China Overplayed Its Hand on Critical Minerals

This article was published in the Wall Street Journal on September 8, 2026

It exploited a chokepoint. Now the U.S., Australia and other allies are finding ways to build around it.

Xi Jinping is scheduled to visit President Trump at the White House Sept. 24. Seven weeks later, on Nov. 10, the U.S.-China trade agreement that eased China’s export restrictions on critical minerals is set to expire. But as the U.S. and allies like Australia and Japan collaborate to create alternative supply chains, China’s leverage is becoming increasingly perishable by the day.

When a government exploits a chokepoint, whether Iran holding the Strait of Hormuz or China bringing down the boom on rare earths, it takes a risk. In the short term, Iran or China will achieve asymmetric gains, but over time these returns will diminish. Inventories rise, customers diversify, producers change investment plans, and infrastructure that had been too expensive becomes economical. That’s happening now with China’s hold on critical minerals, and it’s why Beijing’s trading partners are working together more effectively to break that hold.

Looking back, China probably did its trading partners a favor by exploiting the chokepoint it spent decades establishing. Dependence on China for critical minerals has been a national-security vulnerability for those trading partners for decades. We knew that well before China imposed export controls in 2023. 

After its rare-earth shock in 2010, Japan helped finance an alternative supply through Australia’s Lynas, now the world’s largest producer of separated rare earths outside China. Mr. Trump saw the problem coming, too. In 2017 his first administration formally identified America’s dependence on critical minerals as a national-security vulnerability. 

We also knew about it in Australia. My government released Australia’s first critical-minerals strategy in 2019. Six months later Mr. Trump and I agreed at the White House to integrate Australian and U.S. supply chains and bring like-minded countries into the effort. 

These initiatives ultimately laid the groundwork for current actions to create alternative supply chains. But at the time we were missing the binding agent that industry and government needed to overcome China’s grip on the market. Mr. Xi hadn’t begun to squeeze.

China’s advantage wasn’t geology or even technology. It was economics. As I told Congress last year, China routinely kept other suppliers out of the market by increasing the supply, depressing the price, tanking the market and absorbing the loss, making any new venture uneconomical. 

It wasn’t that hard for China, as these weren’t bulk commodity markets, and profits weren’t its primary goal. Global demand for the principal magnet rare earths is less than 100,000 tons, against close to a billion tons of iron ore exported each year from Australia alone. Rare earths don’t need dedicated railways, ports and bulk carriers. Small volumes make a market easier to manipulate, but they also mean market dominance can be less formidable than it looks. 

The West wasn’t helping itself at the time. Western end users happily took the cheaper deal from China, reinforcing the concentration that became their own vulnerability.

China’s decision to activate its leverage changed all this. Over 18 months starting in July 2023, Beijing imposed export controls on gallium, germanium, graphite, antimony and some rare-earth-related manufacturing.

After Mr. Trump returned to office, China imposed further export controls on tungsten, tellurium, bismuth, molybdenum, indium and seven medium and heavy rare earths, including dysprosium and terbium. Shortly before the late October 2025 Xi-Trump meeting in Busan, South Korea, China jumped the shark, asserting licensing control over any product made anywhere in the world containing Chinese rare earths. 

In Busan, Messrs. Trump and Xi agreed to a 12-month truce. The U.S. eased tariffs, and China suspended restrictions and provided general licenses for U.S. end users. This would buy time for the Trump administration to establish alternative supply chains. 

Mr. Trump had already directed agencies through an executive order on March 20, 2025, to fast-track permits, encourage mineral production on federal lands, and use the Defense Production Act to deploy government loan guarantees and investments. A Section 232 investigation was then initiated, and the July 2025 budget substantially boosted the National Defense Stockpile and gave $500 million to the Office of Strategic Capital for credit subsidies capable of supporting up to $100 billion of loans for projects.

The more important innovation was moving beyond individual projects to change the market conditions for alternative supply chains. The July 2025 MP Materials agreement committed $400 million in preferred equity and $150 million to a loan for heavy rare-earths separation. Most significantly, by agreeing to a 10-year minimum floor price for neodymium-praseodymium at $110 a kilogram and an agreement to buy the resulting magnets for 10 years, the U.S. inoculated producers against China’s price manipulation, ensuring their ventures remained commercially viable for investors. 

In October 2025 Australia stepped up again. The U.S. and Australia agreed to mobilize at least $1 billion for priority projects. By April that had grown to $3.5 billion across 11 named projects spanning gallium, neodymium-praseodymium, graphite, tungsten, nickel, tantalum and magnesium. 

A parallel framework between the U.S. and Japan added pricing measures and financing for projects, offtake, stockpiling and a rapid-response mechanism. 

All this is similar to the architecture Mr. Trump and I discussed back in 2019. Our understanding of the threat didn’t change. China changed the price of ignoring it, for government and industry alike. That is the binding agent China has given us. 

Finally, in February this year Mr. Trump launched Project Vault, America’s first strategic critical-minerals reserve for civilian industry, backed by $10 billion of financing from the Export-Import Bank of the U.S. plus nearly $2 billion of private-sector capital. 

These measures haven’t yet broken Chinese dominance, and China isn’t letting up, adding 10 U.S. companies to its export-control list, including MP Materials, in June.

The virtue of the Trump administration’s measures is that they can’t be easily reversed by China’s market manipulation. Floor price and durable offtake agreements boost resilience and provide guardrails for Western participants and tie in end users. These measures change the economics, enabling Western competitors to challenge China’s dominance. Counterintuitively, we have China to thank for it. 

The Busan truce bought valuable time. The Trump-Xi meeting this month may extend that timeline. Regardless, China has provoked an increasingly integrated and scaled response that must now be sustained. Now it is essential to put permitting and the bureaucracy on a conflict footing.

The more Beijing abuses its leverage, the stronger the case becomes to build around it. We can thank China for that.

The GST reforms were not a zero-sum game

This article was published in the Australian Financial Review on August 17, 2026.

The renewed attack on Western Australia’s GST arrangements rests on a fundamental error. It treats the 2018 reforms as a zero-sum transaction in which WA gained and everyone else necessarily lost.

That is not what happened.

WA will have received about $30 billion by the end of the transition in 2026–27. The other states and territories will have received what they otherwise would have, as a result of the transitional no-worse-off guarantee and the GST pool top-up that was legislated. And the Commonwealth, which paid the difference, collected by far the largest share of the windfall produced by iron ore prices remaining well above the assumptions on which the reform costs were based.

All three parts of that equation matter. Ignore the Commonwealth’s windfall and you misjudge both the cost and the fairness of the reforms.

Nor was it an arbitrary concession to WA. The reforms responded to a defect identified by the Productivity Commission’s 2018 inquiry into horizontal fiscal equalisation: that equalisation was being pursued above all else, and that the objective should be revised from giving every state the fiscal capacity of the strongest to a reasonable standard of services.

While the Commission judged the broader efficiency effects of equalisation to be small and hard to quantify, resource development was the significant exception. When a state facilitated major development and generated additional royalty revenue, much of the benefit was removed through a lower GST allocation, even as the Commonwealth and other states benefited.

WA was the clearest demonstration. It invested in the approvals, infrastructure, ports and policy settings needed to build one of the world’s most productive resources sectors, generating export earnings, employment and very large tax receipts for the Commonwealth. Yet without reform, WA’s counterfactual GST relativity in 2023–24 would have fallen to 0.09786, less than a tenth of its equal per capita share. No federation should regard that as sustainable or fair.

The reforms moved the benchmark from the fiscally strongest state to the stronger of New South Wales and Victoria, and set a minimum relativity, initially 0.70 and now 0.75. This did not abolish equalisation; it replaced absolute equalisation with reasonable equalisation. Nor is it the single-state carve-out it is described as. In 2026–27 the floor was not triggered at all, and the benchmark also lifted Queensland in two of the three assessment years used to calculate that year’s relativities.

The Commission’s modelling that underpinned the reform relied on relativity forecasts supplied by the state treasuries, in which WA’s relativity rose steadily to 2026–27, implying mining revenues were expected to fall materially. Commonwealth budgets carried the same expectation, through the prudent assumption I adopted as Treasurer that iron ore would settle at US$55 a tonne. Instead the price averaged roughly double that across the period, and at times exceeded US$200.

The scale can be estimated rather than just asserted. Successive Commonwealth budget sensitivity analyses put the effect of a sustained US$10 a tonne movement in the iron ore price at between $1 billion and $3 billion a year in tax receipts, building over several years as mining profits are realised and taxed. Roughly, this can equate to between $55 billion and $75 billion in additional revenue delivered to the Commonwealth over the reform period.  On higher sensitivities published by Treasury, potentially even more.

Set against that, the reform cost far less. Combining transitional top-ups, the no-worse-off payments and the perpetual boost to the GST pool together, the cost will be roughly $35 billion to the end of the six-year transition.

And here is the point the critics never confront. The cost of the reform and the Commonwealth’s windfall are not two separate facts that happen to net off. They have the same cause. High iron ore prices depressed WA’s assessed relativity, which widened the gap to the floor, which is what drove the no-worse-off payments. Had iron ore returned to US$55 as assumed, the reform would have cost a fraction of what it did, but the Commonwealth would have collected tens of billions less in tax. You cannot cite the cost while ignoring the cause of the cost.

This is why the zero-sum analysis fails. There was a much larger fiscal pie than forecast. The Commonwealth gained most, through company and personal income taxes. The other states were held harmless. And WA, whose resources sector generated the bulk of the windfall and which carried the development risk, retained a fairer share, rather than having it ripped away by the previous formula.

A distinction should also be drawn between the cost of the initial reform and what came afterwards. The transition agreed in 2018, with bipartisan support, was legislated to conclude in 2026–27. The guarantee was then extended three years to 2029–30 by the Albanese Government in 2024, again with bipartisan support, and formalised in a funding agreement rather than being legislated. On the same basis, combining no-worse-off payments and pool top-up together,  those three years will cost in the order of $20 billion, around two-thirds the cost of the entire six-year transition, in half the time.

The disincentive problem now matters more than it did in 2018. Developing Australia’s critical minerals and rare earths, much of it in WA, is no longer simply state economic development. It is a key feature of our national security policy and our strategic alliance with the United States.

The same applies to gas. Australia’s LNG industry is fundamental to our strategic and economic relationships with Japan and South Korea. It is worth recalling that when the reforms were considered, the Andrews Government had a moratorium on even onshore conventional gas exploration and development.

It would be self-defeating to run a fiscal system that tells a state: develop the industries essential to the national interest and we will confiscate most of the resulting improvement in your fiscal position. It would be equally foolish to underwrite states that choose economic self-harm by shutting their resource sectors down, or to strip out the legislative safeguard against both and leave it to the arbitrary choice of the government of the day. What investor or ally would take confidence from that?

None of this is an argument against redistribution. The Northern Territory’s 2026–27 relativity of 5.24 reflects genuine need due to remoteness, dispersion and the cost of serving Indigenous communities. In government I extended a further top-up to the Territory for that reason, and Tasmania’s and South Australia’s positions are not artefacts of a rigged formula either. But equalisation cannot extinguish the incentive to develop.

