MICHELLE GRATTAN: While Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has been in China looking to build on what has become a stabilized relationship, there are some strains in our relations with the United States. The Prime Minister is yet to get a face-to-face meeting with Donald Trump. There's an American review of AUKUS underway, and the administration wants us to spend more on defence, which Anthony Albanese has resisted.
Meanwhile, at home, the new parliament meets for the first time next week, and the depleted opposition, led by its new leader SuSsan Ley, will come under scrutiny. To talk about these issues and a good deal more, we're joined by former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.
Malcolm Turnbull, in these highly uncertain times how well do you think the Australian Government is conducting foreign policy generally?
MALCOLM TURNBULL: I think they're doing well. I think it's difficult, it's complicated, but they're managing this disrupted global environment well. The directions they're going in are correct.
The need plainly is to strengthen partnerships, alliances, relations with countries other than the United States, because the US is pulling out of the rules-based order that it created after the Second World War. And so it's important to create good ties with other countries. And not just China. China is obviously another superpower. But I'm talking about countries in our region, the European Union, Japan, ASEAN, so forth.
MICHELLE GRATTAN: Now on China, you've witnessed, obviously, firsthand the ups and downs in the relationship. And I see that before Anthony Albanese's lunch with President Xi this week, you were the last PM to break bread with the president. Yet the Chinese, of course, were very unhappy with aspects of your policy, especially those foreign interference laws. There's always a debate about how to calibrate this particular relationship. In the long term, do you think China is more likely to be a friend or a foe of Australia?
MALCOLM TURNBULL: Look, I think honestly, it's too hard to say. There's a degree of anxiety about China because we don't share the same political values. It clearly wants to displace the United States as the hegemon in this region.
From our point of view, I think the government and certainly most Australians would recognise that the days of American primacy in this region are over. And the outcome for us that we want to have is, as Shinzo Abe used to say, a free and open Indo-Pacific, a balance between the two powers. Indeed, as Penny Wong said, a region where no one dominates, and nobody is dominated.
But look, overwhelmingly, I think the relationship with China is positive. We obviously have a very significant trade surplus with China, a big economic relationship. But we shouldn't underestimate the enormous cultural and familial ties with China. There are nearly one and a half million Australians of Chinese heritage, including two of our four grandchildren. So, if I can just make this observation about the Albanese government, I am very pleased that they, while keeping all of our substantive policy settings in place, vis-a-vis China and the region, they dialed back or eliminated the belligerent rhetoric that was such a feature of Peter Dutton and Scott Morrison when Scott was Prime Minister. On that belligerent rhetoric, you might call it China bashing rhetoric, obviously hurt them very much electorally.
It wasn't helpful in terms of our relations with China or anybody else. And it just served no purpose. It was designed for political advantage and presumably to get favorable headlines in the Murdoch tabloids and on Sky News.
But really, it's a very, very unhelpful thing to do. And so you'd recall by contrast, I took some, my government took some strong measures, the foreign interference and foreign influence legislation, the ban on Huawei and ZTE. But all of those were done without banging the drums of war, which was so much a feature of my successor's administration.
MICHELLE GRATTAN: On the United States, you haven't been shy of criticising Donald Trump. And there's been a lot made of Anthony Albanese not yet landing a face-to-face meeting with the American president. How important is such a meeting for Australia? Does it matter that it hasn't occurred?
MALCOLM TURNBULL: Well, I don't think it matters a huge amount, but I'd say this. It is very important for the Prime Minister of Australia to have a good personal relationship with Donald Trump. It really is. When I was Prime Minister, my relationship with him got off to a very stormy start, but it was a very good one because by standing up to his bullying, I won his respect and we had a very constructive, albeit transactional relationship, thenceforth. As far as Albanese is concerned, I don't think he's lost anything by not having a meeting yet, but when he does meet with Trump, it's got to be in a situation where he can have an extended discussion where it's a substantive meeting, and they can really get to know each other. So I think it's not just the timing of the meeting, but the quality of the meeting.
In my time, and I acknowledge Trump 2.0 is somewhat different to Trump 1.0, but in Trump 1.0, the only decision maker in the White House was Trump in reality. And you could have Ambassadors doing all they wanted, officials doing all they wanted, but ultimately it all came down to the big man. And so that was why I was able to get the wins that I got from Trump, because I was dealing with him one to one.
