Shadow home affairs minister blasts Morrison government for ‘enormous void’ in the Pacific

The shadow home affairs minister has blasted the Morrison government for leaving an “enormous void” in the Pacific.

Labor has just announced it will open a defence training school for the militaries of Pacific nations, double funding in the region, and expand the ABC into Pacific nations if it wins next month’s federal election.

Shadow home affairs minister Kristina Keneally says the measures are “about strengthening our defence partnerships and deepening our institutional relationship between the Australian Defence Force and the defence and police forces in the Pacific”.

“It’s about climate change infrastructure, it’s about economic support, it’s about overseas development aid, it’s about broadcasting, it’s about people to people relationships. This is … a whole of government approach,” she told Neil Mitchell.

Ms Keneally said under the Morrison government Australia has “withdrawn from the Pacific Island nations”.

“An enormous void has been left in the Pacific Island nations that China is stepping in to fill, and that is not in our interest,” she said.

“With Mr Morrison and his ministers mocking the Pacific Island nations for their concerns about climate change, pulling out foreign aid, mismanaging pacific labour programs and pulling out broadcasting, we are vacating the space that we have naturally held.

“We always need to be prepared to defend our country and to defend our allies but Peter Dutton’s chest thumping tough talk is empty rhetoric if it is not backed up by a strengthening and stepping in to the void that the Morrison government has created.”

Press PLAY below to hear Senator Keneally on Labor’s Pacific plan + her response to Richard Marles’ 2017 China comments

Image:  Sam Mooy/Getty Images