The debate about how to move forward should not be reduced to the simplistic observation that WA gained around $30 billion. As demonstrated this was not a zero sum game. There were important economic policy issues at stake that were addressed as part of the 2018 reforms and they remain just as valid today, and should not now be overlooked.

Hon. Scott Morrison AC was Prime Minister from 2018–2022 and Treasurer from 2015–2018, when the GST reforms were designed and legislated.

What a ceasefire in the Gulf doesn’t end.

Published in the Australian Financial Review, 11 August 2026

This Gulf war began over a nuclear programme. It is nowbeing fought over a waterway.

That shift is the most consequential development of the past five months. Earlier this month the US pointed to an announcement for 5 August; that day passed, and the four after it. The question is no longer whether the Strait reopens, but who administers it and at what price. Tehran has now published its price.

There are two documents, and they are not versions of each other. The first is the interim mechanism: sixty days, inbound through Iranian waters, outbound through Omani, no tolls during the temporary period. The second appeared on 6 August, when the Revolutionary Guard’s Fars news agency published a bill now before their parliament’s national security committee: American and Israeli vessels barred permanently, entry managed by Iran, exit jointly with Oman, a fee on every vessel reported at up to seven per cent of cargo value. Oil rose on publication. Washington rejected it the same day.

The second completes the first rather than displacing it: the interim arrangement suspends the toll, the bill legislates what is charged when the suspension ends.

This is an Iranian-administered transit regime, not a restored right of transit. A right of transit is exercised; an administered regime is granted, by a party that can withdraw it. Nor is the toll waiver a baseline: Iran legislated a transit fee in March and has been collecting since. The waiver holds only ‘during the temporary period’, and sixty days is the interval the June memorandum used before it was declared void.

This would be the seventh de-escalation announcement in five months. Every previous one was undone within days, and ships are still being hit. Something may well be different this time, though I would hold that view loosely.

Tehran has discovered that its most usable power is not its nuclear programme but its geography. Enrichment invites strikes. A chokepoint is usable in increments, deniable, and with tolls attached it pays. Washington cannot extinguish that claim without a campaign of the scale called off on 1 August, and Tehran cannot have it conceded by an administration facing midterms.

Nor does an Oman deal settle much. Tehran’s foreign minister says one is very close, but says reopening also requires lifting the American blockade, unfreezing assets, ending the war and paying compensation. A framework may be signed this week and the Strait stay shut.

What that produces is not peace and not war. It is durable ambiguity: traffic restored, governance unresolved, re-escalation whenever it is tested.

Any deal to reopen the Strait, no matter how short-lived, will be welcomed regardless. Daily transit has fallen from a pre-war 15 to 20 million barrels a day to an estimated two to five million, and petrol in the US sat at US$4.01 a gallon on 9 August. Here is what an agreement leaves.

First, control of a chokepoint will have been converted into a recognised entitlement, administered in coordination and on a renewable basis. The clearest tell is not the fee. Tehran describes the agreed route as temporary, running until Iran and Oman replace the Traffic Separation Scheme, an International Maritime Organisation instrument. Two states replacing it between themselves is the entitlement, whatever the fee turns out to be. This is a dangerous precedent that will be observed closely elsewhere.

The second is that while a ceasefire will lower the oil price, it will do much less to lower the cost of money.

With US midterms approaching and the Senate now contestable, there is a political clock on the energy component of long yields. There is none at all on the rest.

If long-term rates were mainly an energy story, this war should show it. Early on it did. Then it stopped. On 23 March a five-day pause knocked more than ten per cent off Brent, and the ten-year hit 4.48 per cent within four sessions. Through the June ceasefire, headline inflation fell to 3.5 per cent and the ten-year still sat at 4.49 on 2 July. On 31 July, with oil near US$88, it closed at 4.74, which was its high for the cycle.

The clearest test came in the first week of August, and it had nothing to do with oil. On 7 August the July payrolls report showed the economy had shed 23,000 jobs against a consensus gain of 86,000, with May and June revised down a further 103,000. Yields fell, but barely, and the front end was pricing fewer rate rises, not cuts. The thirty-year closed the week at 5.192 per cent, two basis points below its highest level since 2007. The mortgage rate rose regardless.

While oil has given back most of its spike, the long end has given back nothing. This is not the war’s inflation arriving late: the market’s own ten-year inflation forecast fell from about 2.40 per cent in April to 2.28 in late July. Almost the entire rise in yields is the return demanded after inflation.

This is not only an American story. In late January the thirty-year Japanese government bond jumped thirty basis points to above 3.8 per cent and the forty-year through 4, records for both, and the American thirty-year rose with it. Japanese investors sold US$29.6 billion of American debt in the first quarter alone.

Which brings me back to 31 July, the day the United States and Japan bought yen together, the first such joint operation since 1998. Washington funded its side by selling euros rather than Treasuries, and Tokyo flagged drawing dollars through a Federal Reserve facility that lends against Treasury holdings rather than requiring their sale. Both were engineered to keep Japanese Treasury selling out of the market and for Washington to protect the depth of the bid for its own long-dated paper.

A settlement in the Gulf will remove an acute energy premium, but will leave everything else, because the claims on long-dated capital are indifferent to Hormuz. There are five, and none of them is cyclical: a thinning buyer base for long-dated paper; the artificial-intelligence build’s migration from the equity side of the balance sheet to the credit side; the demographic arithmetic of the care economy; a politics that has left governments less able to consolidate; and the simultaneous rearmament of the democratic world. These are all topics worthy of  greater analysis. Each is already legislated, contracted or demographically determined.

In the Gulf, the headlines will report a ceasefire. What will have been agreed, if anything, is a price for passage, and Tehran has now written that price down. Only one of those ends the war. Neither lowers the price of the capital that pays for everything else.

When the missile is the message: China's patient campaign to make the unacceptable routine

In 1945, in the first free election Hungary had ever held, the communists lost, and badly. The Independent Smallholders' Party took 57 per cent of the vote; the communists barely scraped seventeen. Yet within four years Hungary was a one-party Communist state, and would not vote freely again until 1990.

Communist dictator Mátyás Rákosi is credited with the phrase ‘salami tactics’ to describe the method his party used to seize power. You do not confront your opponent's majority head-on, because that provokes resistance and invites outside attention. You cut it away one thin slice at a time, each too small on its own to justify anyone risking a confrontation to stop it. Add the slices together and the whole is gone.

The same logic is now being applied, patiently and deliberately, to the security order in the Indo-Pacific. The instrument is different; the principle is identical. Never present your neighbours with a single act outrageous enough to unite them against you. Instead, present them with a long series of acts, each only marginally worse than the last, until the outrageous has become ordinary and the ordinary has become your right.

This is the true significance of the ballistic missile the People's Liberation Army Navy fired across the Pacific this week from one of its submarines. One slice at a time, the map of what China may do unchallenged is being redrawn before us.

Consider just some of the slices already cut. In the South China Sea, reefs became artificial islands and artificial islands became military bases bristling with runways and missiles. Each dredger-load of sand was deemed insufficient to warrant a response, until a 2016 ruling of the Permanent Court of Arbitration declaring it all unlawful was simply waved away. In the Taiwan Strait, a median line both sides observed for seventy years has been erased not by any declaration but by the grinding repetition of incursion, until the crossing that once meant crisis barely rates a headline. In the East China Sea, coast guard vessels keep a near-permanent presence near the Senkakus that Japan is expected to treat as the new weather.

To be fair, test-firing a submarine-launched ballistic missile is not, in itself, extraordinary. The Americans, British, Russians and Indians all test theirs, because they need to know they work. Beijing defended their test as  “routine annual training”. Their response betrays their broader strategy.

Look closer. Those other powers discretely test within spaces they control in their own ranges, their own waters and their own impact zones. Their exercises threaten no one. China publicly chose instead to fly a strategic missile clear across the open Pacific, over the exclusive economic zones of Micronesia, Nauru, Kiribati and Tuvalu, who were given no say, to a splashdown inside a treaty-protected nuclear-free zone, on the very day Australia and Fiji signed the Ocean of Peace agreement, NATO allies were convening in Ankara and RIMPAC exercises were under way in the Pacific. The timing was no coincidence.

China’s test carries two messages. The first is normalisation: do the unprecedented thing once, publicly, in the language of routine, so the second time is harder to protest and the tenth is simply a fact of life. The second is capability: proof that China's nuclear deterrent no longer rests only in silos on land but rides beneath the sea, survivable and mobile, reaching across oceans from waters we cannot easily find. Intimidation and desensitisation, in a single launch.

And here is the irony that ought to give the region pause. The closest precedent for what China did this week is not any American, Russian or Indian test — it is China's own. In September 2024 it fired a land-based DF-31 intercontinental missile out of Hainan, across some eleven thousand kilometres of ocean, to fall near French Polynesia, the first time China had sent an ICBM into the Pacific since 1980. Less than two years later the sea-based version arrives, and we are invited to receive it as routine. The 2024 launch made this one thinkable; this one will make the next unremarkable. Beijing is not testing a missile so much as testing us and measuring how much less we will say than we said the time before.

As Prime Minister, my Government was prepared to call these tactics out, and drew Beijing's ire for it with wolf warrior sledging, illegal trade sanctions and a diplomatic deep freeze. Beijing summarised its grievances in their infamous fourteen-point dossier leaked to this masthead, citing Coalition government decisions to ban Huawei from the 5G network, tighten foreign investment screening, pass new  foreign-interference laws, cancel China’s BRI agreement with Victoria and seek an independent inquiry into the COVID pandemic. More revealing still were its objections to “unfriendly” reporting by our free press and to parliamentarians speaking out on Xinjiang, Hong Kong and Taiwan. It laid bare the price of compliance an emboldened Beijing would expect for favourable relations.

China changed tactics after the 2022 election. The mask went back on.  Less bullying and more charm, but their strategic intent has remained, as these latest actions confirm. It would be unwise to let a new complacency set in. Lowy polling now finds fewer Australians since the 2022 election are worried about the security risk China poses than are drawn to the economic opportunity it represents. This inversion of public sentiment in Australia will be welcome news in Beijing, and should be cause for reflection at home.

So what should we take from this? We must refuse the premise: name the pattern out loud, measure each act not against the one before it but against the settled order it erodes, and make plain that acquiescence is a choice we decline. That means continuing to knit together like-minded partners into an effective deterrent — our US alliance and AUKUS, the Quad and Five Eyes, our partnerships with Japan,  India and ASEAN, and lifting defence spending further to three per cent of GDP by 2030 and 3.5% by 2035 as our allies rightly urge. These are not provocations but insurance; they keep the tension in the cord that enables a true stability to prevail.

Rákosi understood something his opponents grasped too late: the danger is never the single slice you can see, but the habit of not objecting that each slice builds,  until there is nothing left to fight for. We hold advantages the Smallholders never had: allies, oceans, and the freedom to say plainly what is happening. Let us not grow shy of doing so.

