Greens senator Jordon Steele-John lashed out at former secretary of the US Navy Richard Spencer over Australia's relationship with the United States and the AUKUS pact before the Q+A panel lambasted the Western Australian senator, accusing him of not understanding the importance of national security.
Asked about the AUKUS pact and if Australia would have to follow the US into any conflict with China, Mr Spencer said he agreed with former prime minister Paul Keating that China would not be landing troops on Australian shores anytime soon but said the AUKUS pact was a good thing for Australia as he recited a history of close ties between the two nations.
"If you asked me two years ago if the United States Navy and the United States government would share the crown jewels of nuclear propulsion with anyone I would tell you you are out of your mind," Mr Spencer said.
"The reason it went to Australia is that the US holds Australia as their closest ally."
Q+A host Stan Grant asked if Australia would have to come to the US's aid in defence of Taiwan.
Mr Spencer denied that was the case.
"When it comes to the AUKUS agreement, you are sovereign in your ownership of those platforms," Mr Spencer said.
Senator Steele-John then continued to fire questions about the expectations on Australia, and asked point blank if the US would expect Australia to follow them into conflict.
Mr Spencer, who holds no portfolio any longer, said he would hope the US would have a discussion with its allies on the merits of any conflict, before Senator Steele-John said it was not in Australia's interest to do even that.
"I heard you make that point at the National Press Club and it really left me perplexed because we are a nation of 22 million people or more," Senator Steele-John said.
"We have better things to do than sit around a table with you people, trying to convince you not to go to war.
"You talk about 100 years of mateship … Vietnam, we followed you there.
"Afghanistan, we followed you there while you spent 20 years and trillions of dollars to replace the Taliban with the Taliban.
"John Howard, George Bush and Tony Blair took our nation 20 years ago, against the will of 92 per cent of the population, into the illegal and immoral war in Iraq."
'Pretty isolationist view'
Mr Spencer then asked why Senator Steele-John would not want Australia to have a voice at the table, presumably to stop any unilateral US action, but it was South Australian Labor premier Peter Malinauskas who answered.
"What Jordon is arguing for, with all due respect, is Australian isolationism," Mr Malinauskas said.
It was a charge Senator Steele-John rejected.
"Sounds like a pretty isolationist view," the SA premier added.
"We live in a region that is changing before our eyes, the single biggest military build-up since World War II and it is happening in our region, and it is not being done by Australia.
"We have two choices — we can respond to that or not, I don't want to speak for you, Jordon, but it doesn't sound like you support the idea of responding.
"I think we have a sovereign responsibility in the interests of every Australian citizen to respond to that and do it quickly.
"AUKUS gives us an ability to do that."
Senator Steele-John continued to argue the point through and accused the Labor Party of doing nothing about the plan, which came to fruition after discussions between former PM Scott Morrison and former UK PM Boris Johnson.
Mr Spencer said who thought of it did not matter, but rather Australia's national security, which was seconded by Country Liberal senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, who asked Senator Steele-John what his plan was to "deter risk"?
"What would you do for our sovereignty so shipping lanes can be cleared and we are free to interact with our Asian partners and free to conduct ourselves globally," she asked the Greens senator.
"Considering this all came about because of what is going on geopolitically and we need to deter. What is your plan to deter risk?"
Senator Steele-John then accused the major parties of putting Australia on track for war.
"The path that the major parties have put our nation on now is a path of escalation of tension and where that ends is Australian kids going off to war to die."
Senator Price said, "not if you can deter it in the first place".
Asked how he would sustain national security, the Greens senator said: "I do not want the Australian community bound for the next 30 years to the United States and the UK and to your foreign policy decisions.
"I don't want it and I don't want our kids going to wars that they will start."
It was then that Mr Spencer fired a final salvo, suggesting the Greens senator was mistaken in his views.
"If you think I want your treasure and my treasure going off to war, you are wildly mistaken.
"The reason you have strong national security is to give your state department one more day to make their point."
'Voice hijacked recognition'
Senator Price defended criticism directed at her as an Indigenous woman on Q+A for her "no" stance on the Voice to Parliament.
She was asked by Q+A audience member Aunty Tracey Henshaw: "Why would you want to vote against such a significant advancement for my people, knowing that you would be voting 'no' to both recognition and to the Voice to Parliament? Surely in your heart you want First Nations peoples to take their rightful place?"
Senator Price though stood her ground and said that the Voice had "hijacked" the concept of recognition.
"The element of recognition has been hijacked by what has morphed into this Voice concept," Senator Price said.
"Let's go back to the Uluru statement … warm and fuzzy, feels great and is where this is all borne from.
"It has 250 unelected signatories and I've asked Senator McCarthy in Senate Estimates who it represents and she can't give me a definitive answer."
Senator Price then added that she felt the whole concept did not represent enough Indigenous people.
"Two hundred and fifty unelected signatories … we do not do that to any other race of people in this country," she said.
"[To] expect 0.03 per cent of a particular race of this country sign a document and state that it's on behalf of the rest of that race of people in this country? We wouldn't do it."
Senator Price then said the Voice would not get her support due to only being representative of Indigenous people who had had influence for years.
"If recognition were the only thing we were looking at, absolutely, but the fact that it has been tainted with this Voice, I cannot support it," she said.
"Because that is a transfer of power to individuals who have been at the seat, who have had a voice to government for decades, and have failed.
"I'm representing the voices of those people from remote communities who have said to me, 'We don't support this, we are not being heard in any of this and we are not going to be heard through the Voice either.'"
Told by Aunty Tracey that Senator Price did not speak for her, the senator was undeterred and continued to oppose the Voice.
It was a view opposed by NT senator Malarndirri McCarthy though.
"Let's remember what the question around the Voice is all about," she said.
"The First Nations people who gathered on the country are asking for their voices never to be cut off."
