Transcript

How is the re-elected Labor Government expected to approach national security and foreign policy in its new term of office? 

Can Australia strike a sustainable balance between its alliance with the United States and its complex relationship with China? Is the future of the AUKUS agreement secure? 

What more can the government do to strengthen Australia’s national security through improved preparedness and resilience? 

In this episode, David Andrews, Will Leben and Bec Strating join Sally Bulkeley to discuss the outcomes of the 2025 Australian Federal Election, what’s in store of the re-elected Albanese Government and the implications for our national security agenda.

(This transcript is AI-generated and may contain inaccuracies.)

David Andrews 

This spirit of a more Australia-centric approach that the Prime Minister's outlined is saying, what's fundamentally important and necessary for our security? So not what's necessary for supporting the Alliance per se, but what do we need to deliver what we're signed up to? 

Will Leben 

How do we balance that increasing, or ever increasing it seems, regional focus for very good reason ⁓ with the bandwidth realities of any government machinery and political leadership and where do we turn away from ⁓ for reasons of ruthless prioritisation globally. 

Bec Strating 

I would actually like to see a national security strategy that outlines the complex and multifaceted challenges and threats that Australia and other countries are facing. 

National Security Podcast 

You're listening to the National Security Podcast, the show that brings you expert analysis, insights and opinion on the national security challenges facing Australia and the Indo-Pacific produced by the ANU National Security College. 

Sally Bulkeley 

Welcome to the National Security Podcast. I'm Sally Bulkeley, Deputy Head of the ANU National Security College. Today's podcast is being recorded on the lands of the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people, and I pay my respects to their elders past and present. This week I'm joined by Bec Strating, Will Leben and David Andrews to reflect on the Australian federal election and its consequences for Australian foreign defence and security policy. 

To briefly introduce our guests, Professor Bec Strating is Director of La Trobe Asia and a Professor of International Relations at La Trobe University. She currently leads the DFAT-funded Blue Security Network focused on maritime security issues in the Indo-Pacific. She has also been awarded a 2025 Fulbright Fellowship and is an expert associate at NSC.  

Will Leben is a senior analyst at the Development Intelligence Lab – a think tank working on development cooperation in the Indo-Pacific. Will has a background in defence, climate change and security and is also an expert associate at NSC. 

David Andrews is the Senior Manager for Policy Outreach and Engagement at NSC and has previously held multiple roles in the Australian Department of Defence, principally in strategic policy.  

Bec, David, Will, welcome to the podcast. 

Bec Strating 

Thank you.  

David Andrews 

Thanks, Sal.  

Will Leben 

Thanks. 

Sally Bulkeley 

Now before we start, I'd just like to paint a picture of where political parties are positioned at the time of this recording, Thursday 22 May, as it's likely further developments may follow when released. The Labor government has had a windfall victory with over 90 elected members and earlier this week we saw the Liberals-Nationals split, with debate continuing on the genesis of that split. There is a greater balance of numbers across the Liberal Party, National Party and Independents. 

And we are yet to see Liberal government announce a shadow ministry. So there are still many balls in the air before we can attest to how the next term of government will shape up. That said, there are a number of points to raise in this podcast today that will stimulate thinking amongst our listeners around what's next for the Albanese government. So David, if we can start with you, in the first term of the Albanese government, national security focus was on the defence strategic review, followed by the national defence strategy. 

 Another focus on social cohesion through the multicultural framework, and there was a variety of national security issues that appeared on the forefront of the Albanese government, such as foreign interference and anti-Semitism. How do you think the Albanese government will address national security policy in this term? 

David Andrews 

Thanks, Sal. I think the approach that I'd say has been consistent with the government's approach over the last three years, and I anticipate will continue, is you might say one of stability and consistency. I think that was a big focus in 2022 when they came to office was ⁓ almost doing a complete strategic reset and reassessment of where things were. So that, as you say, came through the defence strategic review, which then evolved into the national defence strategy. Now in the process of heading towards National Defence Strategy 2026. So that's clearly a big priority for, let's say, the next 12 months in the preparation and release of that, I would expect sometime in the first half of next year. ⁓ But I think that that approach has been their watchword. So it's not making huge and dramatic changes, but it's almost setting a solid foundation for reform and for continual improvement in this second term of office. 