Trump-Xi summit buys Australia time

https://www.afr.com/policy/foreign-affairs/scott-morrison-trump-xi-truce-bought-australia-time-20260515-p5zxc6

The Xi-Trump summit in Beijing did not reset the world. It did something far more useful. It afforded  stability in a sea of uncertainty.

That should not be dismissed. In the present environment, stability is no small achievement. A war in the Gulf. A disrupted Strait of Hormuz. Higher energy prices. Re-accelerating inflation. A strained Chinese economy. Midterm pressure in the United States. A still-dangerous Taiwan question. Against that backdrop, the most important outcome from Beijing was not a grand bargain. It was the absence of a new crisis.

When Xi Jinping and Donald Trump sat down in the Great Hall of the People, both had reasons to avoid escalation.

Trump arrived with the US economy again exposed to energy-price pressure. The Iran conflict and disruption to Gulf energy flows have revived inflation concerns and imposed real political costs. With midterms approaching, Trump could not afford to leave Beijing with a second-front crisis in Asia.

Xi arrived with his own constraints. China’s economy remains under pressure from a prolonged property downturn, weak confidence, elevated youth unemployment and soft domestic demand. Beijing continues to spend heavily on defence, but the economic base supporting that effort is more fragile than official language admits.

This was not a meeting of unconstrained strongmen. It was a meeting of leaders who each needed the other not to make things worse.

That is why the outcome matters.

On Taiwan, the lines held. Xi gave the expected warning that Taiwan remains the most important issue in China-US relations. Beijing’s readout highlighted it. Washington’s did not. Trump offered no public concession. Most importantly, he did not give Beijing the rhetorical prize many feared: a shift away from America’s long-standing posture.

For the Indo-Pacific, that is significant. Taiwan remains unresolved. China’s objective has not changed. The military build-up continues. But the immediate risk of a crisis is lower when the two presidents are talking, when future meetings are scheduled, and when neither side has an incentive to overturn the table.

This is not peace. It is deterrence with guardrails.

The most concrete result was on Iran and the Strait of Hormuz. Both leaders agreed the Strait must remain open and that Iran cannot acquire a nuclear weapon. China’s opposition to militarisation of the energy route matters because Beijing is not a bystander. It is a major buyer of Iranian oil and has influence in Tehran. It will not become Washington’s partner in the Gulf, but even limited alignment reduces Iran’s diplomatic space.

That matters to Australia. Our prosperity depends on open sea lanes. The same Indo-Pacific system that carries our exports also carries energy, data and strategic goods. Disruption in Hormuz, the South China Sea or the Taiwan Strait is not a distant abstraction. It is a direct economic and security risk.

The trade outcome also deserves attention. The earlier Busan truce has held. Tariff escalation has not resumed. Rare-earth restrictions remain suspended, even if Chinese exports of some critical inputs remain constrained. This is not free trade. It is managed trade.

That is the world we are now in. The US and China are no longer moving towards frictionless globalisation. They are constructing machinery to manage rivalry: boards for trade and investment, channels for commercial flows, and now a proposed dialogue on artificial intelligence guardrails.

This is less efficient than the old model. But it may be more stable. For allies, partners and investors, predictability has value.

The AI element should not be underestimated. A bilateral protocol on frontier models and access by non-state actors will not stop competition between the two technology superpowers. But it recognises that some risks are too large to leave unmanaged. The Cold War had arms-control channels not because Washington and Moscow trusted each other, but because they did not. AI now requires similar discipline.

The theatre of Beijing was also part of the substance. The salute, the banquet, the public language of respect. all of it mattered. Xi and Trump are both political performers. Each needed to show strength. Each needed to be seen dealing directly with the other as an equal.

The choreography also helped both leaders sell restraint at home, telling each other and telling their domestic audiences that they are the most important people in the world's two most important countries. The message: we have decided, for now, to manage each other rather than to fight.

But Australians should not confuse pageantry with settlement. China still supports Russia’s war effort. It remains assertive in the South China Sea. Its pressure on Taiwan continues. The US maintains export controls on advanced semiconductors. The strategic contest is intact.

The right conclusion is not that US-China rivalry has ended. It is that rivalry has entered a more managed phase.

For Australia, that is the world for which our strategy has been built. AUKUS, the Quad, Five Eyes, critical minerals partnerships, energy security and defence industrial co-operation all assume a long period of strategic competition below the threshold of war. Beijing has not invalidated that assumption. It has reinforced it.

This also strengthens the case for practical Indo-Pacific resilience. Japan is hardening its position. South Korea is investing in energy security. India continues to balance strategic autonomy with deeper engagement with Washington. ASEAN states are hedging, not choosing. None of these countries wants a US-China war. Nor do they want a China-dominated region. They want room to manoeuvre.

A managed US-China relationship gives them that room.

For Australia, the opportunity is clear. We should be a trusted node in the regional resilience network: critical minerals, defence production, energy security, data infrastructure, maritime capability and high-standard capital. But we will only play that role if we move faster. Our approvals systems, industrial base and investment settings are not yet aligned with the urgency of the strategic environment.

The Beijing summit buys time. It does not remove the need to use it.

The test for Australia is whether we treat this period of relative stability as an excuse for drift or as a window for execution, whether that be AUKUS, critical minerals, defence industry, AI and space,  energy security and regional infrastructures just to name a few. These opportunities are not about stand alone sovereign capability. This is expensive and extremely difficult to sustain. Our opportunity is to nest Australia’s unique geography,  capabilities and offerings in a new and trusted network of reliable, allied and aligned partners, ie where the friction is least.

The summit’s lesson is hard-headed. Guardrails between great powers matter. But they do not substitute for national strength.

The Xi-Trump meeting was not a breakthrough. In today’s world, that is not failure, it is what was needed. It is strategic breathing space. Australia should use it.

Ignore the headlines. The global order isn’t dead, it’s being reset.

Published in The Australian Financial Review, 13 March 2026.

Spend five minutes scrolling the headlines, and you would be forgiven for concluding the world is falling apart.

The Middle East is on fire. Shipping lanes are disrupted, pushing up oil and gas prices and feeding inflation already straining households. The war grinds on in Ukraine at terrible human cost, as it does in Sudan. Trade tensions are rising. Alliances appear frayed. Sharp words are exchanged between partners who once spoke with greater certainty about a shared purpose.

At the same time, China’s growing power casts a longer shadow across the Indo-Pacific, global markets and international institutions. Critical minerals, rare earths and advanced technologies are being used as leverage. Supply chains are being weaponised. Space is becoming contested terrain.

Beneath all of this, deeper structural shifts in demography, technology and capital markets are reshaping the global economy at a pace not seen in decades.

It is easy to look at this picture and conclude the international order is collapsing, as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney argued on his recent visit.

That conclusion is understandable, but it is incomplete.

The dominant narrative today is one of chaos. Yet, much of what we are seeing is not disorder, but disruption with purpose. Outside the long-term forces reshaping the global economy, much of the turbulence of the past year has been driven by deliberate strategic choices, particularly by the Trump administration. Not every decision has been elegant, but disruption is not the same as incoherence.

What we are witnessing looks less like collapse and more like reset.

For too long, the rules-based order drifted away from the conditions that made it successful. Illiberal states grew more assertive. International institutions became less anchored to the values and mission upon which they were founded. Western economies hollowed out parts of their industrial base. Defence spending declined. Supply chains became fragile. Strategic risks were discounted.

A correction was inevitable. What we are seeing now is that correction happening in real time.

Part of that reset has been a renewed focus by Washington on vulnerabilities closer to home. Issues such as border security, organised crime, illicit finance, hostile influence and energy resilience are now treated as core national security concerns, not peripheral ones. The United States has also taken a harder view of its northern and Atlantic approaches via the Arctic,

In Europe, the change has been equally confronting. For decades, Washington has pressed NATO partners to lift their spending, rebuild capability and take primary responsibility for security on their own continent. The tone has often been abrasive, but the effect has been real.

Nowhere, however, is the logic of the reset clearer than in the Middle East.

For almost half a century, the Iranian revolutionary regime has built influence and tormented the region through proxies, missile forces, maritime disruption and nuclear ambition. Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis and other networks allowed Tehran to project power while avoiding direct confrontation. The result was persistent instability that threatened governments, disrupted shipping, drove up energy prices and injected volatility into the global economy.

The campaign led by the United States and Israel is being fought to break that pattern.

While the disruption has been, and will continue to be, significant in the short term, the long-term goal of a stable region free of Iranian hegemony is far more conducive to what Condoleezza Rice used to describe as a world order that favours freedom, than what we had a year ago.

Destruction, degradation, and denial of much of Iran’s capabilities – including nuclear weapons, conventional naval strength, ballistic missile launch, production and interception capability and weakening of their ability to support their proxy networks – already represent big wins. They have secured air superiority for the US and Israel to strike deep into Iran at will.

This will make Iran a far more manageable force in the region than they have been at any time in their modern revolutionary history. Regime change would be better, but at the cost of escalating into another “forever war” and rendering short-term economic effects more enduring, this would be counterproductive and off-strategy.

That central strategic challenge lies in the Indo-Pacific.

China’s economic rise has funded the largest peacetime military build-up in modern history. Its ambitions in the South China Sea, across the Taiwan Strait and throughout the wider region are clear. The contest now under way is not simply about territory, but about the future balance of power and the character of the international system itself.

Deterring conflict in the Indo-Pacific requires strong alliances, credible capability and sustained resolve. It requires countries in the region to work more closely together on defence, intelligence, technology and supply chains. It requires investment in critical minerals, secure infrastructure, maritime domain awareness and emerging domains such as cyber and space.

This is where the Quad matters.

The Quad was revived when I was prime minister. A year ago, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio sensibly refocused the Quad agenda. I am pleased that included critical minerals cooperation, which I first highlighted at the first in-person Quad meeting in Washington in 2021. This work must continue.

However, the reset also needs to happen at the leader level, to lift the tempo and provide greater opportunity for unscripted engagement to review and set priorities and candidly address current issues within the region. This should include China’s increasing presence in the Indian Ocean and India’s neighbouring states in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and the Maldives. I trust the next meeting in India will be scheduled soon and bring a greater “Indo” focus to the Quad’s Indo-Pacific dialogue

We are living through a period of disruption, but disruption does not equal decline. The United States is not withdrawing from the world. It is repositioning itself within it. It is rebuilding industrial strength, demanding more from allies, confronting adversaries more directly and concentrating its strategic focus where long-term competition will be decided.

That is not the end of the rules-based order but an attempt to preserve it under more contested conditions.

The chaos narrative makes for compelling headlines, but it misses the structural shift now underway. The international system is not collapsing. It is being reset.

Statement regarding NACC rejection of Robodebt Royal Commission findings regarding Morrison conduct

11 March 2026

I welcome the findings of the Investigation Report of Operation Myrtleford, conducted by the NACC that rejects key findings of the Robodebt Royal Commission into my conduct. 

Specially the NACC investigation found that I did not engage in corrupt conduct in relation to the Robodebt scheme. 