MICHELLE GRATTAN: So how should the Prime Minister handle that meeting? Obviously not quite like that stormy phone call that you referred to.
MALCOLM TURNBULL: I think they should just schedule a regular visit to Washington. They've just got to get into the President's diary and turn up and have the usual series of meetings and hopefully avoid a weird press conference in the Oval Office. But, I did a press conference with Trump and it was fairly straightforward, but it wasn't in the Oval Office. It was in one of the big rooms there in the White House where there's space for an audience. But, he's just got to front up at some point, but it takes two to tango. Trump canceled the meeting they were going to have in Canada recently. So you can't blame Albanese for that. And I think it sends a useful message to Washington, by the way, that Trump blew off the meeting with Albanese in Canada. Fair enough. He was planning to go to war with Iran, so that was, I guess, a higher priority. But that means that Albanese had a big series of meetings in China before he's been to Washington. That should have a few people in Washington scratching their heads, I think.
MICHELLE GRATTAN: You said that Trump Mark II is very different from Trump Mark I, or somewhat different. Where do you see the alliance between America and Australia heading in these next years under Trump Mark II?
MALCOLM TURNBULL: Well, let me just say why Trump Mark II is different, Michelle. Trump is obviously the same person, so Trump himself hasn't changed, other than being older. In the first Trump administration he had assembled a group of advisors and officials who were selected for the most part on merit alone, and some of them were very good. And they didn't agree with a lot of the stuff Trump wanted to do. And they sought to dissuade him, hold him back, whatever.
And that was one of the reasons why there was such high turnover. And that's why it was so hard, say, for someone like Joe Hockey, who was our ambassador, because Joe would make friends with somebody in the administration. And just when he'd got to a point of becoming good mates, they'd get punted.
Now, Trump Mark II is much more cohesive because they've had a bigger run up to the administration. They're very well prepared. They've got an agenda. The team is tight. They've been selected with the overwhelming criterion being loyalty to Trump. And so you haven't seen the leaks. You haven't seen the turnover. It's a much more cohesive administration. But still, the only key decision maker is Donald Trump.
But I think this time around, his officials and advisors perhaps speak more authoritatively or more reliably for him because they know him better. And while they can't speak for him, in the sense of making a commitment, they can give interlocutors a better steer on what he's going to do.
How does their attitude to Australia change? I don't think it's changed much. Australia is regarded as a very good ally. But big countries, big powers, particularly the United States and particularly under Trump, acts in its own self-interest. What is his slogan? ‘America First’. And we have, because of the AUKUS deal in particular, we have surrendered Australian sovereignty and autonomy right at the time when America is perhaps less, doesn't even pretend to be altruistic, and is avowedly less reliable than it used to be. So I think the United States under Trump will do whatever Donald Trump thinks is in its best interest at the time. Full stop.
MICHELLE GRATTAN: The Australian newspaper this week reported that you'd spoken in the past with Elbridge Colby who's the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy and who's currently leading this review the Americans have underway of AUKUS. Do you think that the US will make new demands under AUKUS? And what should Australia's approach be now to AUKUS?
MALCOLM TURNBULL: Elbridge Colby is one of the smartest, most clear-eyed thinkers on defence matters in Washington. I've known him for years. I'd had many discussions with him and met him, and we've quoted each other, endorsed each other's opinions at different times in the media. So there's nothing secret or clandestine about that. I haven't spoken to Bridge since he became Undersecretary, but I was delighted that he did become Undersecretary.
He has expressed two concerns about AUKUS Pillar 1, and he's done so publicly. And the fact that these have been ignored and you've got people in Canberra pretending that these issues don't exist is a scandal, is an absolute scandal, Michelle. And these are the concerns that Bridge has expressed, and they are shared by many people, including the United States Congress.
The first is that in terms of the provision of Virginia class submarines to the United States, these submarines are the most survivable and valuable strategic assets of the US. Navy. The US. Navy believes they have about 20 fewer than what they think they need. They've got a goal of getting up to 66, and they're about 20 short of that.
