KEY POINTS:
- Former Prime Minister Paul Keating has launched an astonishing attack on the AUKUS deal.
- Mr Keating has accused Labor of 'returning to our former colonial master, Britain'.
- He singled out Penny Wong and Richard Marles for criticism.
Former prime minister Paul Keating has attacked the AUKUS agreement as Labor's "worst international decision" since it tried to introduce conscription, accusing his old party of "returning to its former colonial master, Britain".
Speaking to the National Press Club in Canberra on Wednesday, Mr Keating criticised Foreign Minister Penny Wong for "running around with a lei around [her neck] handing out money" in the Pacific.
Mr Keating also attacked US President Joe Biden for "hardly [being able to] keep three coherent sentences together" and described reliance on UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak as "deeply pathetic".
He then flatly rejected suggestions China “has threatened us or will threaten us” as a “distortion” and untrue.
Under the agreement, Australia will build a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines within three decades, buy American submarines in the interim, and host patrols of US and British vessels.
, with a foreign ministry spokesperson accusing the three countries of maintaining a "Cold War mentality".
Mr Keating accused his old party of "returning to our former colonial master, Britain" and shunning security in Asia for "security in and within the Anglosphere".
Mr Keating said Anthony Albanese was returning Australia to its 'former colonial master'. Source: AAP / Leon Neal
Relying on Rishi Sunak 'deeply pathetic'
The three leaders announced details of the deal, which could cost Australia $368 billion by the mid-2050s, at a major ceremony in San Diego.
"There's three leaders standing there. Only one is paying: our bloke! Albo. The other two, they've got the band playing, happy days are here again! The American president can hardly keep three coherent sentences together," Mr Keating said.
"[Relying on] Rishi Sunak, for God's sake, Rishi Sunak, for Australia to find our security in Asia. I mean, how deeply pathetic is that?"
China has attacked the AUKUS pact. Source: Getty / Kevin Frayer
“The only way the Chinese could threaten Australia or attack it is on land. That is, they bring an armada of ships with a massive army to invade us. This is not possible for the Chinese to do,” he said.
“They'd need to come with 13 days of steaming - [there’s] 8,000km between Beijing, or Shanghai and Brisbane. In which case, we'd just sink them all.
“The idea that we need American submarines to protect us … Three are going to protect us from the might of China. Really? I mean, the rubbish of it.”
Mr Keating rejected suggestions he may be out of touch on the issue given he had not received intelligence briefings since the mid-1990s.
"I've got a brain, and I can think. I can read, and I read every day ... You don't need a briefing from the dopey security agencies that we have in Canberra to tell you [China is inacapable of launching a ground invasion]," he said.
The former prime minister claimed the US was punishing China for “the great sin of internationalism”.
“They would have preferred [China] remains in poverty, with 20 per cent of humanity, forever. But the fact that China is now an industrial economy, they say: That’s not in the playbook, what an affront. This is what this is about,” he said.
Mr Keating described former UK prime minister Boris Johnson, who was in power when the deal was announced in 2021, as “one of the great vulgarians of our time”.
'Running around with a lei around your neck'
Mr Keating has accused Penny Wong of 'running around with a lei around [her] neck handing out money' in the Pacific. Source: AAP / Mick Tsikas
Mr Keating accused Mr Marles, the defence minister, of allowing foreign policy to be run by the military.
“[And] running around the Pacific Islands with a lei around your neck handing out money, which is what Penny does, is not foreign policy, it's a consular task,” he said.
“Foreign policy is what you do with the great powers, what you do with China, what you do with the United States. This government, the Albanese government, does not employ foreign policy."
Mr Keating said Senator Wong had taken a decision in opposition to not be at odds with the Coalition on foreign policy.
“You may stay out of trouble, but you are still compromised. Self-compromised,” he said.
Mr Keating said China would “fall over itself” to have a positive relationship with Australia, given potential bilateral trade.
“We have a continent with our own [and] a border with no-one. No border disputes with them. Perfect! [But] no, no, we've manufactured a problem,” he said.
Human rights abuses
Pressed on allegations of human rights abuses in China, , Mr Keating said there were "disputes about what the nature of the Chinese affront" to the Muslim minority is.
A long-awaited United Nations report in 2022 found allegations that Uyghurs faced "patterns of torture, or ill-treatment, including forced medical treatment and adverse conditions of detention ... [and] individual incidents of sexual and gender-based violence" in China were "credible".
But Mr Keating warned Chinese media could also highlight the plight of Indigenous Australians here, saying Australia foreign policy "cannot be about reaching down to the social entrails of these states, any more than they can".
He also took aim at the Australian media, which he claimed did not report on , a major ally just visited by Mr Albanese.
"I'm not going to defend China about the Uyghurs ... [but] you're not honest enough to recognise that the guy that you support, [Indian Prime Minister Narendra] Modi, has the same sorts of problems as the Chinese have," he said.
"No, you're all a soft touch on India. That's the truth of it."
