's Middle East and North Africa program in the UK.
Professor Yossi Mekelberg: The timing of it has to do with President Trump leaving the region. We saw some intensification of the war while he was in the region. And part of the aim now is to push as many Palestinians as possible to a very small part of Gaza, which again will create a humanitarian disaster.
Alison Xiao: Hours after the new offensive began, Israel said it would introduce, quote, a basic amount of food to the population of Gaza in what appears to be a lifting of the total blockade of aid that's lasted for 10 weeks. Omar Shakir is the Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch.
Omar Shakir: It is a small but insufficient step. It's been 78 days in which the Israeli government has blocked the entry of food, of aid, of medical supplies, of water. The population is starving.
Alison Xiao: Many experts agree that the aid Israel will allow in will be a drop in the ocean and comes after sustained insistence from the international community, including the US.
Omar Shakir: I think the Israeli government probably has felt pressure from the international community and felt it needed to let some aid in in order to be able to continue with this otherwise horrendous military operation that portends real devastating impact on the civilian population.
Alison Xiao: The expanded Israeli ground operation is unfolding as Arab states continue efforts to broker a deal between Israel and Hamas. Sharam Akbarzadeh is a professor of Middle East politics at Deakin University. He says at this point it's hard to see an agreement being reached.
Professor Shahram Akbarzadeh: I think it's become very clear to all observers that Israel wishes to capture whole of Gaza strip and that that is the military operation that seems to be the objective to make life uninhabitable, unlivable for Palestinians. And Israel is expanding its military operation while engaging in peace talks. And it is really unclear what the Israeli delegation is prepared to offer. We know from the Hamas side that they are asking for permanent ceasefire and resolution of the conflict. But the Israeli side doesn't seem interested in the resolution of the conflict and it just wants to have piecemeal short term ceasefire agreements.
Alison Xiao: But he says there is still hope if the international community responds.
Professor Shahram Akbarzadeh: The US administration has started to see the disaster and acknowledge the disaster of Israeli policies and Israeli action. So I think the time is right for various international actors to engage with Israel and express this widely held view that its actions are completely unacceptable under international law.
Alison Xiao: Negotiations are continuing in Doha with reports that Hamas is prepared to release some of the remaining 58 Israeli hostages in exchange for a 60-day truce.
Samantha Donovan: Alison Xiao reporting. The news the former US President Joe Biden has cancer is prompting more speculation about the extent of his health problems in recent years. The 82-year-old has an aggressive form of prostate cancer which has spread to his bones. The announcement of the diagnosis comes just before the release of a new book which alleges his AIDS covered up the extent of his decline while he was in the White House. Nadine Haynes reports. Former
Nadine Haynes: President Joe Biden was seen by doctors last week after suffering urinary symptoms. A prostate nodule was found and he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. They also found that the cancer cells have spread to the bones.
Professor Damian Bolton: Effectively we've got an instance here of high grade cancer that's no longer curable but there's plenty of good treatment options available in this instance.
Nadine Haynes: Professor Damien Bolton is the President of the Urological Society of Australia and New Zealand.
Professor Damian Bolton: You wouldn't regard it as terminal, no, but for men who've got prostate cancer that's detected when it's confined to the prostate gland, they can usually be cured purely by surgery alone. But in this instance where the cancer is known to have spread to the bones, he'll require likely radiation therapy to the secondary metastatic site as well as long-term hormone therapy.
Nadine Haynes: Professor Bolton says with ongoing treatment there is a chance of survival.
Professor Damian Bolton: Prostate cancer is very much amenable to treatment at all stages and with any luck this will respond well and it won't turn out to be a fatal condition for Mr Biden. But the vast majority of people who have this tumour identified at this level will require ongoing therapy lifelong.
Nadine Haynes: The President and his family are reviewing treatment options with his physicians. The health of Biden, 82, was a dominant concern among voters during his time as President. After a calamitous debate performance in June when he was seeking re-election, Biden abandoned his bid for a second term in July. With just a few months to prepare, then-Vice President Kamala Harris became the nominee and lost to Republican Donald Trump in the November election. Jared Mondscheine is the Director of Research at the U.S. Studies Centre.
Jared Mondschein: I think Democrats are hoping that this is an opportunity for him to quietly bow out of the limelight. He is someone in the Democrats' past that they don't want the media to focus on. Instead, they want to focus on the future.
Nadine Haynes: He says after their disastrous loss last year, the Democrats are looking to start afresh.
Jared Mondschein: And they don't want to focus on what happened near the tail end of his administration, his wanting to run again, and the fact that they lost pretty decisively to Donald Trump, even though Joe Biden championed himself as someone who could help defeat him and keep him out of the limelight. So ultimately, this is an opportunity from many Democrats in Congress and in D.C. that they see as one for him to gracefully bow out of the limelight, citing health issues and not retake it as he had been in recent weeks.
Nadine Haynes: Over the last few days, Joe Biden rejected concerns about his age, despite reporting in a new book, Original Sin, by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson. The authors say his age had shielded the public from the extent of his decline while he was president. Jared Mondscheine thinks the former president's health issues were evident during his presidency, but this newly diagnosed cancer was unlikely to be one of them.