They are producing currently in their submarine industrial base, which is basically two shipyards, they are producing an average of 1.1 Virginia submarines per annum. They need to be producing 2 per annum to meet their own needs and to replace the older Los Angeles class subs that are retiring. They need to be producing 2.33 a year to have any hope of being able to provide Australia with any submarines.
Now, the US legislation on AUKUS quite explicitly says that the submarines cannot be transferred to Australia or sold to Australia unless the President certifies, among other things, that the sale will not degrade the underwater capabilities of the United States. Now, given that they're short of these boats now, given that they're producing about half as many as they need for their own needs, clearly, a President could not certify in that manner today. That's obvious.
Will he be able to certify in that manner in 2031? It's not very far away.
And so the point that Bridge has made is, and he made it in his confirmation hearings, that while he had nothing but affection for Australia, and wished them well with the AUKUS project, if the United States is short of these submarines, then how can they be transferred to Australia?
So this is why I've said this AUKUS deal is a very, very bad deal, very unfair deal for Australia, because it's a very high likelihood we will end up with no submarines from the Americans at all.
The second thing that Colby has said publicly in different places is that Australia's decision to go with naval nuclear propulsion is obviously hugely expensive. And for it to be able to afford to spend the amount of money it needs for the rest of its defence capabilities, for the Air Force, for the Army, for the rest of the Navy, then it is going to have to increase its defence expenditure and markedly.
And this is just arithmetic. So what Morrison did, and Albanese has gone along with it, so you can put them in the same boat if you like, they have committed to this project, this gigantically expensive project, without making the necessary equivalent decision to considerably increase our defence spending.
Now, Colby is, as I said at the outset, he is clear-eyed, he's pragmatic, he's objective. And so those two points that I've just outlined, these are obvious. These are what Lucy's father, you knew well, Tom Hughes, would have called a penetrating glimpse of the obvious.
Unfortunately, in the government circles in Canberra, particularly in the defence circles, there is a degree of delusion. And when you say to senior people there, including to Marles, what is your plan if the Virginia submarines do not arrive? They look you straight back in the eye and say they will arrive.
And so they've assumed a risk that they won't get there. We won't get them.
It's a risk very likely to be realized, but they have no plan to mitigate it or deal with it at all. And that is reckless.
MICHELLE GRATTAN: Well, given where we are and the American's pressure to increase defence spending, should we commit to spending more on defence? And if so, what should we lift it to?
MALCOLM TURNBULL: Well, Ross Gittins has got a piece in The Herald this morning about this. And this has been said many times, and I think Albo has said the same thing. I think talking about a percentage of GDP is useful only up to a point. The real question is: what do you need? What is your assessed need in terms of capability, in terms of manpower, in terms of weapons platforms and logistics? All of those things. Work out what you need and then say: what's that going to cost and can I afford it? And if that equals 3% or 3.5% or 5% of GDP, so be it. But just saying you're going to spend a certain percentage of GDP without knowing what you're going to spend it on, that is really reckless.
I mean, let's be honest. The Defence Department does not have an unblemished record on managing taxpayers' money. So I don't think anyone should be saying to the Defence Department, okay, we're going to increase our spending on defence by 50% and you just go off and spend it as you wish.
We've got to have a proper examination of what capabilities we need and what capabilities we can afford. And the point about submarines is, if you're going to have a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines, which are literally the most expensive defence platforms in the world, then you've got to work out what else you can afford to have, or you've got to work out what else you need, and then what that's going to cost you. I know that will come to quite a lot more than 2% of GDP, I would estimate.
So, unfortunately the debate, Michelle, about defence and national security has never been dumber than it is at the moment. We've got to actually start talking about these issues and in a detailed way, and without turning it into some kind of issue of do we like AUKUS? Do we not like AUKUS? Do we love Donald Trump? Do we not love Donald Trump? We've got to start thinking about it as Australians. The fundamental problem with our debate about national security is a profound lack of patriotism, because not enough people are putting Australia first.
I'm not saying that our politicians should be like Donald Trump in terms of his bravado and braggadocio and all that sort of stuff he goes on with, but they should be like Trump in the sense of putting Australia first. And you don't see that happening.
