“Our adversaries are more likely to step back from the edge if they recognise that Australians are united and … willing to endure hardships to defend our values.
“The latest Lowy Institute poll is sobering reading, showing nearly a quarter of Australians saying they would not defend their country. A government I lead would urgently look to change cultural attitudes and uplift national pride so that more Australians believe our nation is worth defending.”
The hawkish comments lead Ley’s third major policy speech since coming to the leadership. Her previous attempts to lay out economic policy and promise tax cuts were largely drowned out by destabilising events such as the frontbench exit of Jacinta Nampijinpa Price.
Peter Dutton and Andrew Hastie at the release of the opposition’s defence spending policy during the election campaign.Credit: James Brickwood
It is highly unlikely that Ley’s leadership will be challenged in the last session of parliament next week. But her closest allies admit she probably has until her first budget-in-reply speech next May to demonstrate an uplift in dire polling numbers.
Before Ley’s attack on Labor over military preparedness, frontbencher Philip Thompson criticised the prime minister for wearing a naval cap at a base in Perth during a press conference.
Credit: Matt Golding
“Military insignia should not be worn by politicians as they make political arguments – it is as simple as that,” he said in a statement. “It was wrong of him to seek to throw political mud while wearing part of our nation’s uniform.”
Albanese’s office was contacted about Thompson’s claim.
Thompson is the junior shadow minister to defence spokesman Angus Taylor, who covets Ley’s position but is biding his time.
Taylor is on a work trip in the US this week and Hastie is undergoing shoulder surgery for a jiu-jitsu injury.
Ley will argue that access to more natural gas and new nuclear technology will fuel defence industries, linking the Coalition’s dumping of the net zero target to Australia’s national security. She warned that wind and solar farms were vulnerable to Chinese hackers and sabotage attacks.
In a nod to right-wing hostility to global institutions, Ley will sledge United Nations in the speech, saying many Australians viewed it with a combination of “scepticism and exhaustion”, especially over its “demonisation” of Israel. Ley has asked shadow ministers to explore new multilateral forums to create global unity.
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Albanese has powered ahead with the AUKUS nuclear submarine treaty and notched up a series of security deals with Pacific nations and Indonesia, even as it has stabilised relations with China. He told this masthead in an interview on Friday that he preferred to discuss the “positives” on China and declined to speculate about conflict over Taiwan.