 So whether that's, say, removing some items from the integrated investment program or conducting that review process, it's giving them a foundation to build on as we move forward. So there's a clear plan that's been laid out. I think the challenge will be resourcing that and doing that at a speed which is reflective of the strategic environment we're facing and the assessments have been very clear, whether it's from the ASIO Threat Assessment or from the DSR and the NDS, that the world we're living in is changing rapidly and that means we have to invest more and more quickly into defence and national security areas. And I think that's probably the big push.  

One thing that I think is notable, and I think we'll get to this later as well, is retaining a priority focus on the Pacific and South East Asia. We've seen Prime Minister Albanese visit Indonesia as his first visit in the second term of office, which I think again sends that signal. And I'm also interested to see how this model of…what I think of being institutionalising defence and security in Australia will proceed. So the Bio-lateral Security Treaty with Papua New Guinea, for instance, that's being negotiated at the moment, is just the most recent of a string of these agreements throughout the region. And maybe just a last point I'll leave on here before deferring to our colleagues is…the question of progressive patriotism that was raised recently, I think is a very intriguing one. And it's, I think, centring an Australian approach to defence and national security in a way that has always been there, but making that more front and centre. And that's challenging balance of what it means to relate to the Trump administration and some of their foreign policies, but really taking a clear Australian and Labor party sense of foreign policy forward from there. 

Sally Bulkeley 

David, you make a really good point in that the Labor government will be settling into this next term and consistency and reform as our strategic environment shapes the way that it does will be the forefront focus, I think, of government. Will, do you agree? 

Will Leben 

I certainly agree that there's likely to be continuity in a broad sense. And I'd be surprised if anybody really diverged from that assessment. Certainly on the defence policy front, obviously the current government owns the current policy settings in large part off the back of the DSR and the NDS. And likewise, I'd expect that in a foreign policy sense, we're going to continue to see what's a pretty familiar formulation now from Foreign Minister Penny Wong, something along the lines of a region imbalance, a region where no country dominates and no country is dominated and so on. And I think the government will see that as sturdy and still fit for purpose. think the broader question is what might disrupt those settings or what might make them quite difficult to operationalise in some ways. So what are the disruptions? In other words, The Lab just delivered a piece of work called the Pulse Check Australia's Agenda. 

Many of your listeners will probably be aware of this line of work if they're not. We convene large groups of experts and really try to put them in policymakers' shoes to kind of make tough trade-offs and difficult decisions. In this case, brought together 132 of Australia's top foreign affairs and development minds, people like Peter Varghese, Ian Kemish, Jenny Gordon, many others, and really asked them what the government needed to prepare for. 

Now the two top-line findings from a preparedness point of view with a view to those kind of disruptions – were one, climate shocks and two ,US policy disruptions. Now those themes won't surprise anybody that works within this policy sphere, but they were very clearly prioritized. And despite the sense that those things are already on the radar, I think there's a level of scepticism that we're dealing with them adequately. To that, I think I would add a third, which is perhaps cross-cutting. And I would describe that as planning for uncertainty. How do we do that as a country? How does the machinery of government do it? And that's something that threads through not just the pulse check work and the advice that experts offer to the new government. But in commentary we've seen for the last 12–24 months from people like Peter Varghese, publicly Richard Maude and so on. 

Sally Bulkeley 

Thanks Will. There's a couple of themes there, unravelling on regional imbalance, global shocks and uncertainty. Bec from a foreign policy perspective there, where do you see the Albanese government and its term heading when it comes to foreign policy? 

Bec Strating 

I'm certainly not going to disagree with Will or David's assessment. I think the continuity and consistency and pragmatism are definitely going to be features of the Albanese government's foreign policy. And why wouldn't it be given that this is what voters seem to overwhelmingly vote for?  

So I think we're going to see a re-elected Labor government that is focused on being pragmatic about foreign policy. I personally would like to see them be a little bit more bold and perhaps a bit more imaginative in dealing with some of the shocks that Will just mentioned there and imagining alternative futures that Australia does really need to grapple with. But I suspect that we are going to see Prime Minister Albanese and Foreign Minister Wong charting a course that is not so dissimilar to the one that they charted in the first term. And just linking back to what David was talking about with progressive patriotism, it was notable for me that Prime Minister Albanese and, and Foreign Minister Wong actually on election night specifically talked about Australia not needing to follow any other nation in what it's doing. And I think this was a pretty deliberate reference to the United States under Trump and a pretty deliberate reference to perhaps some earlier efforts in the election campaign of the Liberal Party in trying to trend more towards a Trump-lite style of politics. 