Look at the way when Albanese gave that speech, that Curtin Lecture recently, in which he made what I thought was quite an eloquent speech. Either he or his speechwriter did a good job. But his remarks were nothing you haven't heard me say or I hope other prime ministers say about Australia being a sovereign independent country and having to stand up for itself. This is all standard stuff. He got slammed in the press, slammed by Sussan Ley, the Opposition Leader, because apparently that runs the risk of offending Donald Trump. I mean, these people have no idea. Donald Trump expects other countries to stand up for themselves. Who is the foreign leader that is an ally that he respects the most? Bibi Netanyahu. Bibi Netanyahu stands up for himself and brutally, and brutally. I mean, Netanyahu's attitude is, if you're in the Middle East, if you're weak, you're roadkill. That's what he said to Joe Biden.
And so, the sharpest elbows in Washington are connected to the representatives of the Israeli government. Yet our approach and our media's approach seems to be that the best way to deal with the United States is through groveling, sycophancy and deference. Well, I can tell you, I mean, unlike the commentators, I've actually done it. So I know what I'm talking about. It doesn't work with Trump. You've got to be strong. You've got to stand up to him and you've got to stand up for your own country. And if Albanese can do that, he'll be doing well.
MICHELLE GRATTAN: Let's turn to a very different debate, climate change. The government will soon have to announce its 2035 emissions reduction target. Some in business are worried that a target that would be above 65% could stymie manufacturing. Do you think this is a concern? And do you have a view on what the target should in fact be?
MALCOLM TURNBULL: Well, it clearly is a concern because people are expressing it. Look, I think you can achieve 65%. But again, I'm not close enough to the actual, to the detailed figuring. The critical thing you've got to do is keep rolling out renewables. Looking at it from a big picture point of view, Michelle, our biggest comparative advantage in Australia is we've got lots of sunshine, big country, lots of wind, lots of very, you know, differentiated wind. So that's to say it might be blowing in Victoria, but when it's not blowing in New South Wales or Queensland, you know, etc.
So big country, that's very helpful. And so the cheapest form of new generation for us is solar by a country mile followed by wind. Then the question is, how do you back it up?
And hence my interest in pumped hydro. As you know, Lucy and I have a renewables business and we've been developing pumped hydro projects and wind projects and other things. And I think as long as you can store it, so you've got to have batteries, pumped hydro, you know, maybe some gas peekers.
But we are one country in the world that can absolutely, assuredly get to zero emission electricity with the technology we have today. But, Moore's Law does not apply to digging holes and it doesn't apply to stringing up transmission lines. You've got these things take time and you've got to hook in and get on and do it. And this is why I'm glad Jim Chalmers and other people in the government are reading that new book by Ezra Klein, Abundance. Because the big message there is you've got to get rid of the green tape and the red tape that is slowing down building, among other things, renewable energy infrastructure. If we're going to save the planet, we've got to hook into it.
MICHELLE GRATTAN: So how do you think the transition is going?
MALCOLM TURNBULL: I think it's going well. I think it's good. I think the Liberal Party is obviously disappointed with the election result. I think it is good for the renewable sector and the renewable energy transition that the government was re-elected with a solid majority, which should give them at least one term, but possibly more likely two terms of reasonably consistent energy policy. As you know, I've experienced this. It is a nightmare on the Coalition side of politics, the way energy has been turned into a culture war issue.
And that is a product of that right-wing media ecosystem in which far too many people on the centre-right of politics now exist. That's why the Teals exist, because they've got the safer seats, what we used to call blue-ribbon Liberal seats. That's why they're now held by independents.
But yes, I think if there's consistency, and if state governments make sure planning restrictions don't unnecessarily slow down renewable developments, I'm sure we can get there.
MICHELLE GRATTAN: Well, the opposition is now going to review the 2050 net zero target. What would be the implications if they don't reaffirm their commitment?
MALCOLM TURNBULL: Well, I think you hesitate to say that it's a political suicide note.
MICHELLE GRATTAN: Would it be a political suicide note?