Furthermore, the findings of the NACC:

1. clear me of the allegation that I misled Cabinet as to the true nature of the proposed measure and its unlawfulness as alleged by the Royal Commission; and

2. demonstrate that my evidence was not untrue as regards the longstanding practice of income averaging.  As noted in the Investigation Report, the facts disclosed by evidence given in the NACC's investigation presented a 'different complexion' to that during the Royal Commission.  The evidence in the NACC's investigation is that 'there was also a longstanding practice of applying averaging ‘as a last resort’ where, after thorough examination, the compliance officer was unable to find sufficient information to make an informed assessment.'

In her concluding statement Deputy Commissioner Kilgour found as follows:

“I do not accept that Mr Morrison should have realised the NPP was misleading; and, accordingly, I do not consider that his failure to detect the NPP was misleading was in breach of any personal obligation of honesty or good faith. Like other ministers, Mr Morrison was expected to rely on the advice of his department and on the NPP and the Finance Green Brief, and he did so. His failure to detect that the NPP was misleading was caused by the failure of DHS and DSS, particularly of DSS, to advise him and other concerned ministers that legislative amendment was required, and to ensure that the need for legislative amendment was noted in the checklist.”

 A thorough reading of the report also reveals that:

● the Robodebt scheme proposal was not conceived or originated by myself, but by Department officials,

● as Minister, I had no involvement in the administration of the Robodebt scheme, as it commenced implementation after I had left the relevant portfolio, and 

● a safeguard measure was included in the original submission taken to Cabinet to conduct a pilot programme to identify any potential adverse implementation issues prior to its commencement.  

The findings of the NACC investigation have rightly rejected the false political narrative, inferences and perceptions created and promoted by the Labor Government regarding my conduct and involvement in the Robodebt scheme.  

The NACC came to very different conclusions to the Royal Commission in relation to my conduct. The NACC findings therefore validate my previous rejection of the conclusions made by the Royal Commission into my conduct on this matter.

That said, there were significant failures that occurred in Robodebt. Once again I express my deepest sympathy to all those who were adversely impacted by the Robodebt scheme. However, as the NACC found, during my time as Minister these failures were the result of Department officials not providing accurate advice to their Ministers.  

The NACC has rightly concluded that Ministers must be able to rely on the accuracy of the advice provided by their departments, especially on matters of technical expertise, and receive that advice in good faith. Whether they follow that advice is a matter for those Ministers. In this case, I relied upon, and followed, that advice. The Departmental advice and warranties provided to Ministers were wrong.

As I have stated repeatedly, had the Department of Social Services not withheld their advice that legislation was required to introduce this scheme, I believe a very different history would have emerged. 

I gave honest evidence to both the Royal Commission and the NACC Investigation.  I am pleased the NACC has displayed the objectivity and independence necessary to properly conduct an investigation into these matters. This is reflected in their findings. 

I commend Deputy Commissioner Kilgour and all those who worked on this investigation for their meticulous investigation of the facts and thank them for their efforts. I also thank my legal team for their considerable professional efforts and support on these matters over the past several years as these investigations have proceeded.

---

Relevant links: Speech to Parliament on the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme, 31 July 2023.

A rude awakening for Europe only strengthens Western security

Published in The Australian, 23 February 2026.

Europe is having a family quarrel with America. It’s noisy, emotive, and at times undignified. But if you strip away the theatre, there’s a hard truth: the West is not breaking apart. It is being asked to grow up.

For decades, Europe has lived with a strategic comfort blanket: the United States would carry the bulk of the load, and European leaders could spend political capital elsewhere. Welfare states expanded. Defence was trimmed. Industrial capacity hollowed out. Energy dependency was rationalised as pragmatism. Meanwhile, the security dividend was treated as a permanent entitlement, not the temporary windfall it always was.

Now Washington has turned up and said: the bill is due.

A year ago, JD Vance’s blunt message in Munich landed like an insult. It was deliberately confrontational. It was also overdue. Many Europeans heard only the tone, not the substance. The substance was this: Europe is wealthy, capable, and strategically exposed. It must assume primary responsibility for its own security in its own theatre, and it must do it at pace. 

These demands were re-cast in European capitals as a repudiation of NATO, or worse, appeasement of Vladimir Putin. This is nonsense. NATO isn’t being abandoned. It’s being strengthened and rebalanced. And in the real world, rebalance is what keeps alliances alive.

Alliances don’t survive on sentiment. They survive on contribution, credibility, shared purpose and shared effort. When the distribution of costs becomes too lopsided for too long, the alliance corrodes from within. Resentment builds. Domestic politics catches up. And then everyone is surprised when the guarantor starts asking hard questions.

America has hard questions. It has an opioid crisis killing more Americans than most wars. It has border pressures that cut to the heart of social cohesion. It has industrial constraints that limit sustained military production. And it has a strategic contest in the Indo-Pacific that will define the balance of power for the rest of this century.

In that environment, expecting the United States to underwrite Europe’s security indefinitely, while Europe debates, delays, and under-invests, is not a strategy the US could credibly continue. 

Europe is not defenceless. It is not poor. It is not incapable. The European Union’s combined economic weight is enormous. Its technological base is deep. Its human capital is outstanding. What it has lacked is political will and urgency, especially after the Cold War, when too many leaders convinced themselves history had ended and hard power could be subcontracted.

Ukraine shattered that illusion. Yet even after February 2022, the response remained uneven. Europe did more, but it did not do enough, quickly enough. Ammunition production lagged. Stockpiles were thin. Defence procurement remained fragmented. Energy policy, in places, bordered on self-harm.

Then came the Trump Administration’s bucket of old  water to wake them up. No gentle alarm clock. No comforting speeches about shared values while the Americans carry the kit. Instead: meet higher spending targets; build real capability; take the lead in your theatre; and assume responsibility for supporting Ukraine and any subsequent peace.

Predictably, Europe bristled. It always does when America tells it uncomfortable truths, especially when they do not like the messenger. But here’s the part many commentators miss: after the outrage, Europe moved.

NATO’s commitments have shifted. Defence spending targets have risen. At Munich this year, European leaders were talking seriously about integrating their defence industrial base, accelerating dual-use technologies, and lifting interoperability across platforms. Britain spoke of candidly moving from over-dependence to interdependence. France is again raising questions of European nuclear cooperation and collective deterrence.

Iin response to Secretary Rubio’s speech this year at Munich, which basically said the same thing as Vance’s only in gentler tones, he was given a standing ovation and thanked for providing reassurance.

All of this is now being sold in Europe as “strategic autonomy” and independence from an unreliable America. If that helps European leaders get through their day and gain support from their parliaments, fine. But let’s not kid ourselves: it is precisely the outcome Washington has been demanding. The one they cast as the villain, is the same person that shunted them into action, namely President Trump. 

This is where you see the difference between headlines and history. The headlines say ‘Trump rupture”. History will say “US leadership”.

There will be capability gaps Europe must fill - missile defence. strategic airlift. ISR, particularly space-based surveillance and targeting, munitions at scale and  cyber resilience. Defence production lines must also be able to surge in crisis, not just meet peacetime budgets. These are not glamorous debates, but they are the difference between deterrence and disaster.

Europe can do this. Europe must do this.

In Australia, we have a direct interest in a stronger Europe.  A Europe that takes primary responsibility for it’s own theatre frees up American capacity. It reduces the temptation for adversaries to probe weak seams. If the United States is stretched thin across the globe, deterrence weakens everywhere. That is precisely what Beijing wants in the Indo-Pacific.

If Europe believes they are being unfairly singled out, don’t fret, the United States is asking similar questions of us in Australia. As an Indo-Pacific ally at the centre of the century’s decisive theatre, Washington expects greater effort, greater urgency and greater capability from its closest partners.

Despite receiving strong support for AUKUS from two Administrations, it is not a blank cheque. Defense spending at 3% of GDP by 2030 and 3.5% by 2035 should be our minimum commitment. The US will also continue to mark our homework, and so they should. This year’s federal defence budget will be watched closely in Washington. 

While stressing that alliances are valued, the US makes no apologies for making greater demands upon them. That is not cynicism or abandoning a world order that favours freedom. It’s realism. And a realism that will keep free nations free.

Yes, the Trump Administration’s execution has been rough at times. Some statements have been needlessly provocative. But don’t confuse style with substance. The strategic intent is clear: strengthen the alliance by forcing burden sharing, rebuild industrial capability, and prioritise the theatres that will decide the next century.

In time, the noise will fade. The structural shift will remain.

Europe will spend more. Build more. Produce more. Field more. And take more responsibility. That will make it a better ally, not a bitter one, with shared civilisation providing every reason for them to stand together with the US.

The West isn’t ending. It’s being tested. And tests, if met, are how strength is renewed.

Hon. Scott Morrison  was the 30th Prime Minister of Australia from 2018-2022 and is Vice Chair of American Global Strategies, a Washington based geo-political advisory firm.

Washington resets the strategic calculus with disruptive acts

Published in The Australian, 7 January 2026.

Too often, Western analysis of the Trump administration collapses into caricature: incoherent, narcissistic, strategically illiterate and dangerously disruptive of a benign “rules-based order”. Operation Absolute Resolve in Venezuela will likely get the same treatment.

Such commentary cannot get past its own sense of cultural offence at Donald Trump’s style and rhetoric to seriously engage with the substance of what is unfolding. It fails to separate the noise from the sound and mistakes discomfort for insight.

Worse, it assumes that because Trump offends liberal sensibilities, he must therefore lack strategic understanding. That assumption is wrong.

The actions taken against the Maduro regime by the Trump administration should not be understood as the misguided and impulsive theatrics of a narcissistic president but as a deliberate execution of stated US strategy and as a signal that this administration means what it says.

What Trump understands is that America’s adversaries have spent decades learning how to play the global system as it actually exists, not as Western capitals wish it to be. They exploit legalism, institutional inertia, moral hesitation and escalation aversion to entrench power, launder legitimacy and shift facts on the ground.

They do so patiently, asymmetrically and with ruthless clarity about interests.

Trump’s objective is not to preserve a failing system in its degrading form but to disrupt it and reset the cost calculus.

The reason America’s adversaries react most sharply to his actions is precisely because they recognise the threat he presents to their operating model.

Trump’s 2025 national security strategy explicitly warned that decades of inaction had allowed “non-hemispheric competitors to make inroads into the hemisphere”, describing this failure as “another great American strategic mistake”. Unlike many such documents, this was not rhetorical scene-setting. It was a statement of intent and it is now being enforced.

The strategy identifies China as the US’s principal strategic rival and makes clear that their competition is not confined to the Indo-Pacific or Europe. It is global, cumulative and systemic.

Influence banked in Caracas weakens deterrence in the Taiwan Strait. Energy leverage secured in Latin America cushions coercion elsewhere. Diplomatic cover traded in New York is cashed in Geneva, The Hague and the South China Sea. Strategic rivalry does not respect geography.

Venezuela under Nicolas Maduro became a textbook case of this dynamic. What began as domestic authoritarian decay metastasised into something far more dangerous: a platform for external powers to project influence into the Western hemisphere, erode US credibility and entrench a network of criminality, repression and geopolitical alignment hostile to American and allied interests.

