Labor has hit back at Peter Dutton’s claim that the only way to “preserve peace is to prepare for war”, suggesting the Coalition’s actions fall short of its words.
The defence minister made the comments on Anzac Day morning, warning that “people like Hitler” are not “consigned to history” and Australia must do more to stand up to China’s aggression in the region.
China’s security agreement with Solomon Islands has injected national security as a central issue of the federal election campaign, with Labor declaring it the worst foreign policy failure since the second world war.
On Monday, Scott Morrison said that Australia shares the same “red line” as the US and that a Chinese base in the south Pacific would be unacceptable, but did not spell out what Australia would do if this occurred.
The prime minister told the Anzac Day service in Darwin that an “arc of autocracy” is challenging the international rules-based order, citing war in Europe and “coercion” in the Indo-Pacific region.
Dutton told Channel Nine’s Today the comments reflect “the reality of our time”, and the past sacrifices of the Anzacs in conflicts will not “see us through to eternity without conflict in our region”.
“We have to be realistic that people like Hitler and others aren’t just a figment of our imagination or that they’re consigned to history.
“We have, [in Russian] president Putin at the moment, somebody who is willing to kill women and children. That’s happening in the year 2022.”
Without wanting to “overegg” the threat, Dutton claimed that China was “on a very deliberate course at the moment”.
“We have to stand up with countries to stare down any act of aggression … to make sure we can keep peace in our region and for our country.”
“The only way you can preserve peace is to prepare for war and be strong as a country. Not to be on bended knee and be weak.”
Responding to suggestions that the claim was provocative, Dutton said it was “the lesson of history” and believing past sacrifices were enough would cause us to “repeat the mistakes of history”.
“We’re in a period very similar to the 1930s now and I think there were a lot of people in the 1930s who wish they had spoken up much earlier into the decade.”
Labor’s deputy leader, Richard Marles, responded that “we certainly need to prepare, but we have not seen the preparation under this government”.
“Words are one thing, action is another,” he told reporters in Darwin. “This is a government which beats its chest.
“When it comes to actually delivering, and doing what needs to be done, it’s a government which repeatedly fails.”
Marles cited the fact Australia has had six defence ministers in nine years and argued that failures in management of procuring submarines had opened up a 20-year capability gap.
“This is a government which repeatedly fails as it has in its management of relationships in the Pacific, as it has in terms of the [sale of the] Darwin port.”
In September, the Coalition announced a $90bn defence pact with the US and UK to include purchase of nuclear submarines.
The decision to tear up a contract to buy conventional submarines from France’s Naval Group at a cost of up to $5.5bn prompted concerns of a capability gap with Collins-class submarines to be in use until 2050.
On Monday Labor announced if elected it would spend $520m to boost veterans’ support, including clearing a backlog of 60,000 unresolved claims for payments.
Labor’s shadow defence minister, Brendan O’Connor, told Radio National that Labor had “grave concerns” if China established a naval base in Solomon Islands.
O’Connor said Morrison’s “post-facto rhetoric” about red lines was a “reactive” approach when what was needed was “better investment, better engagement in the region”.
“Given the change in tone and rhetoric used by the prime minister … We will seek a briefing from the prime minister.”
Dutton’s comments on Monday echo a controversial speech last Anzac day by the secretary of the home affairs department, Michael Pezzullo, warning that “the drums of war beat … [at] times more loudly and ever closer”.
Pezzullo suggested Australia must be prepared to “send off, yet again, our warriors to fight the nation’s wars” if it cannot secure peace.
In 2019, the Liberal MP and then chair of the parliamentary joint committee on intelligence and security, Andrew Hastie, compared the west’s attitude to China to France’s inadequate defences against Nazi Germany.
