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July 7, 2026
GARY HARDGRAVE: The Shadow Minister [for Defence], Senator James Paterson, joins me. Always good to talk to James Paterson. Appreciate your time. The Ocean of Peace Initiative, I think is a good idea, but China doesn't like it.
SENATOR JAMES PATERSON: Thanks for having me, Gary. And you're right, it is a good idea. And one of the reasons why it's a good idea is the People's Republic of China doesn't like it because of course, one of their strategic ambitions is to establish a military base, ideally a naval base in the Pacific. And if they were successful in doing so, it would fundamentally reshape Australia's strategic outlook for the worse. It would make it a far more complicated and difficult world for us. And so anything we can do to prevent them from doing so is a good thing in my book.
HARDGRAVE: Well, I would have thought so, but meanwhile, we seem to be a bit naïve, kind of forgiving Chinese warships doing missile tests in the Tasman Sea or the South Coral Sea, circumnavigating Australia. Now they're firing a missile. Yeah, it wasn't aimed at Australia, it was aimed to our north. They say it's within international rules, but I thought we had all signed up to the idea that we weren't testing things like missiles into the South Pacific?
PATERSON: Well, indeed, and you're right to recall that circumnavigation of Australia in February last year because the Prime Minister really downplayed the seriousness of that at the time. In fact, he compared it to the exercises that we conduct in the Indo-Pacific as if they were equivalent, when they are not comparable at all. And of course, it was a coercive and threatening and intimidating thing that the Chinese Navy did. And it was intended to send us a message just as this missile launch is intended to send us and others a message as well. The PLA wants us to know they are capable of launching a nuclear equipped warhead from a nuclear propelled submarine and stretching far across the Pacific including into a region that we regard as strategically important for us.
HARDGRAVE: Do you think China really cares what the rest of the world thinks about all of this?
PATERSON: The funny thing about authoritarian regimes is sometimes they're the ones that care the most about their international image abroad, and China spends a lot of time and a lot of money and a lot of effort trying to manipulate and manufacture a certain image of itself in the world. So it does care, and it does particularly want us to know that they are a strong and powerful country which has a capable military because they think that will intimidate us and threaten us, and we may be less likely or particularly, Pacific Islands may be less likely, to enter into security arrangements with us.
HARDGRAVE: Yeah, but I think they kind of shot themselves in the foot on this, as this news was breaking basically 25 hours ago, as we were beginning to report this, the Prime Minister in Fiji signing that regional peace agreement, and yet the first comments out of the government was, oh, it's nothing unusual, everything's okay. Then, a few hours later, they realised, oh, maybe we got this wrong. This government seems to be making up stuff on the run.
PATERSON: Sometimes it takes quite a while for the Albanese Labor Government to find its feet on national security and defence matters, and I think this is a good example of that. You're right they initially downplayed this incident as they downplayed that circumnavigation over a year ago. The truth is that a strong response to this was warranted from the very beginning because the Pacific is supposed to be a conflict free zone and it's supposed to a nuclear free zone. And what China has done is not only unwelcoming for us and threatening to us, it's also very unwelcome for the Pacific Island states, near where this exercise was conducted and near where the missile fell.
HARDGRAVE: Well, absolutely, and a message to the rest of the world. I would have thought in every possible way, James Paterson, I mean, they are a major trading partner of Australia. We're sending our resources to their country. They're selling stuff back to us. They're flooding us with their Chinese-made electric cars and countless other things that are in everybody's household. And now they're firing missiles just to let us know that they could send one to us if we don't kowtow, so to speak. This is a difficult situation, we're going to have to be very direct, very pro-Australia, I would have thought.
PATERSON: You're right. And this is in a context of a People's Liberation Army that is massively scaling up, that is rapidly modernising and a Chinese president who has openly said he expects the PLA to be ready to take military action against Taiwan by 2027 if he chooses to do so. And all of us should be very concerned about that because it would have grave, detrimental consequences for all of us, no matter how that happened. We're in the business of preventing conflict. And the best way we can do that is through deterrence and the only way to do that is to invest adequately in our defence and national security and this government is failing to do that. They are not matching their rhetoric with their actions, and spending on defence is not rising anywhere near fast enough or high enough to meet that challenge.
HARDGRAVE: No one wants a war, particularly those who've got to fight it. But we've got to be ready for it. And the word deterrence, well, it gets thrown around a lot with the greatest of respect. But this launch kind of proves, doesn't it? Really proves. Current strategies mean nothing. The Chinese knew the Prime Minister was over in Fiji. I don't think there's much security around his movements. And maybe that's just the way life is when you're in those positions. But by any measure, this was strategically aimed. To send a big message to the Pacific, we don't care what papers you sign, we'll fire whatever missiles we like.
PATERSON: Yeah, and there may not be a direct connection between this specific agreement and the launch because these launches take weeks if not months to plan, but the intent, I think, is very clear. They do not want the Pacific Islands to enter into these arrangements with Australia and other powers. And you're right, we should heed the message, and we should act accordingly, because while we might hope to prevent conflict, the truth is that we are not in total control over whether conflict arises in our region. It may not be a matter of choice for Australia whether there is conflict. And in those circumstances we want to be able to defend ourselves, defend our allies, and defend our interests. And right now, the ADF, as diligent and capable and patriotic as our men and women in uniform are, is nowhere near well enough resourced for that task.
HARDGRAVE: A bit without notice, but I ask you, James Paterson, how the heck is the biggest island continent, the only island continent in the world with three major oceans around us, how is it we don't even have an aircraft carrier? We can talk about AUKUS submarines whenever they come, heavens, I don't know. You'll probably be in the dotaridge by that point. Let's face it, we have really been asleep at the wheel for a long time on these defence spending matters.
PATERSON: Well, we last had an aircraft carrier in the 1980s, and in that time, defence spending was higher as a proportion of GDP than it is now during the Cold War. If you gave me an unlimited budget today to spend on national security and defence, an aircraft carrier is probably not the first thing I would buy because it is a very large target floating on the sea that is vulnerable to drones, missiles, and other things. What I would probably spend that money on is our own offensive drone and missile capability, of which we have very limited stocks and the conflicts in both Ukraine and Iran show how powerful these capabilities can be, particularly for smaller powers facing up against the larger adversary. A small power can give a large adversary a very bad day on the battlefield if they invest in what are called these asymmetric capabilities - drones, missiles, and other things. I think we need to be doing much more of it.
HARDGRAVE: At least it sounds like you're thinking about it. Either way, good to talk to you, James Paterson. Appreciate your time.
PATERSON: Thanks for having me.
ENDS