An Australian government minister has revealed he is still “incredibly angry” with Paul Keating over “insulting” criticism of Penny Wong’s performance as foreign affairs minister, labelling it as a “disgrace”.
Pat Conroy, the minister for defence industry, said the former prime minister was “wrong on the strategic environment we face” and “wrong on the military solutions” and should not have mocked Wong’s diplomacy in the Pacific.
In an interview with Guardian Australia’s politics podcast released on Saturday, Conroy also sought to make the case to the Labor party faithful that progressives should support the Aukus deal.
Some Labor members are expected to raise concerns at the party’s national conference in Brisbane next month, but Conroy argued deterring conflict would avoid an even bigger blow-out in military spending.
Keating has been a strong critic of the nuclear-powered submarine plan, arguing it was “the worst international decision” by a Labor government since Billy Hughes tried to introduce conscription. Keating also argued it would tie Australia’s fate an increasingly volatile United States.
Conroy said he respected Keating’s contribution to the nation, including spurring economic growth and prosperity, “but on this he’s completely wrong”.
Warning that Australia faced “the greatest strategic uncertainty since 1945”, Conroy said Keating’s prescriptions did not properly account for challenges such as China’s pursuit of “the biggest military build-up since ’45”.
“What he said about Penny Wong, for example, was a disgrace,” Conroy said. “I was incredibly angry about it and I’m still angry about it.”
Keating told the National Press Club in March: “Running around the Pacific Islands with a lei around your neck handing out money, which is what Penny does, is not foreign policy.
“It’s a consular task, fundamentally. Foreign policy is what you do with the great powers: what you do with China, what you do with the United States.”
But Conroy, who is also the minister for international development and the Pacific, said: “Any reasonable person who is current with the modern geopolitical contest in our region would understand that one of our critical challenges and one of our critical pursuits is to remain as the strategic partner of choice for the Pacific.”
Conroy noted Keating had “made such a big deal about the betrayal of Australia at the Battle of Singapore, the importance of the battles on the Kokoda track”. Conroy agreed these events were “seminal”, but said they occurred in the Pacific.
“They weren’t sort of big hoity-toity foreign ministers negotiating deals in the conference rooms of Paris or London; they were fought in the blood and mud of the Pacific. And that’s where diplomacy needs to be deployed to avoid that in the future.”
Keating’s office was contacted for a response. The former prime minister has previously argued that designing the defence force around the objective of deterring China from invading Taiwan “constrains Australian decision-making and shreds its sovereignty”.
After Wong told the National Press Club in April that Keating had “diminished” his legacy with the tone and substance of his remarks, the former prime minister issued a statement saying: “I never expected more than platitudes from Penny Wong’s press club speech and as it turned out, I was not disappointed.”
In an email to ministers in March, Keating also warned that the “off the scale” plan to spend up to $368bn on submarines over 30 years would “seriously maim the budget and jam all manner of social spending into the foreseeable future”.
Conroy, a senior figure in the Labor left, predicted a “good debate” about the issue at the party’s national conference, but said he was confident delegates would “support Aukus because it’s in our national interest and it’s a progressive policy”.
The minister referenced a war-time adage that “there’s a worker on both ends of a bayonet” and he said aggressors did not respect weakness.
“War is horrible, war destroys lives, destroys families, destroys hope, takes resources away from what can be done to tackle inequality, tackle poverty – and the best way of avoiding war is to invest in deterrence and strong national defence,” Conroy said.
Australia would spend 2.3% of its annual economic output on defence by the end of the decade.
“At the height of world war two, we were spending 40% of our national economy on defence; we want to avoid that situation because it hurts working people and pensioners the most.”
Conroy also explained the decision to name the South Korean company Hanwha as the winning bidder to build 129 infantry fighting vehicles for the Australian army.
The firm edged out Germany’s Rheinmetall to secure the contract, worth between $5bn and $7bn, with the vehicles to be manufactured in Victoria’s Geelong region.
Conroy confirmed there was “a very small” increase in cost to ensure domestic manufacturing compared with an offshore purchase, but said the decision would deliver “very significant economic benefits”.
“There are certain military capabilities that we need to manufacture in this country to maintain our sovereignty where you do not want to rely on other people.”
