By Stephen Dziedzic, ABC
Richard Marles has called for calm after a Chinese flotilla conducted live-fire drills off Australia's east coast. Photo: ABC / Ian Cutmore
Australia's Defence Minister Richard Marles has urged Australians to take a "deep breath" over the Chinese warships off Australia's east coast as the Coalition intensifies its attack on the government's response to live-fire drills last week.
The opposition has accused Labor of ignoring the strategic implications of the episode because it has repeatedly stressed that the Chinese vessels have not broken international law.
But Marles said that legal principle was critical because so many Australian vessels moving through waters close to China depend on it.
"It's really important that we take a deep breath here. Our touchstone has to be international law," he said.
"There is actually a greater frequency of Australian naval vessels closer to China than there are Chinese vessels close to Australia."
The Chinese naval task group has moved west into the Great Australian Bight. Photo: Australian Defence Force
Australian warships have conducted multiple freedom of navigation exercises and participated in United Nations sanctions enforcement near China - including in the Yellow Sea and the contested waters of the South China Sea.
While the government has not drawn a direct comparison between Australia's actions close to China and the Chinese warships near Australia, Marles said the same principles had to apply to both countries.
"We rely heavily on international law to be there and it matters that we are there because that is where our trade routes are," he said.
"That's why international law has to be our touchstone."
Coalition slams response to drills
The Chinese naval task group has now moved past Tasmania and entered the Great Australian Bight. Defence said on Thursday morning that the ships were now about 548 kilometres west of Hobart.
Opposition leader Peter Dutton slammed the government's response to the Chinese naval actions and has repeatedly accused the prime minister of weakness.
Coalition frontbencher James Paterson said the drills - which forced dozens of commercial flights to change course - exposed the limitations of the government's strategy with Beijing.
"It's certainly exposed a failure of the Albanese government's stabilisation agenda," he said
"Let's remember that the Chinese government is supposed to be our comprehensive strategic partner, this is not how a comprehensive strategic partner, or a stabilised partner, should be treating Australia."
James Patterson says the incident exposes the limitations of the government's strategy with Beijing. Photo: ABC / Andrew Kennedy
But Foreign Minister Penny Wong said the Coalition had failed to understand the principles behind stabilisation.
"Stabilisation doesn't mean China will not do things with which we do not agree," she said during a Senate estimates hearing.
"China's a great power, its strategic intent has not changed. The only question for those in government or seeking government is how do you deal with that?"
She also accused the Coalition of deploying inflammatory language on the episode, saying it wanted to turn the bilateral relationship with China into an election issue once again.
"The same people who left a massive vacuum in the Pacific, the same people who had no regard for the consequences for Australian exporters or for Chinese communities are at it again, trying to turn China into an election issue," she said.
"The man who once said it was inconceivable that we wouldn't go to war is going to keep beating the drums of war."
ADF learnt of exercise from pilot
Meanwhile, Coalition senators have also grilled the government over why it took so long for the Australian Defence Force to receive a formal notification of the live-fire drills through military channels.
Defence said on Wednesday that it received a warning from a New Zealand ship at about 11am last Friday - about 90 minutes after the exercises began and an hour after a warning was relayed to the government by a commercial pilot.
Shadow Home Affairs Minister James Paterson said it appeared there had been a "breakdown" in communication.
"If our Chinese friends didn't tell us [about the drills] we should have used our own intelligence and defence assets to get on top of this issue, and it is of great concern to me that we didn't," he said.
But Marles suggested the ADF would have received a notification much more quickly if the military was facing a "real" threat.
"To equate what is going on with the observation of a Chinese exercise ... with a real threat, is not fair in terms of what is going on right now versus this is the kind of response that we would have if there was a real, live threat," he said.
- ABC
