Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Richard Marles takes on a speech from McEwen MP Rob Mitchell about deeper engagement in the Indo-Pacific.
“The rules-based global order that Australia helped build from Bretton Woods and that the United States has helped protect is under more pressure and strain now than at any time since the end of World War II,” he said. said Marles.
“As China seeks to shape the world around it, that poses problems for Australia, particularly because China is our largest trading partner. And we value a productive relationship with China and want to see that relationship in the better place.”
Marles said foreign and strategic policy was “not a fundamentalist space” and that Labor would “complicate meaningfully, intelligently and precisely”.
In a brief burst of bipartisanship, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton said he supported Marles’ initial comments but “not the flowery one at the end”.
“This is an incredibly important issue for our country, for our region. It is important for us to have the strongest possible relationship with our allies, not just the United States and the United Kingdom, but India, Japan and others in the region.
“We will support whatever actions the government has to take, the decisions to keep our country safe in a very uncertain world.”
This is a wrap for question time.