So I wonder also about what progressive patriotism might mean from a foreign policy standpoint.  We know that Albanese has already visited Indonesia. That's a pretty predictable and steady choice for a Labor Prime Minister, demonstrating the importance of Indonesia, demonstrating the importance of Southeast Asia more generally, followed by a trip to visit the Pope, which perhaps a little less conventional in a post-election setting and a visit to the Ukrainian president, Vladimir Zelensky. So that was an interesting trip, I think, in the sense that there's the conversations about whether Australia needs to engage more in security terms with Europe and perhaps a little bit of reticence there. really do think, and David mentioned it before, 

that Pacific and Southeast Asia will continue to be a priority. The question is what kind of uplift can the Albanese government achieve in those policy areas? What more can it do to lift relationships, deepen relationships with countries in those regions, but also in Northeast Asia? mean, Japan and Korea are in a similar situation as Australia in being allied to the United States and having to deal with a pretty unpredictable administration with Trump. So it's going to be an interesting balancing act for the new government in terms of the United States. But the other key actor that we haven't mentioned yet is of course China. And there has been an announcement that there will be Prime Minister Albanese's second trip to China will take place later in the year.  

I think this continuity in stabilization in the relationship is very much likely to continue. And, you know, we don't have to be best friends with China, but I think it is important that that Australian has high level discussions with our largest trading partner. But it did occur to me and perhaps this might be a bit controversial, but the government, the Labor government has this line about its relationship with China that Australia cooperates where possible, it disagrees where necessary and it engages in the national interest. And I kind of wonder whether that is an appropriate sort of way of thinking about how Australia should now approach the relationship with the United States because we are not going to get rid of the alliance. That would be a kind of crazy proposition at this point given their interdependence in defence.  But we do really need to think about our relationships, particularly in this region, and how we're going to go about strengthening those and hedging against dependence and imagining alternative futures. And I think that even though we are going to see this consistency and continuity, that there are real opportunities for the newly elected government to take this mandate and be a bit more bold in its foreign policy. 

Sally Bulkeley 

Thanks, Bec. That may lead into an interesting discussion now on the balance of alliance partnerships with the US and AUKUS, with our relationship with China, and also the emergence of European nations' interest in conducting trade with Australia too. There's a balance to be had in this term of government. What are your thoughts on that? 

Bec Strating  

I mean, there's a lot to unpack in that sort of question. I think that probably the key one is the question about Europe and Australia trying to secure a trade deal that has been tricky in the past. And I do wonder whether the changed strategic circumstance might provoke both Australia and European countries to come back to the negotiating table and deal with some of those. 

tricky issues around trade. think that, you know, it's not, obviously my focus is on Australia's relations with Asia, but it's not going to be just Asia and the Pacific that Australia needs to deepen relationships with. It will also, I think, need to be countries beyond that region. But the 

The other part of that question around AUKUS, I mean, I'd be really interested to hear David and Will's views on this as well. AUKUS was already a really ambitious project and injecting the kind of uncertainty and instability that Trump has offered in the second term of his administration, I think just makes the anxiety around that project a bit more palpable. 

There is an emphasis now on shipbuilding in Washington. mean, that's coming out, I think, quite clearly. There'll be naval competition. There was a report that, sorry, there was a policy document  that was released by the White House on maritime security that said that China... produces around 74 % of the world's ships and the US produces less than 1%. So I think naval and commercial shipping competition is going to be really important. And we might see an uplift in the number of submarines being built, which is important for AUKUS in the sense that if we want those Virginia class submarines as part of Pila Wan, then that's what the United States needs to do. It needs to increase the rate at which it is building ships converse side of that is if the United States is really concerned about ships and sovereign capabilities, what might they be wanting to ask Australia in terms of its commitment to say a Taiwan contingency? Perhaps instead of giving over Virginia class submarines, a Trump administration or whoever follows might be inclined to keep those submarines for themselves. 

