Nat Barr confronts senior Labor politician over PM’s pointed jabs at US following multiple meeting failures with Trump

Sunrise’s Nat Barr has confronted Minister for Social Services Tanya Plibersek over Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s perceived anti-Trump speech to honour wartime Labor leader John Curtin.

Albanese spoke in Sydney to mark 80 years since Curtin’s death, saying he would pursue Australia’s national interest, even when they differ from those of the United States.

Curtin was known for his resistance to pressure from the British and Americans, who wanted him to deploy troops to Burma, now Myanmar, after the fall of Singapore in World War II.

The speech was widely reported as a snub to Donald Trump, with whom Albanese has consistently failed to meet following the US president’s re-election in November.

Meanwhile Albanese has met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping three times, with another meeting planned during a forthcoming trip to Beijing, which has raised eyebrows among political observers.

Barr spoke with Plibersek and Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce on Monday, questioning the implications behind Albanese’s speech.

Barr asked Plibersek: “Tanya, that was an interesting speech. It did feel like we were heading in another direction. When you have basically a conga line of defence experts lining up saying we need to be spending more on defence in this country.”

Plibersek: “(Prime Minister Anthony Albanese) made the perfectly valid point that Australia, the Labor government, will always put Australian interests first.”

Joyce: “When they get a meeting with the president!”

Plibersek: “Why is that remarkable Barnaby?”

Joyce: “It is remarkable because we have been devoid of a relationship at the highest level.

“The prime minister and the president are not talking to one another in a face-to-face meeting.

“If you’re going to put Australia first, you better get our defence relationship up to speed because the number one job is the protection of the Australian people.

“I didn’t give that crazy speech that the Prime Minister gave at the John Curtin Institute where he said we might go our own way. With who’s army? We are way behind, we have six submarines and at times, none of them work.

“We have frigates we sometimes can’t find crews for. We have a defence force that is smaller in comparative power. In comparative terms, we have never been smaller against a major superpower.

“In comparative terms, not total terms.”

Moving towards China

Joyce took aim at Albanese saying Australia is moving closer to China, and further from the United States.

“This is very dangerous,” Joyce said.

“You need to understand the United States is the cornerstone of our defence relationship. It is not going well.

“This is the fourth meeting he has had with the leader of China but that is a totalitarian regime.

“Trump has not had a meeting with the prime minister yet. I’m truly concerned about that, especially while adding a review on AUKUS.”

Barr asked: “Shouldn’t we make friends with China?”

Joyce: “We should but not at the expense of the US. You need to understand that we live in the realm of the western Pacific, if things go pear-shaped, we are in trouble, real trouble.

“If we have a defence policy that doesn’t include the United States, we need to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on defence. We are way, way behind where we need to be.”

Barr asked: “Is the prime minister looking for a new best friend in China?”

Plibersek: “Your question started with the assumption that there is a fraying with the United States, and nothing could be further than the truth.

“The prime minister has spoken to the president on the phone, the defence minister met his counterpart recently, the foreign affairs minister has just been in the United States recently.

“Trade ministers ... All sorts of high-level dialogue (is) constantly going on with the United States and that is as it should be.

“The United States is absolutely our foundational defence and security partner.

“The relationship is terrific.

“We also would have a good trading relationship with China, under the previous Morrison government trading relationship had smashed our agricultural sector. We have restored $20 billion of trade with China.

“It is good for our farmers and good for Barnaby and his constituents.

“I would have thought he would be welcoming the restoration of trade with the stabilisation of the relationship.

“The prime minister has constantly said we cooperate with China where we can, we disagree where we must, and that has worked out very well for Australia in recent years.”

Ambassador under fire

Joyce appeared to call for Australia’s Ambassador to the US Kevin Rudd to go, echoing concerns that Rudd’s past derogatory comments about Trump mean he can’t effectively manage Australia’s relationship with the US.

“(The meeting failures are) not a sign of a good relationship,” Joyce said.

“If we can’t extract the meeting between the prime minister and the president of the United States, we are in the background.

“I like Kevin Rudd, he’s a nice guy. But he is not the ambassador for the United States.

“He needs to be moved to somewhere like the United Kingdom or France, and we have got to really work on this relationship because it is tenuous and that is dangerous, or (more) dangerous for Australia than it is for the US.”

Relationship woes

Barr asked Plibersek if Albanese’s relationship with Trump is where the government wanted it to be.

Plibersek replied: “He’s had multiple calls with the president.”

Barr: “One was a congratulations. I don’t know whether that would count.”

Plibersek: “We were disappointed when the president needed to return quickly to Washington because the Middle East blew up. Anybody would understand the president of the United States would want to be back in Washington.”

Joyce interjected: “He talked to the prime minister of India, he just didn’t talk to us.”

Going backwards

Plibersek and Joyce also sparred over criticism of Australia’s military positioning from former Australian army and navy commanders.

“The former chiefs of the army and navy say we are in worse form than we were 20 or 30 years ago. That’s who you need to listen to,” Barr said.

Plibersek replied: “(The Coalition) could have started this project a decade ago, under the Coalition government.”