Solomons, China Dominate Australia Defense Debate Ahead of Polls

(Bloomberg) -- The two men who want to lead Australia's military and intelligence agencies after the 2022 election clashed over China and the Solomon Islands at a debate on Thursday, with each accusing the other of being unsuitable to defend the country.

Speaking at the National Press Club in Canberra, Defense Minister Peter Dutton said Australia was living through “times echoing the 1930s” before World War II and accused the opposition Labor Party of being too “weak” to stand up to an increasingly assertive Chinese government.

Labor Party shadow Defense Minister Brendan O'Connor shot back, saying the government had “failed to prevent” the signing of a security agreement between the Chinese government and the Solomon Islands. It was an outcome that made Australia less safe, he added.

With less than three weeks to go before national elections on May 21, the opposition Labor Party is leading the government in the majority of opinion polling. The center-right Liberal National coalition had made national security as a major pillar of its re-election campaign and Dutton announced billions in new spending for defense in the lead-up to the campaign.

But after the Chinese Foreign Ministry announced it had struck a deal with the Solomon Islands to provide domestic security to the Pacific nation in April, questions turned to Prime Minister Scott Morrison's handling of Australia's Pacific neighbors.

At the debate on Thursday, Dutton accused the Labor Party of politicizing Australia's national security and said the agreement had nothing to do with the government. “The reason that we're in this position at the moment is because under President Xi, China is on a very different path,” he said.

But O'Connor said Morrison and his government had failed to properly engage with the Solomons, with the Australian leader failing to make contact with his counterpart, Manasseh Sogavare, in the lead-up to or immediately after the deal was announced. “I'm not suggesting it was easy to stop, but more should have been done,” he said.

Both men agreed on the need for Australia to take a firm stance in response to growing Chinese influence in the region, and said they would increase defense spending in the future. Dutton said there would be an announcement about the nuclear submarines promised under the 2021 AUKUS pact at some point after the election.

The Defense Minister repeated his previous statements that the Chinese government was hoping for a Labor victory on May 21, saying Beijing believed the opposition was “weak.” O'Connor dismissed Dutton's statements as a “conspiracy theory.”

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