Jared Mondschein: Given recent media that has come to light in the last few months in particular, that it was not any diagnosis like this that was being hidden, but instead his day-to-day condition that was less well known and more guarded by his team.
Nadine Haynes: While president in 2022, Joe Biden launched an initiative called the Cancer Moonshot, with the goal of halving the cancer death rate over the next 25 years. The initiative was a continuation of his work as vice president to address a disease that had killed his oldest son, Beau.
Samantha Donovan: Nadine Haynes reporting. Reports that a meteorite had landed somewhere in Western Australia a week ago has had scientists mapping out its likely path and searching the vast state for clues. But in the end, it wasn't an expert who found where it ended up, but a country police officer. And it wasn't the first time he'd tracked down a space rock. Andrew Chounding prepared this report.
Marcus Scott: It's Mother's Day. We've got to start coming out here a bit later because it's six o'clock and it's dark.
Andrew Chounding: In WA's Goldfields, a prospector is underwhelmed as he films the bushland around him. But that doesn't last long.
Marcus Scott: I can't go prospecting yet because I get scared of snakes. Oh look, look, look, look, look, meteor. Wow.
Andrew Chounding: The green flash through the sky amazed early risers all across WA's south and was even captured by surveillance cameras at the Perth Observatory. Over at Curtin University, a team dedicated to tracking meteors across Australia sprung into action.
Dr Eleanor Sansom: So we caught this on a couple of our cameras last weekend and we did all of the triangulation and the biggest uncertainty for us is the wind. So that takes a little bit of time doing modelling actually on the Pawsy supercomputing facility just here.
Andrew Chounding: Dr. Eleanor Samsom is with the Desert Fireball Network.
Dr Eleanor Sansom: We worked out that it's fell in this area with quite a lot of salt lakes and salt lakes are perfect for recovering meteorites because of the contrast between that black outer shell of the meteorite when it's on the white salt lake.
Andrew Chounding: The team shared this fall prediction on their website and soon journeyed a few hundred kilometres east of Perth, where they used a small plane to take a better look.
Dr Eleanor Sansom: We were doing a grid search at the beginning just as we'd started and we saw someone actually walking out in the middle of one of these really big salt lakes. Oh my goodness, there's actually someone out searching. Oh, that's so exciting.
Andrew Chounding: That someone was Ravensthorpe Police Officer Marcus Scott.
Marcus Scott: Meteorite hunting is a hobby, one of the many hobbies. So, yeah, just enjoy being in the bush and enjoy walking and well, this sort of thing is a byproduct.
Andrew Chounding: He's found dozens of meteorites on the Nullarbor before, but not one that's this fresh from space. It took him a tough two-hour drive to reach this spot.
Marcus Scott: The only trouble is a lot of the salt lake out there has either got water in it or a lot of salt bush. That makes it a lot harder to spot, but this was in an open area and quite easy to spot. The kangaroo prints and the emu prints from a distance also look like a meteorite fall impact. So, yeah, you can find yourself wasting a lot of time chasing after them.
Andrew Chounding: Sergeant Scott estimates it's 450 grams and the size of a tennis ball.
Marcus Scott: The dead giveaway was obviously the impact it made in the ground, which pretty much is only going to be a meteorite. But then the other giveaways is the dark sort of outer layer of the meteorite, obviously, from when it's heated up and burnt coming through the atmosphere, creates a nice sort of what's called fusion crust around the rock itself. Then this one particular has sort of got quite a light-colored interior as well. And so if you've got that dark exterior and a light interior, you're probably not going to have an earth rock.
Andrew Chounding: Would you describe it as a beautiful rock? Like what? How would you describe it?
Marcus Scott: No, I'd describe it as a rock. So, yeah, there are some very nice meteorites that land on earth, but I wouldn't rank this as a thing of beauty. It's more of a thing of interest.
Andrew Chounding: And it's definitely got scientists interested. Dr Samson says she's 99.9% sure this is a meteorite, but testing will get underway soon. The team also hopes to find other fragments in the same area.
Dr Eleanor Sansom: So meteorites are incredibly valuable for learning about how our earth formed, how our solar system formed and evolved. Basically, where was all the chemical mixing in those really, really early, early days before our planet earth even formed? We can learn a little bit around where maybe the carbon came from, where our water came from, and possibly even how we have life on earth.
Andrew Chounding: As for its new home, the rule of finders keepers doesn't apply in WA, where meteorites legally belong to the state. But Marcus Scott doesn't seem to mind.
Marcus Scott: You know, life's full of experiences. And even though this is one of those ones where you don't get to keep it, yeah, it's just something you can add to the list of things you've found and things you've done. It's definitely something worth finding.
Samantha Donovan: Policeman and amateur meteorite hunter Marcus Scott. Andrew Chounding reporting for us there. Thanks for joining me for PM. I'm Samantha Donovan. The podcast of the full program is available on the ABC Listen app. And we'll be back at the same time tomorrow. Good night.