I think there are still a lot of risks associated with AUKUS, but at this stage it hasn't derailed anything just yet by the looks of things. 

Sally Bulkeley 

Thanks, Bec. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on the Aukus relationship too,  with the other relationships that we're building at the moment amongst our North Asian and European friends. 

Will Leben 

Yeah, sure. Thanks. So I think I might go back and then come back forward. So to pick up a couple of earlier threads, just like to re-emphasize. think the, continual distinction being made between the Pacific and Southeast Asia is really important. And that's come out a little bit in the conversation thus far. But kind of differentiating Australia's approach to those two regions, a couple of questions and thoughts in my mind about what we might be looking to in the term ahead. 

On the Pacific front, really what we might see in terms of further developments on the government's not describing it as this, but the unstated integration agenda in the Pacific. So Falepili, the Nauru agreement, long standing palm arrangements and so on. There was some pretty big flagship policy achievements in the last term of government and it builds on the step up in the government before that, of course. Might there be more to come there? 

And can we continue to kind of build that distinctive approach in the Pacific? Southeast Asia, very different, perhaps the big policy movement in that part of the world from an Australian point of view in the first term of government with the Moore report invested and the very appreciable economic emphasis of those relationships with larger trading partners and bigger economies.  

Now, the devil in the detail and the devil in implementation of course, what might we see over the next three years or longer in terms of delivering on those aspirations. And of course, overlaid over those two things and something that David said at the beginning, how do we balance that increasing or ever increasing, it seems, regional focus for very good reason with the bandwidth realities of any government machinery and political leadership? And where do we turn away from for reasons of ruthless prioritization globally, for instance.  

On AUKUS, look, I am not focused on this policy issue at the moment, so I'm reticent to make detailed comment. The two things I think I would say are, one, I would frame it within the broader question of how we position regional relationships vis the United States at this point, with an emphasis that clearly it's in our interests to position those relationships as independently as possible. While still acknowledging that certainly in a region like Southeast Asia, the idea that other regional players simply want an exit of the United States is not the case and is misleading. Obviously they want a United States that plays a constructive role as one of many players. So that's not a simple call for US exit for instance, I would never want to be construed as saying that, but we need to be careful to position independently. 

Secondly, in terms of military acquisition, the focus on nuclear power submarines and so on, the original core of the ongoing core of the AUKUS agreement, I just echo the questions ⁓ that many people have about long-term budget pressure, delivery pressure and so on. ⁓ Now that again, I would not want to be construed as a simple critique of the agreement because I think the realities are that alternates are equally, if not more fiercely difficult timelines become very, very ugly. There are whole number of concerns we could kind of list under this headline, but nobody thinks this will be easy. The budget pressures will continue to grow and the need for ruthless prioritization within the defence portfolio, which has already been described by people like Marcus Hellyer, long-term analysts of that budget area specifically as an exploding suitcase. That's not going to go away. 

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Sally Bulkeley 

We've covered a lot of ground just then. We've global politics. We've covered politics in the Asia Pacific as well as AUKUS Alliance. David, very keen to hear your thoughts on all of those elements, but also how does that look from a military strategy perspective? 

David Andrews 

Absolutely. I think there's one point, maybe following Will's lead, of jumping back to move forward. I think there's something that even looking at the distribution of portfolios within the cabinet and the ministry, for example, I think is a good indication of where some of these priorities lie in that we still see, for instance, Pat Conroy holding this minister for Pacific Affairs, that I think as of yesterday, he's now the longest serving minister for the Pacific in Australian history – which I think shows both a personal commitment and certainly a government priority there, but then it also separates international development from the Pacific. So it's an interesting sort of distinction, but we're also seeing on say the domestic security front, the reintegration of ASIO and the AFP into the home affairs portfolio. So there's definitely changes afoot. And I think that points to sort of some of these trends we've all been discussing. Now, I think the point that Will raised around ⁓ 