China’s role was central. Beijing invested more than $60bn into Venezuela through loans, infrastructure projects, military co-operation and diplomatic backing.

These were not commercially rational decisions. Nearly half of all Chinese lending in Latin America and the Caribbean ended up concentrated in a country whose economy collapsed by roughly 75 per cent between 2014 and 2021 and that suspended repayments in 2020. Any claim that China persisted for domestic financial reasons collapses under scrutiny.

China stayed because Venezuela delivered strategic returns.

First, it advanced Beijing’s longstanding ambition to weaken US influence in the Western hemisphere and promote a multipolar order less constrained by Western norms. Second, it offered privileged access to the world’s largest proven oil reserves, insulating China from future energy shocks or Western pressure. Third, it secured an all-weather political ally.

Maduro’s government reliably supported Beijing’s positions on Taiwan, Hong Kong, Xinjiang and the South China Sea while rejecting scrutiny of China’s human rights record. This was ideological alignment in service of power. These positions should matter to Indo-Pacific allies, especially Australia. Every authoritarian vote mobilised in support of China’s territorial claims chips away at the rules-based order on which regional stability depends.

The notion that Venezuela is somehow irrelevant to Asia misunderstands how strategic competition works in practice.

Trump’s national security strategy thankfully makes clear that the US will no longer tolerate hostile powers using weak states, criminal networks or ideological fellow travellers to undermine American security from within its own hemisphere.

What distinguishes this administration is that it has moved from diagnosis to execution.

That credibility matters because our adversaries take words seriously, even if we do not. Xi Jinping has been explicit about China’s intent to revise the international order and reunify Taiwan, by force if necessary. Vladimir Putin told the world, repeatedly, that Ukraine was not a real state before he invaded it. Iran’s leadership openly proclaims its goal of destroying Israel and exporting revolution.

These statements were not bluster; they were warnings. The West ignored too many of them, to its cost.

The same standard should now be applied in reverse. When the Trump administration states it will secure the hemisphere, dismantle narco-terrorist networks and confront regimes that function as strategic assets for adversaries, it should be assumed to mean exact­ly that. The Maduro operation demonstrates that this is not theoretical positioning

This brings us to the unresolved moral and strategic question at the heart of the international system: why are dictators and transnational criminals so often afforded protections that shield them from accountability? Sovereignty was never intended as a blanket immunity for mass repression, electoral theft, narco-terrorism or strategic subversion. Yet international norms and institutions increasingly have been manipulated to delay justice, dilute sanctions and normalise impunity. The result has been neither stability nor peace but the entrenchment of regimes that externalise their dysfunction and invite hostile powers into positions of influence.

For the US, continuing to tolerate that system would directly contradict its own strategy and undermine its credibility with allies, particularly in the Indo-Pacific. Partners facing coercion from China need confidence that Washington will enforce red lines, not merely articulate them.

Strategic credibility is indivisible. If the US tolerates criminalised authoritarian regimes from it neighbours, its deterrence posture in the Indo-Pacific weakens.

The message now being sent is sharper: alignment with America’s adversaries, sustained repression and criminal governance carry consequences. Not eventually; not rhetorically. In practice.

This is not about regime change as an abstract objective. It is about restoring the principle that power does not grant permanent immunity and that strategic competition has rules that must be enforced if stability is to endure.

The real question, then, is not whether the US acted consistently with its strategy. It did. The more uncomfortable question, particularly for those still clinging to cartoonish readings of American power under Trump, is whether they are prepared to recognise that the global system has been gamed for years and that disruption, not complacency, is now the price of restoring balance.

The Labor Party Made Australia Safe for Antisemitism

Opinion article published in the Wall Street Journal, 19 December 2025.

Australia was a place of refuge for Holocaust survivors seeking safety and a new life. They joined a long-established Jewish community that helped to shape our modern socially cohesive nation. For Jewish Australians, the country represented safety, freedom and opportunity.

After the events of the past two-plus years, culminating in the Hanukkah Islamic Terrorist attack at Bondi Beach, Australia has forfeited this claim. The place to which Jewish people fled has now become a place some now feel compelled to flee. We are a broken-hearted nation. Australia has broken its promise to our Jewish community. 

The Labor Party, which has governed the country since 2022, must accept it’s share of responsibility for these events. Labor played a foundational role in Israel’s creation, but it has walked away from the Jewish state while antisemitism has taken root in Australia, particularly since Oct. 7, 2023. They have left our Jewish community feeling abandoned, alone and unsafe.  

Prior to Labor’s election in 2022, Australia’s support for Israel and the Jewish community was at a historic high-water mark under the Liberal Coalition Government I led. We joined the U.S. to oppose the shameful ritualized targeting of Israel at the United Nations. We ended Australia’s practice of abstention and voted against biased resolutions. Australia became a full member of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, adopted its definition of antisemitism, increased funding for Holocaust museums, enhanced security for Jewish communities nationwide, and recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

We listed both Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist organizations and called out Iran’s use of proxies to destabilize the region and attack Israel. We made clear that Israel could depend on Australia. That ended when Anthony Albanese became prime minister.

There can be no clearer condemnation of Labor than the praise it received from Hamas following Australia’s unilateral recognition of Palestinian statehood.  That decision created political and cultural space for antisemitism to flourish at home. Weekly protests culminated in opponents of Israel marching across the Sydney Harbour Bridge, alongside those calling for a globalized intifada, death to Israel Defense Forces, and the elimination of the Jewish state “from the river to the sea”, while displaying portraits of Iran’s supreme leader. 

At the same time, Jewish professionals, artists and journalists were doxxed. Jewish businesses were targeted and forced to close. Homes were vandalized with violent slogans. Synagogues were attacked, including firebombings while worshipers were inside. Jewish students were ostracized on campus, and academics were intimidated into silence or conformity with a rigid “activist progressive’ orthodoxy on Israel.

In this environment, it is unsurprising that antisemites bent on violence convinced themselves that their moment had arrived. The warnings were clear but the government, either cynically courting Muslim votes or recklessly unleashing forces it didn’t understand, failed to act. The result was catastrophic: 15 innocent people dead, many more permanently wounded, a community traumatized, and Australia’s reputation descrated.

Australia must now write a new chapter, one of resilience, recovery and renewal. We must honor those we mourn: a Holocaust survivor, a 10-year-old girl, a beloved rabbi, a Jewish philanthropist, a young tourist, a brave police officer and others whose lives were cut short. We honor them by confronting hard truths.

Australia has been manipulated by cynical anti-Israel and antisemitic activists. The root cause must be addressed. Antisemitism is the first weapon that must be disarmed. Specifically, in this case, extremist Islamic antisemitism. These terrorists were homegrown. Theyt were radicalized in Australia. The father arrived decades ago; his son was born here. That reality demands accountability.

Leaders within Australia’s Islamic community must reform the institutional structures governing their faith. Unlike other religious communities, there are insufficient standards for accreditation, discipline, oversight and accountability. Islamic leaders have a pastoral responsibility to protect their adherents from corruption and radicalization, to keep the wolves from the flock. This is a necessary obligation for any faith group in a liberal democracy. Christian denominations in Australia have learned this painfully, most notably through the Royal Commission Into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Government must also do better. Social-cohesion policy can’t be reduced to food festivals and cultural performances. It must include a security dimension. Under my government, social cohesion was integrated into our national-security framework through the Home Affairs portfolio. That approach has been abandoned.

Operational reviews following these attacks will identify further weaknesses, particularly in immigration screening, intelligence integration, gun laws and front-line policing. On Thursday the government belatedly said it would implement the recommendations of its own special envoy on antisemitism, which it ignored for nearly six months. These include enhanced visa screening for antisemitic views and visa-cancellation powers over foreigners who engage in antisemitic conduct. We’ll wait and see what actually get’s implemented.

The culture of permission for hateful protest, coercion and bullying, especially in publicly funded institutions such as universities, the arts sector and the Australian Broadcast Corp., must end. In many cases, the laws already exist. What is missing is political will to enforce them. 

Finally, Australia requires a comprehensive royal commission, as proposed by my former deputy leader, Josh Frydenberg. Such an inquiry must examine not only the events of Dec. 14, 2025, but the broader trajectory since Oct. 7, 2023, and the wider challenge of antisemitism in Australia. It must draw on expertise in security, counterterrorism, social cohesion, immigration and intelligence—not only law.

Australians are an optimistic people. Like our friends in Israel and the U.S., we believe in democracy and in the future. We have suffered a grievous blow, but we will recover. Above all, we must again honor the promise Australia made to its Jewish community and ensure this country is once again the safe haven and steadfast friend it once was. Am Yisrael Chai.

Statement on Anti-Semitic Bondi Terrorist Attack

14 December 2025

Unspeakable hate and evil terror has violated our country in the terrorist massacre that targetted Jewish Australians in Bondi this evening.

Prayers are firstly for the victims and their families tonight. I cannot imagine the horror, shock and devastation they have experienced today.

Also sending love and support to all Jewish Australians who have once again been subjected to the relentless anti-semitism unleashed in Australia since October 7, 2023 and that has remained unchecked, too often leaving our Jewish community feeling isolated and abandoned.

This must drastically change for Jewish Australians to feel they can live safely in our country like any other Australian.

A very special thanks and heartfelt commendation to all those Australians who have responded today with great courage and compassion, especially our brave police, our ambulance officers and paramedics, some of whom are in a serious condition this evening.

Praying that those who are being treated tonight will make a full recovery as well as for all those caring for them. Praying also for Jewish community and religious leaders who will once again have to hold their communities together in the face of this awful hatred.

Why the Defense of Taiwan Matters

Article published in The National Interest, 17 October 2025.

The defense of Taiwan matters morally, strategically, and historically. It embodies hope, freedom, and democracy in a region where all are under strain.

Preserving the status quo across the Taiwan Strait is not a niche concern that can be dismissed as someone else’s problem. Whether you’re in New York, Sydney, Tokyo, or Taipei, Taiwan matters. It is a threshold issue for regional peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific and every nation that values its own sovereignty, security, and freedom.

For those in the West tempted to stay out and “not poke the dragon,” let’s call that what it is: appeasement disguised as prudence. If Taiwan were to be forced under the control of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the consequences would not stop at the island’s shoreline. They would crash through global markets, alliances, and supply chains, reshaping the balance of power for decades to come. It would make the global economic shutdown triggered by COVID-19 seem like a sneeze.

As prime minister of Australia, I sought to strengthen alliances and build new partnerships such as AUKUS to deepen collective deterrence against the CCP’s ambitions to impose regional hegemony. From that experience, four truths stand out.

First, Taiwan’s future directly shapes our own. Preserving the status quo is not an act of altruism or convenience. It is essential to collective security and prosperity. The stakes are far greater than the price of semiconductors or even the survival of a vibrant democracy of 24 million people.