MALCOLM TURNBULL: Tony Barry, who's quite a pundrant commentator on these things, would definitely say that. So I won't go that far. But I say it clearly would be an act of political self-harm because the overwhelming majority of Australians are committed to the clean energy transition. And not least because, I think it's now 40 plus percent of Australian households have solar panels on their roof, so trying to say to people who have got a bunch of solar panels on their roof and are cutting their electricity bill that renewables are bad and more expensive, is an impossible argument to have. Australians know that renewables work. And if the Liberal Party wants to go down the road Donald Trump is going…Trump is basically cutting subsidies to renewables and increasing subsidies to fossil fuels. I mean, it's madness. And will only ensure that China's lead in clean energy becomes even greater.
So I think it'd be a really stupid thing to do, but look, you remember Michelle after the 2022 election, which the Labor Party won by a modest margin, plenty of those commentators on the right, whether it was Credlin or Abbott or all of the Murdoch crew, were saying that Morrison lost because he was Labor-lite. He wasn't right-wing enough. And so they got the leader they wanted in Peter Dutton, they had complete control of the party, and they've succeeded in burning it to the ground. And I think they're crazy enough to do it again.
It's perfectly obvious that politics in this country is won at the centre, and if you keep running off to what appeals to the viewers of Sky News, and if that's your litmus test, then you will keep losing.
MICHELLE GRATTAN: Well, the new leader Sussan Ley would see herself, I think, as centrist. How do you think she's gone so far?
MALCOLM TURNBULL: I think it's too early to say. I think it's too early to say. I'm not sure everyone would see Sussan as a centrist based on her track record, she was a strong supporter of Peter Dutton, I remember, in 2018.
But anyway, I think it's too early to say, but her problem even if she was a centrist, and even if she was genuine about moving the party back to the centre, I will question whether she can do it. Because there are not many moderates left in the party room in Canberra. How many moderates are left in the branches anymore? Has there been a sort of self-sorting now, and that essentially the party, not just the leader, but the party has moved off into that right-wing sort of media bubble ecosystem, and it’s very hard for it to get back. And again, the Teals, the proof of that is in those Teal seats.
MICHELLE GRATTAN: The Liberals at the moment have been agonising about this question of quotas. Do you think they should go down the path of quotas?
MALCOLM TURNBULL: Look, I think so. Yeah. The argument against quotas, as you know, and I think we've probably discussed it before, the argument against quotas is that the Liberal Party is a grassroots party much more so than Labor. The state branches, state executives, the federal executive have much less power legally, constitutionally, let alone culturally within the Liberal Party. And so the problem is, how do you say to the members of the Liberal federal electorate conference of Wentworth, for example, my old seat, how do you say to them sorry, the quota says your candidate this time around has to be a woman. And they say, well, actually, we've had women candidates before, we've got nothing against women, there's lots of women in the room, but we actually think this fellow Fred Smith is the better qualified. Why should we not be able to choose the candidate we think is best? And that's the problem to face. Having said that, everything else has been tried and it's failed. So I think now the party has got to, my view is that the party has got to say, well, we recognize this is contrary to our grassroots tradition. But unless we do something fairly draconian and directive, then we're not going to be able to get to the parity of men and women that we want, that we've said we wanted for years, and which the electorate clearly prefers.
MICHELLE GRATTAN: From what you were saying before about Sussan Ley's difficulties in getting the party together, carrying it forward, you seem very pessimistic about whether the modern Liberal Party can in fact bridge this divide between its appeal to the outer suburbs and to the urban areas, the divide between right and moderate in the party. What do you think should be its way forward? What should a leader do? Or can a contemporary leader in fact not do anything to make this party prosper?
MALCOLM TURNBULL: Well, it depends on the leader, right? The Liberal Party is very influenced and dominated not quite the right word, influenced by the leader. The leader has a lot of authority. However, there is the right wing of the party, and you cannot separate it from the right wing media, from the Murdoch media in particular. They're joined at the hip and they’re almost the same thing. They operate in the context of the Liberal Party almost like terrorists, or like terrorists in this sense. They don't kill people, blow things up, but they basically are prepared to burn the joint down if they don't get what they want. I mean, I experienced that. I remember back in 2018, Abbott was the campaign that Rupert Murdoch was involved in, as was Lachlan, but Rupert talked to Kerry Stokes about it, and was saying, we've got to get rid of Malcolm.