let's call it the integration agenda. So these different sort of agreements within the Pacific in particular, I think that does actually have quite significant ⁓ defence strategy and military policy outcomes because if we put the US to one side, so not suggesting putting the alliance aside, but for the sake of the conversation, if we just move them aside for a minute, Australia has unique and independent obligations to its region outside of the alliance. So we have actual Australian strategic obligations to our near region under treaty. So to Nauru, to Papua New Guinea, to Malaysia and Singapore, to Japan. We have independent obligations which require an independent defence and military capability. Now a lot of that is supported and underpinned by our alliance with the United States and have access to equipment through them. But when it comes, say, to levels of defence spending, which Elbridge Colby, the Under Secretary for Defence in the United States, has been quite forthright on in that he'd previously suggested that Australia need to be looking at 3 % of GDP and Taiwan at 10. There was now a tweet I saw from him a couple of days ago saying that states in the Indo-Pacific should be looking at more like 5 % following the NATO lead.  

Again, these numbers to me seem relatively arbitrary. But what I think we should be doing is almost in this spirit of a more Australia-centric approach that the prime minister's outlined is saying, well, what's fundamentally important and necessary for our security? So not what's necessary for supporting the Alliance per se, but what do we need to deliver what we're signed up to? So is that adjusting our posture and structure to be more Pacific centric based on these treaties we've signed where we've made commitments to their security? Is it focusing more on the delivery of AUKUS because we have these other larger objectives? So I think there are definitely some implications to draw out from that.  

But looking forward, I think this ties into the conversations we had about the potential EU security agreement as well. And I did note that the, the prime minister seemed open to it. The defence minister was maybe a little cool on it. But I think there's, there's definitely a lot to explore there, particularly as we're looking at possibly mindful of the uncertainty in the US relationship, looking to diversify some of our defence industrial base or, or, or relationships there, not walking away from the US, but just adding a few more things into the mix. And if where I think we're probably lacking the most at the moment is in say, the size of our magazine depth. do we have enough precision guided munitions, missiles and bombs for planes and ships to actually fulfill the deterrent posture that's being set out through the NDS? Well, there are manufacturers from countries other than the United States. So would perhaps this agreement with the EU open up more doors for domestic manufacturing guided weapons exploitable ordinance in Australia, which would make us more prepared, more resilient and more secure as a consequence. So we have Kongsberg, for instance, building their first factory outside of Norway up at RAAF Base Williamtown in Newcastle. That's a great example of that building naval strike missiles there. But could we expand that model and approach other European providers that we can build and acquire weaponry and again, diversify that much more aggressively.  

The other point which maybe is up in the air, we'll have to wait and see, I think would be good to pursue is revisiting a stand-alone defence committee in the Australian Parliament. So there was conversations around that in the last parliament which didn't eventuate because it couldn't get through Senate negotiations with both the coalition and the Greens. Maybe there's chance to revisit that now and expand that sort of level of oversight there. But I I think we've probably, I wouldn't disagree with anything that Becca will set on AUKUS and I probably don't want to belabour that point anymore, but certainly it's an enormous challenge and it's not going to get easier. But I think it's also worth noting that, at least to my understanding, to this stage, the timelines and the sort of gates that have been set, are being achieved. We're seeing naval personnel being trained and passing with flying colours training schools in the UK and the US. We're building those pipelines of personnel. But if I can put on my university hat here and advocating for things that they might seek to pursue in greater detail, it's building those education and training pipelines in Australia. So at the moment we're sending all our personnel overseas because we don't have that set of pipelines on shore – here at the ANU, one of two universities in country that does training in nuclear physics and engineering, that's not enough to build a pipeline of personnel to work on AUKUS over the years and decades ahead. That's a very long lead time. think prioritizing building up that enabling function in Australia is not just important for that project, but again, for our wider national resilience project. 

Sally Bulkeley 

Thanks David. You've touched upon a few points raised on becoming more prepared and more resilient in the industrial base. I want to expand on the preparedness and resilience agenda a little further to talk about whole of nation capability. I think in the first term of the Albanese government, national defence is a concept by which we're driving not only a defence workforce in its contributions to preparedness and resilience, but it achieves a broader objective now. We start to look at the art of statecraft. We start to look at the ways by which civil society and businesses and all sectors can contribute to preparedness and resilience. Will, having completed the Pulse Check in the Development Intelligence Lab, really keen to hear your perspectives on the types of advice you would give to Parliament right now in building on preparedness and resilience? 

Will Leben  

I think there are a couple of different threads here that are all related, but prima facie might seem quite different.  