If Taiwan were to fall, the Indo-Pacific’s strategic geometry would shift overnight. The first island chain, which contains Chinese military might, would be broken, pushing US forces back to the second island chain and weakening their ability to provide an effective regional counterbalance. A CCP-controlled Taiwan would allow the People’s Liberation Army to project its air, naval, missile, cyber, and space-based power through the Bashi Channel and the Miyako Strait into the Philippine Sea.  

Maritime and air traffic between Japan, South Korea, and Southeast Asia would pass through effectively Chinese-controlled space. Peacetime harassment would become routine and crisis-time interdiction absolute. Missile arcs from Taiwan would push deep into the Western Pacific. Undersea sensors and anti-submarine aircraft would enable Beijing to track US and allied submarines as they transit the Luzon Strait. Japan’s and Korea’s energy sea lanes would be exposed to coercion, while subsea cables near Taiwan, the arteries of the digital economy, could be tapped or severed.

Second, a conflict over Taiwan would devastate everyone, including China. Once it begins, no one can simply reset the board. Even a “successful” invasion or blockade would inflict enormous military and economic losses, degrading the PLA’s capability and crippling China’s economy for years. The belief that a blockade might be a benign alternative is a dangerous illusion. A blockade is an act of war that is likely to escalate, resulting in massive losses for both sides. Sanctions would come first, but in such a compressed battlespace, one miscalculation could turn confrontation into conflagration overnight. 

Third, neither Washington nor Beijing has the bandwidth for a major war, yet. China’s leadership faces immense internal challenges: a collapsing property market, shrinking demographics, and the painful transition from debt-fueled, producer-led growth to consumer-led sustainability. The Chinese middle class has suffered intergenerational wealth destruction, and consumer confidence has collapsed. Rather than shift to household demand, Beijing has doubled down on overproduction, just as the United States and Europe are raising trade walls and tariffs. 

US tariffs under President Trump are forcing China to divert exports to Southeast Asia, India, and the EU. Still, these markets are already pushing back with anti-dumping actions, especially against subsidized electric vehicles. At the same time, US tariffs on goods from Vietnam and Mexico are reorganizing supply chains away from China, undermining its indirect access to Western markets. Manufacturing remains sluggish, deflationary forces persist, and household consumption is weak. China may yet navigate this transition, but its capacity to bankroll external aggression will not be what it has been in the past. Overextending in Taiwan now could prove existential if it fails. 

The United States, meanwhile, has its own challenges to contend with. Ukraine, the Middle East, the war on drugs in Latin America, domestic political volatility, landing bilateral trade deals, court challenges, and civil unrest make for a busy presidential schedule. That said, President Trump’s unconventional approach, which sows uncertainty in the minds of adversaries, combined with an evolving “peace through strength” posture, will likely deter any hasty action from Beijing while he is in office. Also, despite the CCP’s performative rhetoric, it is not in the US or China’s interest to conflate the status of Taiwan into the economic discussions on trade. 

Fourth, resilience and deterrence must be accelerated, militarily, economically, technologically, and psychologically. 

Militarily, Taiwan must double down on asymmetric denial—rather than pursuing parity with Chinese forces—to cripple invasion forces within the first 72 hours. That requires higher defense spending well above current levels and bipartisan unity to sustain it, which is currently lacking. Taiwan’s collaboration with the United States on missiles, launchers, and drones is progressing, but its volume, stockpiling, and indigenous production capabilities remain insufficient. 

Civil resilience is equally vital. Taiwan must harden its energy infrastructure, re-engage nuclear energy capacity prudently, diversify LNG supply, and protect key infrastructural nodes from cyber and physical attacks. In the space domain, it must eliminate single-provider satellite dependence, deploy high-altitude relay platforms to backstop undersea cables, expand earth-observation capacity, and harden and increase the mobility of ground control stations. Access to rapid launch and replenishment, potentially through allied sites in the United States, Japan, and Australia, is essential. 

Above all, Taiwan and its partners must win the information war. Taiwan is today’s West Berlin. The Berlin Airlift succeeded because the free world understood what was at stake. The same must be true now. Taiwan should demonstrate and communicate its determination to defend itself and why it matters. Allies should amplify that story not only in Washington, Canberra, and Tokyo but across Southeast Asia, Europe, and the Global South. Strategic ambiguity is US policy; strategic silence should not be our narrative.

For now, the strategic calculus for a blockade or invasion does not add up for Beijing. But that can change fast. To preserve peace, we must build the capacity and the coalition to keep it. That means preparing now, not debating later, and ensuring Beijing understands beyond any doubt that the cost of aggression would be catastrophic, not only for Taiwan, but for China itself.

Recognition of Palestinian state will not end the suffering

12 August 2025

The decision by the Albanese Labor Government to abandon the longstanding bipartisan policy on a two state solution to unilaterally recognise a Palestinian state, without any of the necessary prerequisites in place, will neither address the urgent priority to deliver much needed aid to Gaza nor deliver a viable two state solution that affords peace and security for Palestinians and Israelis and competent governance for the citizens of a Palestinian state.

It will prove a hollow gesture, like for all those who have taken this step before it. None should take any comfort in it. Meanwhile the suffering will regrettably continue in Gaza and the hostages will remain in captivity and be tossed into the graves their captors have forced them to dig. The only winner is Hamas.

In Government the Coalition listed Hamas as a terrorist organisation. Our Labor successors have regrettably rewarded them through this action. I know this is not their intention, but it is the result. The caravan of appeasement is not one we should join.

Rewarding terrorists will not eradicate their presence but embolden it, and their uncompromising and violent presence will continue to be the primary obstacle to peace and security in the middle east and any prospect of a genuine two state solution.

To the Australian Jewish community, I can only imagine the sense of betrayal you must feel. I remember October 7. Am Yisrael Chai.

Donald Trump’s strikes on Iran a necessary measure to achieve peace, not war in Middle East

Opinion article published in The Nightly, 22 June 2025.

The recent strike by the United States on Iran’s nuclear facilities marks a critical turning point in global security. It is not just a matter for the Middle East or for U.S. foreign policy. It is a test for all nations that rely on the strength and credibility of the international rules-based order and the western alliance for their security, Australia included.

Let me be clear, this strike was not an act of provocation. It was a necessary measure, undertaken as a last resort by a President who wants peace, not war.

The purpose was clear, to disrupt the capabilities of a brutal authoritarian regime that has openly defied international norms, supported terrorist proxies, and pursued nuclear weapons with increasing brazenness.

In times of geopolitical crisis, clarity of purpose and principle is essential. That is why I was compelled to speak out following the U.S. operation. What we have seen instead from the Australian government is a concerning lack of clarity and a reluctance to define where Australia stands when it matters most.

It is in times like this when allies look around to see who is with them. For a country like ours, deeply integrated into global economic and security networks, reliant on open trade routes and US led allied deterrence, strategic ambiguity is not a strength. It is a vulnerability.

Throughout my time as Prime Minister, I took the view that Australia’s interests are best served when we speak plainly and act decisively in defence of our values. That is why we stood firmly with our allies against China’s economic coercion. It is why we invested in AUKUS, strengthening our sovereign defence capabilities and deepening our technological integration with the U.S. and UK. it is why we worked so closely with our Indo-Pacific partners through the Quad to uphold regional stability. It is why we stood with Israel against those who sought their annihilation.

In this context, the U.S. strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities must be understood for what it is: an act of strategic deterrence, grounded in the reality that Iran has long been operating outside the bounds of good faith diplomacy. It is what President Trump meant when he spoke of peace through strength.

For years, Iran has methodically violated its obligations under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), enriching uranium well beyond civilian thresholds, restricting IAEA inspections, and hardening its facilities in preparation for exactly this kind of confrontation. Attempts to revive the nuclear deal have failed, not because the West abandoned diplomacy, but because Tehran refused to comply with the very terms it had previously accepted.

The question facing policymakers in Washington and, indeed, in Canberra is not whether we prefer diplomacy over conflict. Of course we do. It is whether diplomacy alone can halt a regime that has no intention of negotiating in good faith. At a certain point, the cost of inaction outweighs the risk of confrontation.

That is precisely where the United States found itself. Given Iran’s refusal to cooperate with international monitors and its aggressive posture across the region, including arming Hezbollah, enabling Hamas to commit atrocities on innocent Israelis, supporting Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping, the Trump administration concluded that a targeted strike was the only viable option left. Only the US could have taken this step and President Trump should be commended for his courage and leadership, especially by allies.

This was not a broad campaign. It was a calibrated operation aimed at degrading the most advanced elements of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure specifically, targeting Natanz, Isfahan and Fordow. The objective was not regime change. It was to halt Iran’s progression toward nuclear weapons capability and to send a clear message that the West’s red lines still mean something.

Yet here in Australia, the official response from the government has been muted. No strong statement of support for the United States. That silence is telling.

It suggests a reluctance to confront difficult choices and to support our most important ally in the righteousness of the actions that have taken. I believe that such an approach is short-sighted and fundamentally misjudges the nature of the challenge we face.

Australia cannot afford to be passive in moments like this. Our voice matters, not just because we are a U.S. ally, but because we are a middle power with global responsibilities. We sit at the intersection of East and West, of advanced democracies and rising developing powers. Our stance sends signals across the region, from Beijing to Moscow, Jakarta to Seoul. We must make the case for resistance against authoritarian arrogance.

That doesn’t mean we should follow Washington blindly. It means we must be clear, consistent and credible in how we support a global order that has protected our prosperity and security for generations.

This is a time for strategic clarity, not ambiguity.Most importantly, we must ensure our own defences are fit for purpose. AUKUS is not a theoretical construct. It is a practical framework for dealing with the kinds of threats we are now seeing unfold. That means accelerating delivery timelines, investing in sovereign capabilities, and ensuring that deterrence in our own region is not eroded by distraction or delay.

The world is entering a more dangerous phase. The era of risk aversion is over. Strategic competitors are testing our resolve, our alliances, and our willingness to act in defence of shared values. The choices we make now will define the kind of world our children inherit.

We must choose clarity over confusion. Strength over silence. And principle over passivity. We must know who we stand with.

That is the standard Australia has upheld in the past. And it is the standard we must uphold again now.

Trump Can Launch the AUKUS Security Agreement to the Stars

Opinion article published in the Wall Street Journal, 18 June 2025.

No American president since JFK has shown more commitment to space, and the alliance needs to be looking to new theaters.

Time has borne out what I said to President Trump on the White House South Lawn in September 2019: While Australia may look to the U.S. as a vital ally, we will never leave it to America alone to deal with security issues. In that spirit, in early 2020 as prime minister I assigned a small team to engage Washington about the possibility of Australia acquiring nuclear-powered submarine technology. Two years later the Aukus agreement among Australia, the U.K. and the U.S. was born, amid bipartisan support in all three nations. Now, it’s time for Aukus to grow, and Mr. Trump is the right person for the job.

Aukus is a platform for collective deterrence against an axis of autocratic regimes threatening global and regional security, especially in the Indo-Pacific. The agreement’s first pillar enables Australia’s acquisition of its first nuclear-powered sub fleet. Its second pillar facilitates cooperation on advanced military capabilities, from quantum computing to hypersonic missiles. The Chinese Communist Party opposed Aukus vehemently—confirming its strategic value.

