Alex Thomas
Time to speak to the Shadow Foreign Affairs Minister Ted O'Brien, who joins us, live now. Good morning to you, Minister. Let's start with that increase in defence funding. What's your what's your verdict on it?
Ted O'Brien
Well, we'll wait to see the details later today, Alex, when Richard Marles stands up, but the reports this morning certainly aren't encouraging. The claim of matching the Coalition's 3% of GDP spending is patently untrue, because, as Trudy just laid out, there's a whole bunch of accounting tricks included.
So today, we're meant to be hearing from the Deputy Prime Minister about a National Defence Strategy. It sounds like it's really going to be a masterclass in creative bookkeeping. That's hardly going to keep Australians safe, which is the number one priority for government.
Alex Thomas
It does sound like an increase in defence spending, whichever way you put it, though?
Ted O'Brien
And in any increase, we are welcome, because we've been openly critical about the government for seeing our capabilities just deteriorate over time. But again, it looks like where there are increases in some areas, it's all about a redirection of funding. So they're stealing from some areas to fund different ones. So in other words, they are cannibalizing our capability. That is the last thing we need. Let's not forget, the government itself makes it clear that we are probably in the most dangerous time since World War Two. Now is not the time to be cannibalizing our capability, but building it.
Alex Thomas
What have you made of Anthony Albanese’s whistle stop Asian tour to secure fuel security for Australia?
Ted O'Brien
I won't criticize the Prime Minister for traveling internationally, if it is about securing fuel for Australia, but we're yet to see any tangible outcomes, and so that's the real test. Certainly lots of photo ops and lots of meetings and these relationships are critical to Australia. But right now we are in a fuel crisis. We need to see tangible outcomes, and that will be the test for the Prime Minister.
Alex Thomas
Do you agree with one of your colleagues, Matt Canavan, when he says that ultimately, Australia has kind of dropped the ball when it comes to trying to think ahead and future proof itself when it comes to securing its own oil supply?
Ted O'Brien
Yes I do. And I think the fact that the Prime Minister is traveling around the region looking to secure our energy speaks to that very point. You know, Australia has an abundance of energy, but unfortunately, over the last handful of years, under this government, we haven't been leveraging it. We've had the Energy Minister on the world stage calling for an end of the very fuels the Prime Minister is now hunting the world to secure. We have to remember that energy security is national security, and I'm disappointed that despite the crisis we now find ourselves in, we still have a government which is denying Australians the possibility of leveraging our own resources under our feet.
Alex Thomas
There's been a lot of feedback about the announcements from Angus Taylor about the Liberal Party's Aussie values immigration policy proposal. You still standing by it?
Ted O'Brien
Alex, we certainly are, and in fact, we've had a lot of positive feedback about it, because I think it's well overdue that Australian values be put at the center of our migration system. We have to remember that Australians way of life, our standard of living, has been compromised in part, by a broken migration system. Now the announcement from Angus Taylor earlier this week is the first installment of a migration policy, and it really does put our values at the center of the system. It puts up a red light to radicals, and it makes sure that nearly 77,000 unlawful, non citizens are removed from this country. We need to have greater integrity in our migration system.
Alex Thomas
Okay, that's Ted O'Brien, the Shadow of Foreign Affairs.