So one is the kind of integration agenda we've already talked about in a Pacific sense and how we're managing Australia's relationships more broadly in a way that's coherent. We could equally describe part of the first term of this government's domestic agenda as an integration agenda as well. And by that, I mean, you can look at the national defence strategy and the policy cycle that put in place. And obviously the rubric of national defence as a broad approach to defence policy, but also adjacent pieces of work, which I think are really important and we're yet to see bear at least public fruit. So for instance, the Commonwealth review of alternate disaster response capabilities, all the industrial based work, these things need to be seen as linked and they all ultimately come back to a handful of fulcrum points. if we're centring the conversation at this point on the defence force, in many ways, and it's well understood, we're already running a relatively small force that is in some ways hollow, very hard.  

So the important and grinding work mundane as it may seem and novel as the comments may not be. Things like personnel recruitment, things like domestic and regional HADR settings and the long-term build and clear prioritisation industrial based questions. Those are the things that we need to bear real fruit and they're not going to be solved by big policy announcements. They're probably going to be ongoing quiet work. 

Now to pull back from that set of comments to the question of Parliament, and I suppose to reframe it slightly as political leadership, the one thing I would say is that clearly there is a very significant role in all of these questions for ministerial leadership and more broadly the guidance and custodianship the parliamentarians and the elected level of government can provide.  

So I would simply ask for that level of that level of leadership and engagement with what are very complex policy areas and an appreciation that really top level cut through can deliver a sense of priority and needed guidance to areas which are very complex in their machinery of government and which have to make trade-offs which in some ways are impossible. Public servants, certainly the commentariat are sitting in easy chairs here can't make those trade-offs in a way that allows useful progress, I just welcome all of that leadership from the Politicos. 

Sally Bulkeley 

Thanks Will. I'm just going to hand over to you David. 

David Andrews 

Sure, sure. I think I would actually very strongly support what Will's just said in that a lot of this comes down to political leadership as much as it does good policy making. Now, of course, we want good policy making, but when it comes to selling the message to the public, that has to be done by the elected officials, not just by senior public servants or military officers, for instance, because they're the ones who are making the case to everyday Australians why you should continue to vote for them to take that sort of leadership position. Now, in terms of, I suppose, specific policy outcomes to pursue, I think there are key points of infrastructure, which would be potentially a difficult sell, but an important one. So for instance, an East Coast submarine base, that's been something that is notionally part of the wider AUKUS pipeline but went a bit quiet in the last term of government. 

I think that's going to take a long time both to public trust and community support for wherever that happens to land. And the sooner that a decision is made on that and that process can begin, I think that's a better long-term outcome. Likewise, our NSC colleague, Jen Parker, I saw recently was advocating for again, finalizing a West Coast dry dock to support our maritime security efforts as well. So big pieces of infrastructure that require public buy-in and support, mean, particularly for the East Coast submarine base in regard to AUKUS and community support there.  

But for our parliamentarians specifically, I think, obviously there's a lot of new people in parliament from the Labor side. So there's a great chance to learn and engage and talk to institutions like La Trobe Asia or The Lab or NSC and to speak to experts and understand what's going on. They've got a great chance to read in to broaden outside their knowledge of expertise, but also to advocate for issues from the backbench to sort of to address these things through the parliament. So not only it's lovely having people come to visit us and or speaking on podcasts, but also the parliament is actually the nation's house for these conversations.  

And so I'd love to see more of this being brought into the parliament. Ultimately, to my mind, the prime minister is the minister for national security. So my personal wish list, I'd love to see a national security oriented address from the prime minister or the defence or home affairs minister or maybe all of them in the way that we have a budget speech from the treasurer every year. Well, I'd love to see a national security speech that's actually selling this message. If we're saying the world is changing, we need to spend more on defence and security and foreign policy, the person who needs to lead that conversation to me is the prime minister. So I'd love to see that. But who knows where that will all go. 

Sally Bulkeley 

David, thank you. I think you raise a really good point there that the think tank industry,  various people of deep expertise in the national security field as well, all have this wonderful opportunity to be able to brief and inform our parliamentarians on national security. Certainly the National Security College over this year will be hosting briefings as part of its parliamentary program as well.  