Aukus isn’t like other alliances. There are no free riders. Each nation must bring its own capability, commitment and strategic clarity to the table.

Australia is doing its part. Under Pillar I, by 2029 we will have invested up to $3 billion directly into the American defense industrial base to increase nuclear submarine production capacity. No other U.S. ally can make that claim. We are building our own fleet of SSN-Aukus submarines with the U.K. and upgrading infrastructure in Western Australia to support, service, and operate American, U.K., and Australian submarines from our western coast.

Some observers reacted to the Pentagon’s current review of Aukus as if it spells the alliance’s doom. But a review—which isn’t unusual for an incoming administration—is a chance to refocus and recalibrate.

The review is motivated by the shortfall of U.S. nuclear-submarine production. The current output of Virginia-class submarines is around 1.3 a year, below the 2.33 needed to meet both Aukus and American naval commitments. This threatens the timeline for Australia to acquire its first boats from the U.S. and ultimately undermines deterrence. Mr. Trump’s commitment to fixing this shortfall is welcome and essential.

America is also calling on Australia to lift its defense spending to above 3% of gross domestic product. That isn’t an unreasonable request. The U.S. can’t be expected to carry the world’s security burden in isolation, and Washington has been right to push for similar commitments from allies in and outside the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Australia stood with America in every major conflict for over a century, even when others turned their backs. Our interests and loyalties are strongly aligned. A stable Indo-Pacific is critical to Australia’s security and prosperity. That includes protecting the status quo in Taiwan, freedom of navigation, and the rule of law. Washington can rely on us to turn up when it counts.

As the Trump administration examines how to improve Aukus, there’s another important factor—space. If our nations are serious about deterrence, then we must prepare for new theaters of geopolitical competition. The global space economy now exceeds $630 billion and is projected to nearly triple in value by 2035. But space is no longer a benign domain. It is contested, competitive and strategically vital. As Gen. Stephen Whiting, commander of U.S. Space Command, warned Congress this spring, space superiority has become foundational to homeland defense and global deterrence.

Beijing is already operating dual-use civil-military technology across its space sector—launching maneuverable satellites, conducting co-orbital rendezvous operations, and testing systems capable of disabling adversary assets, such as its Shenlong spaceplane. China has also deployed ground-based lasers and high-powered microwaves capable of targeting Western satellites. Russia regularly jams satellite communications and spoofs GPS, and Moscow has tested destructive antisatellite capabilities.

No American president since John F. Kennedy has shown more commitment to space than Mr. Trump, from backing the Artemis Moon to Mars program to creating the U.S. Space Force and promoting commercial innovation through public-private partnerships and now the Golden Dome. That leadership makes him the natural champion of an Aukus Pillar III that consolidates cooperation across launch systems, satellite architecture, cybersecurity, data integration and industrial innovation.

This would enable better coordination of allied space policies and create shared standards across defense and commercial systems. It should also provide a platform for integrating non-Aukus allies such as Japan and NATO members into the same architecture. That would make clear that the allies’ space systems are resilient, interconnected and can’t be targeted in isolation.

Australia brings unique advantages to this effort. We already host U.S. assets like the Space Surveillance Telescope and C-Band radar in Western Australia. We’re also leading the Aukus allies’ effort to develop Deep Space Advanced Radar Capability, or DARC. Due to be operational in 2026, DARC will track objects in geosynchronous orbit, which includes some of the most valuable and vulnerable satellite assets.

Our Southern Hemisphere geography gives us lines of sight inaccessible from the north. Australia is the only Five Eyes nation in the southern half of the planet with the large landmass and secure jurisdiction critical for both passive surveillance of space and active launch capabilities.

Our private space sector is also already working to establish new sovereign launch capabilities. I’m proud to be part of Space Centre Australia’s initiative to establish the Atakani Space Port near Weipa in northern Queensland. At a latitude of only 12 degrees south, it will be the closest equatorial launch site in a secure allied jurisdiction, superior in location to Florida’s Cape Canaveral or Texas’ Boca Chica. For polar orbits, Australia also has Whalers Way in southern Australia. Both launch corridors provide secure and commercially viable solutions for allied and dual-use payloads. These are the launchpads of deterrence in the space age.

Establishing a Pillar III would ensure that space, the ultimate high ground, is secured by free nations, not our enemies. America and Australia have stood shoulder to shoulder on land, at sea and in the skies. Now we must do the same in orbit.

US AUKUS Review: Perspective and Purpose

12 June 2025

The current US Department of Defense review of AUKUS is well within its remit and not unlike the strategic assessment recently conducted by the new UK Government following the election of Prime Minister Starmer. This is a departmental review, not a policy decision, and should not be over-interpreted.

The focus of the review is not new and rightly centres on US submarine production rates. This is a known and genuine challenge for the US industrial base. This goes directly to the maintenance and expansion of the US submarine fleet, and it’s an area where Australia is already uniquely contributing under AUKUS Pillar I. Importantly, this is also a challenge the Trump Administration is committed to addressing.

AUKUS is fundamentally about strengthening collective deterrence, particularly in the Indo-Pacific against potential adversaries. Pillar I is about more submarines, not fewer, across all three partners. Pillar II, and the development of the trilaterally-produced AUKUS-class submarine with the UK, continues to move forward with strategic purpose.

The case for AUKUS was first built on convincing the US and UK defence institutions during the period of the first Trump Adminsitration and the Johnson Government about the technical merit, sovereign capability, and shared security interests. It has enjoyed bipartisan and institutional support in both Washington and London from the outset. That foundation matters and was important to secure.

As the Pentagon leads this review, the depth of US-Australia engagement, the professionalism of our collaboration, and the consistent backing from Secretary Hegseth, as reaffirmed in his discussions with Minister Marles, remain reasons for continued confidence.

Now is the time for Australia to make the case again. We have a good case to make in both our own interests and those of our AUKUS partners, especially in the US.

Award of the Companion of the Order of Australia

9 June 2025

I am honoured and grateful to have been awarded the Companion of the Order of Australia. It was an immense privilege to be given the opportunity by the Australian people to serve them as their 30th Prime Minister of Australia from August 2018 to May 2022.

During this time Australia faced challenges and threats not experienced since the second world war. These ranged from unrelenting natural disasters and a once in a century global pandemic and the recession it caused, to coercion and intimidation designed to threaten our support for a free and open Indo-Pacific, a world order that favours freedom and our strong bond with allies and partners.

Australians responded to these events in the best traditions of Australian patriotism and mateship with trade-mark courage and a care for their country and one another. This was especially displayed by the men and women of our defence forces, both at home supporting their fellow Australians in crisis and serving our interests overseas. Australians showed their capacity and determination to adapt and overcome. This is why Australia proudly prevailed and will continue to be able to do so in the future. As Prime Minister it was these innate qualities of Australians that I and my Government relied upon to lead Australia through these myriad crises and keep Australians together.

However, we also took our opportunities. We worked to deepen and strike new alliances like AUKUS and embrace new economic opportunities by extending our trade partnerships and to develop our industries and skills and ensuring that Australia sought to live within its means. We did this to keep our economy strong, because we understood that a strong economy will always be the foundation for keeping Australians safe and delivering the essential services that Australians rely on.

In accepting this honour I thank the Australian people and my many colleagues, including State and Territory leaders and in particular Hon. Josh Frydenberg, Hon. Michael McCormack, Hon. Greg Hunt and Hon Marise Payne. I am also grateful to the Leaders of our AUKUS, QUAD, Five Eyes and Pacific family partners who I served with to take on the global challenges we faced together.

I thank the Liberal Party and the people of Cook for the honour of representing them in the Australian parliament. I am thankful to my many staff, led by Dr John Kunkel, for their dedication, skill and professionalism that enabled us to serve our country during incredibly testing times. Above all, I am exceedingly grateful to my wife Jenny, daughters Abbey and Lily, my mother Marion and late father John, and all my family and friends for their self-less love, support and sacrifice that enabled me to follow my passion to serve our country.

In closing I acknowledge my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, the author of my faith, in whose joyful service and care I will remain forever. God bless Australia.

80th anniversary of bilateral relations with the Netherlands

17 April 2022

As Australia and the Netherlands mark 80 years since the establishment of full diplomatic relations, we can reflect with pride on the warm friendship we share.

From the Duyfken’s exploration of the north coast of Australia in 1606, to the contribution made by generations of the thousands of men and women of Dutch heritage to this country, Australia and the Netherlands share enduring bonds of friendship and family.

Our historic defence ties, forged on the battlefields and in the skies of the Second World War, were strengthened most recently by our military partnership in Afghanistan. Today, we stand united in support of the rules-based international order, our defence of human rights and the rule of law.

As we continue to pursue truth, justice and accountability for the downing of MH17, we also stand together in supporting Ukraine as it defends its sovereignty and territorial integrity. 

Australia values our cooperation with the Netherlands in supporting our neighbours in the Indo-Pacific, to ensure a region that is open, stable and resilient.

The strong trade relationship between Australia and the Netherlands is the foundation for our collaboration in other areas, such as the green economy and cyber security. Through our growing engagement with global fora, we will cooperate to advance our mutual economic prosperity and stability.

For 80 years, Australia and the Netherlands have worked in unison to build and enhance our strong bilateral relationship. I am proud of what we have achieved in the name of friendship and cooperation, and I look forward to the many opportunities that lie ahead.

https://pmtranscripts.pmc.gov.au/release/transcript-44186

Brisbane 2032 Board

10 April 2022

Premier and Prime Minister announce the final five Board directors and Andrew N. Liveris AO as the President of the Organising Committee Board for the Brisbane 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games

Leaders of business and industry have been named among the final five people who will be the President and independent directors on the Board of the Brisbane Organising Committee for the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games (OCOG).

The five comprise:

Andrew N. Liveris AO (President) Chairman Lucid Motors and Blackrock Long Term Private Capital. Former Chairman and CEO of Dow Chemical Company. Former student Brisbane State High School and The University of Queensland. 

Rob Scott Olympian. Silver medallist rowing 1996 Atlanta. President and Chairman Rowing Australia.  CEO and Managing Director Wesfarmers Ltd.

Sarah Kelly OAM. Associate Professor Marketing and Law - The University of Queensland, Deputy Chair Brisbane Lions AFLFC and Tourism and Events Queensland. Queensland leader of the Minerva Network mentoring professional sportswomen with women business leaders. Awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia for services to sports administration and tertiary education.

Brett Clark Founder and Managing Director ePharmacy. Managing Partner Chemist Warehouse Qld and Northern NSW. Chairman Queensland Rugby Union. Former Director Queensland Ballet. Brett is well known for philanthropic and community work including Mater Little Miracles and Bridgeworks.

Shelley Reys AO. Co-Chair Reconciliation Australia, CEO Arrilla Indigenous Consulting. Instrumental in events including The People’s Walk for Reconciliation, Parliament’s Apology to the Stolen Generation, Australia Day and the Australian of the Year Awards. Partner and Board Member KPMG Australia.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the Commonwealth and Queensland Governments had worked closely to select leaders who would bring the experience, skills and drive that would help make the Games a success.

