The leader of the Opposition has called on Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to disclose what he discussed with Chinese President Xi Jinping about last week’s untimely naval incident.
Despite Mr Albanese’s two meetings with Xi Jinping in Beijing and again in San Francisco at the APEC Summit, tensions have risen again between Australia and China after Defence Minister Richard Marles accused the Chinese Peoples’ Liberation Army of “unsafe and unprofessional” conduct.
Mr Marles’ comments were in response to an incident where a PLA warship continued to move towards the HMAS Toowoomba off the coast of Japan last week, ignoring warnings that Australian Defence Force divers were in the water.
Australian officials have said the warship was seen using its hull-mounted sonar while the divers were in the water, with one sustaining a minor injury likely caused by the sonar pulses.
After Mr Albanese sidestepped questions asking him if he raised the issue with President Xi while at APEC, saying he doesn’t talk about “private meetings on the sidelines”, Peter Dutton called on the PM to be more transparent with Australians.
“He owes it to the Australian people. You need a prime minister who’s going to tell the truth and he also owes it to the men and women of the Australian Defence Force,” he told Sunrise host Natalie Barr on Tuesday morning.
“They want to know that when an action has been taken against them, when one of them gets injured, the Prime Minister is going to speak with a very loud voice.
“What the PM said is exactly right, it was a dangerous act and if only if he had raised or mentioned those words to the Chinese president in a respectful way, but in a forceful way. China’s been critical of us in the last 24 hours.
Mr Dutton said if Mr Albanese hadn’t discussed it with President Xi then he should at least admit that and “apologise”.
“The PM gets tricky with his words. I think the test here is whether he can be up front and honest and open – did he say these words to President Xi or if not, if he didn’t, then apologise. Just admit you’ve made a mistake but be honest,” he said.
The Opposition Leader called the PM’s strength of leadership into question for failing to take a harder stance against China in the wake of the naval incident.
“That is a time where the Prime Minister needs to pick the phone up – in this case he met with President Xi in person… Now he says ‘oh well I can’t tell you what was discussed’ but that goes completely at odds with what he said the day before,” he said.
“I just don’t think on this issue the Prime Minister can get away with cute language. Be up front and honest and open with the Australian people and call out a very dangerous act that could have severely injured one of our Navy personnel.
“If the Prime Minister’s not prepared to stand up and show that strength of leadership at a time like this, I’m just not sure when he ever will.”
(Sky News)