And Kerry said, really? Why? Why would we do that? Do we want to have Bill Shorten as Prime Minister?
And Rupert said, well, three years of Labor wouldn't be that bad.
So they are prepared to lose office, rather than have somebody that is not their way of thinking in charge. And… they all claim to be admirers of John Howard. But it was John Howard who used to caution the Liberal Party about squabbling over the spoils of opposition. So I don't know. I think it's very difficult, Michelle.
Look, anything's possible. If the Teals, for example, were to be able to coalesce and form a new centrist, genuinely smaller ‘l’ liberal Party, I think that would get a huge amount of support in the country. Huge amount of support.
MICHELLE GRATTAN: Do you think the story would have been any different if Josh Frydenberg hadn't lost his seat?
MALCOLM TURNBULL: Yes. Josh has always run with the right, but he is a much more intelligent, nuanced player than Dutton. And he also, and you know him well, he would have managed it more effectively. Yes, that was a big loss, losing Josh, no question.
MICHELLE GRATTAN: Should the party try to get him a seat, get him back in?
MALCOLM TURNBULL: Well, I mean, how many seats have they got left? That's the problem. I guess, yes, the answer is… I'm sure Amy and their children would prefer him not to be in politics. Josh, I imagine, still has an itch. But he's capable, but they're short of leaders. And this is one of the problems that happens with a parliamentary system where your leaders and potential leaders come from those within the party, parliament, I should say. Particularly when your numbers get low, it's a very small talent pool. Australian parliaments are not big - House of Representatives, 150 people. House of Commons is 650. Liberal party is down with what? 43 seats in the House of Representatives. That's the Liberal National Party, that's the Coalition, 43 seats. It's a very, very modest representation.
MICHELLE GRATTAN: There's also the problem, isn't there, that these days the big parties go very much for choosing local champions, as were for candidates. So are high flyers finding it harder to get into politics and less attracted to politics?
MALCOLM TURNBULL: Yeah, I think that's true. I think it is harder to get people to run for politics, but the allure of serving your country, public service, it certainly worked for me. That's still very strong.
I had a rather turbulent entry into politics, as you may remember. But the one criticism nobody could make of me was that I wasn't a local. In fact, the criticism was that I was insufficiently familiar with the world outside of the electorate of Wentworth, not that I didn't know every nook and cranny within it. So yeah, I think local is important. The flying people, the dropping helicoptering people in can be pretty dangerous. It works in the UK, interestingly, they seem to accept that over there. But here, so you're right, it does get harder. And I would say the Liberal Party's problems were considerable after 2022, and they’re massively greater now. Not least because these electorates, the so-called now Teal electorates, these are the seats, these are the most affluent electorates in the country. These are the seats where the party used to raise almost all of its money. So I don't think there is a…I think it was Tanya Plibersek actually observed in a very droll way that there isn't a single electorate in Sydney which you can get a ferry to that is any longer a Liberal electorate.
MICHELLE GRATTAN: Now, just finally, Malcolm Turnbull, I know you're a great reader. So what are you reading now and what can you recommend to us to read?
MALCOLM TURNBULL: Well, I'll recommend firstly an Australian thriller, which I'm just about a quarter through by Sam Guthrie, who's a former denizen of Canberra and political advisor called The Peak, which is actually very good so far. Another good book that is written by an American guy called Edward Wong called At the Edge of Empire. Edward is, I think, the diplomatic correspondent for The New York Times. He was out in Australia recently at one of the book festivals, literary festivals, and that is a really, really well-written, really interesting book about his and his father's engagement with China. And it's just a wonderful reminder of just the sheer complexity and the scale of the complexity and the upheaval and the change that you've seen in China during our lifetimes and the lifetimes of our parents. So they’re two books… that's among the things I've been reading.
MICHELLE GRATTAN: Well, that'll keep us going through a very cold winter when we all finish Abundance.
MALCOLM TURNBULL: Hey, good, yes, Abundance is very good. Yeah, it's very good.
MICHELLE GRATTAN: Malcolm Turnbull, good to talk with you again. That's all for today's Politics podcast. Thank you to my producer, Ben Roper.
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