“These Games aren’t just an opportunity for our next generation of sporting talent, but they’re an opportunity to further unlock the potential of Queensland and spread the benefits across the country,” the Prime Minister said.

“The Board of the Organising Committee represents some of this country’s most successful leaders who will ensure the 2032 Games are the world’s best ever.”

The Premier and Minister for the Olympics Annastacia Palaszczuk said the Board reflects a breadth and depth of experience that also has its heart firmly in Queensland.

“This will be the biggest single transformational event in a generation,” the Premier said.

“Our job is to honour the commitments I made to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) but also provide a lasting legacy for our State and I am confident that is exactly what we will achieve.”

The five new independent directors join 16 other directors who come from diverse backgrounds, including multiple Olympic and Paralympic representatives.

Other board members include John Coates AC, Vice President of the IOC and the President of the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC), the President of Paralympics Australia Jock O’Callaghan, Brisbane Lord

Mayor The Right Honourable Councillor Adrian Schrinner, three-time Olympian Bronte Barratt OAM OLY and the triple Paralympic gold medallist Kurt Fearnley AO PLY.

Adrian Schrinner Lord Mayor of Brisbane City Council said the critical stage of forming the OCOG Board for Brisbane 2032 was an important step forward.

“We are officially off and running now with the Board announced, and with 10 years to go we have time to ensure Brisbane is ready to be on the world stage in 2032.”

John Coates said Andrew Liveris is well-known to the IOC as the Chair of a former worldwide sponsor of the Olympic Games and the IOC is well-known to him.

“He adds tremendous value and international credibility.

“The strong representation of Olympians and Paralympians on the Board will ensure athletes remain the focus of our preparations,” Mr Coates said.

Mr Jock O’Callaghan, President of the Australian Paralympic Committee said Brisbane 2032 was already setting a new standard.

“I am pleased to see the diversity of the Board, with representatives advocating for our First Nations People, and voices championing accessibility, inclusion, and the regions to ensure tangible and meaningful conversations are had at the Board table,” Mr O’Callaghan said.

Mr Liveris, the newly announced President of the OCOG Board, led Dow as a TOP (The Olympic Partner) sponsor of the IOC in 2010, becoming the Sustainability Partner to create the ‘Green Olympics’, with London 2012 being the first of its kind in minimising the impact of the Olympics on the environment. Recycling technologies for building materials and water management were introduced, as well as designing and implementing carbon emissions and climate change strategies.

Mr Liveris said he expects his new role will be one of the greatest and most satisfying opportunities to contribute to Australia.

“I have worked around the world and I have always attributed my success to my study at the University of Queensland, so Brisbane holds a special place in my heart.

“I am honoured to have been asked to make an important contribution to our State and nation in this critical role,” Mr Liveris said.

The Board will ensure the OCOG raises revenue through sponsorship, philanthropy, ticketing and Brisbane 2032 merchandise, manages the temporary overlay and operation of the venues, and recruits the

Brisbane 2032 volunteers, to make the Brisbane 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games a memorable and successful experience for all.

The inaugural meeting of the OCOG Board will be held later this month.

The Board of the Brisbane Organising Committee for the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games (OCOG)

President:

• Andrew N. Liveris AO

Vice Presidents:

• The Honourable Annastacia Palaszczuk MP, Premier and Minister for the Olympics

• Senator the Honourable Richard Colbeck, Federal Minister for Senior Australians and Aged Care Services and Minister for Sport

• The Right Honourable the Lord Mayor of Brisbane Councillor Adrian Schrinner, Brisbane City Council

• Mr John Coates AC, Vice President of the International Olympic Committee and AOC President

• Mr Jock O’Callaghan, President of Paralympics Australia

Board Directors:

• Robyn Smith, Australian member of the International Paralympic Committee Governing Board

• Matt Carroll AM, CEO of the Australian Olympic Committee

• The Honourable Steven Miles MP

• Mayor of Redland City Councillor Karen Williams

• Ted O’Brien MP

• Bronte Barratt OAM OLY

• Kurt Fearnley AO PLY

• Patrick Johnson OLY

• Natalie Cook OAM OLY

• Tracy Stockwell OAM

• Rebecca Frizelle OAM

• Sarah Kelly OAM

• Shelley Reys AO

• Rob Scott OLY

• Brett Clark

Brisbane 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games Organising Committee Summary of the Board Directors

Andrew N. Liveris AO (President)

Andrew N. Liveris AO is a proud Australian with strong ties to Queensland. He moved to Queensland as a teenager and studied at Brisbane State High School, before graduating with a degree in Chemical Engineering from The University of Queensland in 1976, where Mr Liveris recently established an Academy for Leadership and Innovation to nurture leaders for the 21st century. His career at Dow Chemical spanned 42 years, with roles in manufacturing, engineering, sales, marketing, business and general management, across three continents. This culminated in Andrew serving as Chairman and CEO for 15 years for an organisation that employed over 60,000 people across 160 countries. He is currently Chairman of Lucid Motors and Blackrock Long Term Private Capital, a director of IBM and the Minderoo Foundation and is a member of The B Team. Mr Liveris has significant experience and relationships globally across the public, private and philanthropic sectors and is dedicated to making the Brisbane 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games memorable and successful for all.

Sarah Kelly OAM

Dr Sarah Kelly OAM is an accomplished business leader and company director, with over 20 years of combined experience within the sports, marketing, law, education and waste management sectors.

In addition to a PhD in sports marketing and her legal qualifications, Sarah holds an MBA and a Bachelor of Commerce from The University of Queensland where she is an Associate Professor in marketing and law and the co-leader of a trust, ethics and governance research hub. Sarah is currently the Deputy Chair of The Brisbane Lions AFLFC and Tourism and Events Queensland.

Sarah is passionate about sports and its impacts on local, national and international communities. She is the Queensland Leader of the Minerva Network, a national network uniting female business leaders with professional sportswomen through mentoring, advocacy and training, and Founder and Director of the Sports Diplomacy Alliance. In 2021, Sarah was awarded an Order of Australia Medal for her services to sports administration and to tertiary education.

Shelley Reys AO

Ms Shelley Reys AO is a Djiribul woman of far north Queensland and a respected Indigenous specialist, strategist and service provider. She has been a leader in the corporate, Indigenous and reconciliation space for nearly three decades.

As CEO of Arrilla Indigenous Consulting, Shelley has been helping the Australian workforce to work in the Indigenous space with greater skill and confidence. She is also a Partner and Board member of KPMG Australia.

She is known for her role in leading large conversations and events of national importance, including The Walk for Reconciliation across the Sydney Harbour Bridge, Parliament’s apology to The Stolen Generations, Co-Chair of Reconciliation Australia, and Vice Chairman of the National Australia Day Council. Shelley has been named by the Australian Financial Review as one of Australia’s 100 Women of Influence and awarded the prestigious Officer of the Order of Australia in honour of her nation-building work. Her vision is “to create a culturally competent Australia, one workplace at a time”.

Brett Clark

Mr Brett Clark is the Founder and Managing Director of ePharmacy and the Managing Partner of Chemist Warehouse stores in Queensland and Northern NSW. He negotiated the merger of the two companies in 2004, which is now the largest privately owned pharmacy group in Australia with over $6 billion in sales and more than 500 stores employing approximately 17,000 staff.

Brett has enjoyed a lifelong connection to Rugby and played at Brisbane Boys Grammar School. He is currently the Chair of Queensland Rugby Union (QRU) as well as Chair of the QRU Foundation, which aims to improve participation and enjoyment across all levels of Rugby Union in Queensland. Brett was also a director of Queensland Ballet for 10 years, and served the last six years of his tenure as Chair before retiring in 2019.

Brett is a well-known philanthropist in Queensland and has assisted his wife over the past 15 years in raising over 1.5 million dollars for the Neo-Natal Intensive Care Unit at the Mater Hospital in Brisbane. He has also held past board and committee positions in the not-for-profit sector, including Chair of Bridgeworks - a registered training organisation owned by the Sisters of Mercy, and a founding committee member of the Mater Little Miracles.

Rob Scott OLY

Mr Rob Scott OLY is a dual Olympian in rowing, having stroked the Eight at the Barcelona Olympic Games in 1992 and winning a silver medal in the Pair at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games. He has been the President and Chairman of Rowing Australia since 2014 and oversaw preparations for the 2016 Rio and 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Rob has significant experience in business, leadership, major projects, governance and public affairs, across a range of industries in Australia and internationally. He is the CEO and Managing Director of Wesfarmers Limited, a top ten ASX-listed company with an annual turnover of $34 billion and employing over 120,000 people. Rob has previously worked with Deutsche Bank in Asia and Australia in various investment banking roles and is a past President of the Insurance Council of Australia.

Rob holds a Master of Applied Finance degree from Macquarie University and a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the Australian National University. He is a qualified Chartered Accountant and has completed the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School.

https://pmtranscripts.pmc.gov.au/release/transcript-43953

Australia To Gift 20 Bushmasters To Government Of Ukraine

8 April 2022

The Australian Government will provide further support to the Government of Ukraine by gifting 20 Bushmaster Protected Mobility Vehicles, including two ambulance variants, to aid the Government of Ukraine’s response to Russia’s unrelenting and illegal aggression. Australia’s response follows a direct request from President Zelenskyy during his address to the Australian Parliament on 31 March 2022.

The Bushmaster was built in Australia to provide protected mobility transport, safely moving soldiers to a battle area prior to dismounting for close combat. The Bushmaster is well suited to provide protection to the Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers and Ukrainian civilians against mines and improvised explosive devices, shrapnel from artillery and small arms fire.

The 20 vehicles are painted olive green to suit the operating environment. Additionally, a Ukrainian flag is painted on either side with the words “United with Ukraine” stencilled in English and Ukrainian to acknowledge our commitment and support to the Government and people of Ukraine. The ambulances will have the traditional Red Cross emblem.

The Bushmaster will be fitted with radios, a global positioning system and additional bolt-on armour increasing their protection. Defence will continue to work with the Government of Ukraine to develop a suitable logistics support package, while training will be conducted through Army video training with Ukrainian subtitles.

To date, Australia has committed a total of around $116 million of Defensive Military Assistance to Ukraine, the addition of these vehicles takes our commitment to around $165 million. In addition, Australia is delivering 70,000 tonnes of coal to power Ukraine’s resistance, on top of $65 million in humanitarian assistance for the people of Ukraine, with a focus on protecting women, children and the elderly, including for food, shelter and emergency medical supplies.

The Government will not disclose further specific details of delivery arrangements at the direct request of Ukrainian officials and our other partners.

The Australian Government will continue to identify opportunities for further Defensive Military Assistance where it is able to provide a required capability to the Ukraine Armed Forces expeditiously.

Australia stands with the Government and people of Ukraine, and calls on Russia to cease its unprovoked, unjust and illegal invasion of Ukraine. The Australian Government will continue to take steps, together with our partners, to ensure Russia pays the highest possible price for its actions.

https://pmtranscripts.pmc.gov.au/release/transcript-43947