“The challenge now is how we treat them. There is no more important priority for me to enter this portfolio than this question. “
Marles also said the $ 45 billion future frigate program, another hit by cost bursts and calendar deviations, was a “major acquisition that needs to be launched.”
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“We will apply a critical eye to the entire integrated investment plan in the future to ensure that it remains appropriate for the purpose given the strategic circumstances we face,” Marles said. “And as we look at an evolving situation in terms of our strategic circumstances, we will obviously be actively managing it.”
The Minister of Defense pledged to continue to give political will to allegations of war crimes committed by Australian Special Forces soldiers in Afghanistan, and said it was important that the steps taken so far “continue to be supported by the government, as it did during the last government. “
He praised Chief of Defense Angus Campbell, saying: “I think we were very lucky to have General Campbell. [leading the military] while these issues have come to light, ”but he kept his lips shut about whether the new government would extend Campbell’s term, which expires next month.
Marles said it was also important that the new government’s rhetoric about a growing and more aggressive China be “sober” after blaming the country over the weekend for a dangerous interaction between a Chinese fighter jet and a Chinese fighter jet. the RAAF on the South China Sea, labeling Beijing as. “very dangerous” actions.
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“We will not hit our chests the way we saw the old government doing. The focus is on the action we need to take,” he said.
Marles said Australia needed to be “taken seriously in the world” and the power of the ADF was a big part of it.
Marles has returned to the defense portfolio, having served as Labor defense spokesperson from 2016 to January last year, and says he will not be owned by the Department of Defense.
“I intend to be an activist defense minister,” he said. “I am just happy to have the benefit of spending five years as Minister of Defense. I haven’t just started thinking about defense policy, I’ve been thinking about it for a long time. “
In a strong signal that he wants to lead the department, Marles has set up an office in the Canberra headquarters and intends to work mainly from there, instead of the House of Parliament, when it is in the country’s capital .
But one of the first tasks he has is to find a new chief of staff. Despite pressure to stay and run for office, his longtime chief of staff, Lidija Ivanovski, informed him the day after the election that he intended to resign.
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