Australia, NZ’s big move amid China fears

Australia and New Zealand are facing “the most complex and challenging strategic circumstances since World War II”, prime minsiters Anthony Albanese and Christopher Luxon have warned.

The two leaders emerged from one-on-one talks at Parliament House on Friday pledging to step up trans-Tasman defence, with Mr Albanese telling a joint press conference the Australian and New Zealand governments were “committed to working in lock-step like never before to ensure our nations’ security and prosperity”.

Mr Luxon echoed Mr Albanese, saying co-operation between Canberra and Wellington is more important “than ever before”.

“We both face, as we talked about extensively, challenging global environment we haven’t seen in decade,” he said.

In terms of what closer defence co-operation would look like, Mr Luxon said his government was reviewing its defence capability with a view to being “fully interoperable with Australia’s defence forces.”

“We want to be a force multiplier for Australia,” he said.

Mr Albanese signalled New Zealand could have a future role in the AUKUS security pact.

“Just as interoperability between our two defence forces is a priority and an objective, it makes sense therefore when we are considering pillar two of the AUKUS agreement to engage like-minded countries,” he said.

“We share very much common values and we share common objectives, and it is not surprising we will look at any opportunity for including New Zealand in pillar two.”

Earlier, Mr Luxon told Sky News his government was undergoing a “foreign policy reset” and was hoping Australia, New Zealand’s “only ally”, will play a bigger role in its defence strategy.

He said Australia and New Zealand “have always had a really strong relationship”, describing it as “family”.

The move toward closer Australia-New Zealand defence co-operation comes amid growing Western concern of China’s assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific region, particularly Beijing’s alleged debt-trapping of Pacific nations and encroachment on Philippines maritime territory.

Australia and the US pledged to keep the Indo-Pacific “stable, peaceful, and prosperous” following high-level talks earlier this month.

The summit, attended by Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Defence Minister Richard Marles, focused largely on countering China, with US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin calling Beijing’s activities “coercive behavior”.

More to come