Paul Keating has again criticised the Albanian Labour government’s national security policy, saying the government should be ‘celebrating’ the rise of China rather than turning Australia into ‘an American protectorate’.
The former prime minister began his harsh assessment of Labor’s defence policy in an interview on ABC’s 7.30 on Thursday, saying the government’s embrace of the AUKUS nuclear submarine deal “would probably make Australia the 51st state of the United States”.
“This is a party that has taken over the defence and foreign policy of the Morrison Liberal government. This is a sell-out,” Mr Keating said.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, however, was not swayed by the views of the 80-year-old Keating, who was voted out of office 28 years ago.
“Paul was a great prime minister – that ended in 1996,” Albanese told reporters in Perth on Friday.
‘Paul has his views. They are well known.
‘The world has changed between 1996 and 2024. My government is doing what we need to do today, and everyone has a chance here.’
Mr Keating, who has been a vocal opponent of the tripartite deal between Australia, the UK and the US since it was announced in 2021 when Scott Morrison was prime minister, hit out at Mr Albanese again on Friday night.
Paul Keating has again criticised the Albanian Labor government’s national security policy, saying the government should be ‘celebrating’ the rise of China rather than turning Australia into ‘an American protectorate’.
Mr Keating said Mr Albanese had set Australia on the path to becoming an “American protectorate” in Asia, when the country should be “celebrating the rise of China”.
“It is a fact that the Albanian government is returning to the Anglo-Saxon world to ensure Australia’s security,” Keating said in a statement.
‘In fact, the Albanian government is doing exactly what I have been strongly opposed to all my life, and what the Labor Party strongly opposed in the years after the war.
“And that means we have to look for our security in Asia, rather than in Asia.”
Mr Keating said the Albanian government’s move to expand the US military presence in Australia with more troop movements would result in the country becoming a “continental extension of US power”.
“Such an outcome is likely to turn the Australian government, in terms of defence and security, into merely the national administrator of what is widely seen in Asia as a US protectorate,” he said.
According to Keating, the administration has chosen to view Beijing as a “looming threat” rather than “recognizing and celebrating China’s rise … and dealing with it diplomatically.”
Responding to Keating’s comments in AUKUS, Defence Minister Richard Marles said he was entitled to his views but that Australia was facing “the most complex strategic circumstances we have faced since the end of World War II”.
“It is neither accurate nor fair to characterize our relationship with the United States in that way,” Mr. Marles said from Canada.
Meanwhile, Messrs Albanese and Marles have defended the AUKUS deal after US President Joe Biden briefed Congress on it.
On Thursday, Biden sent a letter to the US Congress updating the deal that would allow the transfer of nuclear material to Australia.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was unfazed by the views of the 80-year-old Keating, who was voted out of office 28 years ago
According to Mr Marles, this does not mean that nuclear waste will end up in Australia.
“That’s the agreement we signed with the UK and the US in March last year and all we’re doing is providing the legal underpinnings for it,” he told ABC radio.
‘To be absolutely clear, there is no circumstance under which we will accept waste from another country.
‘We made it clear in March last year that we are responsible for our own nuclear waste and that this also means that we have to clean up the used nuclear reactors.’
Mr Albanese said the updated AUKUS agreement will not involve any transfer of nuclear waste.
“There will be no nuclear transfer from the US or the UK. That is the detail. That is very clear, and that is not part of the arrangement,” Mr Albanese said.
“We agreed to nuclear submarines. That’s what we agreed to and the transfer of technology that goes with it.”