So there is definitely a sense of national security literacy at stake here as well as informing in and deepening the expertise of our parliamentarians. Which brings me to my final question, which is very unfortunate because we've had a very extensive conversation here today and I would love to continue ahead with it. But you mentioned before the sudden increase of newly elected members. Some of these members have not been in parliament before. Some of them are very focused on local issues. 

And I think there's a real shift here for us to be able to build that national security literacy across parliament. In a few words from each of you to the listeners, I'll start with you, Bec, if that's okay first. What sort of advice would you be providing to parliamentarians at this stage on national security that will benefit us in the long term? 

Bec Strating 

The Defence Strategic Review, as was mentioned, created this national defence concept and as you said, Sal, really about integrating defence with all forms of statecraft. This is certainly something that I think is quite valuable. But when you get to the 2024 and you get to the national defence strategy, it also talks about national defence and talks about all forms of statecraft. 

But then by about chapter three or chapter four, it drops away because it's a defence strategy and it's not really dealing with, its purpose is not to deal necessarily with those other forms of statecraft, whether it's diplomacy or development or other forms of statecraft. So what I would like to see, I mean, I wholeheartedly agree with David that I'd love to see a national security-oriented speech but would actually like to see a national security strategy that outlines the complex and multifaceted challenges and threats that Australia and other countries are facing and how to implement all forms of statecraft, the national defence concept. Because I think without one, we face this issue of these strategies and planning papers that continue to be quite siloed. 

And, you know, Labor seems quite, has seemed quite reluctant on the national security strategy. was something that the Liberals took to the election as part of its platform. Didn't, I didn't really see a huge amount of detail about what that might look like. But if not a national security strategy, then, you know, a foreign policy white paper. mean, it's been a long time, I think, since we've, we've had a foreign policy white paper. have a lot of defence-oriented papers and defence concepts coming out. 

But I think there's more to be done to operationalize that concept and breaking down some of those silos so that as a middle-sized country that does have to make difficult choices, that kind of underpinning planning I think can at least help with that really important work of prioritization that David and Will mentioned. 

As for what new parliamentarians should be focused on, I would just, I mean, this is very self-serving, but I would reiterate what David said about, you know, listening to podcasts and engaging with the public material that is produced by, you know, the National Security College through the National Security Podcast. The Lab produces a range of really important materials. I think the lab is just becoming much more important in the discussions around what Australia needs to prioritize, not just in development, but I think in foreign and defence policy much more broadly. 

If I may say Latrobe Asia, listen to the Asia Rising podcast because we don't just talk sort of about national security, but we talk about a range of issues. And one of the most important things I think at the moment is that it's really easy and I'm doing it, it's really easy to be distracted by what's coming out of the White House. But there's a lot of things going on in Asia domestically that we are not talking very much about, but that also shape the security and economic landscape of the region in which we live. And so being able to sort of broaden out our views of what matters and focusing on a range of different issues, I think is important. 

So that would be my recommendation. 

Sally Bulkeley 

Thank you, Beck. Will. 

Will Leben 

I think I would offer one in the direction you've asked, and then I would point the finger back at us and other colleagues around us. So for parliamentarians, I think I would ask that wherever possible, they seek out the tough choices and hard prioritization. In many cases, they're the only ones who can do so. And it's difficult for people, shall we say lower down the food chain to make some of those really consequential trade-offs. And this applies really across the swath of Australia's engagement with the world. So we ask a great deal of the development program, the development budget at this point. It served many ends and would benefit, I think, in the view of many experts from a greater level of prioritization, notwithstanding the good work that was done in the last term of government in terms of a big policy muscle movement on the development front and a stabilisation of the budget or rebuild of the budget to use the government's language. 

The development of Australia's statecraft could do with a budget boost in the scheme of the Commonwealth budget that is very cheap, very cheap indeed. They will to find that money and make that prioritisation within a holistic view of Australia's engagement in the world would be enormously beneficial. And we've already discussed questions of priority within the defence budget. Of course, this list of things could go on. 

But to wrap a bow around that, seek out the hard choices and the prioritization ⁓ and your counsel and input on those questions, regardless of whether you hold ministerial position, will be hugely valuable. To turn the finger back on or point the finger back on all of us, I think I would really ask that all of us and everybody else who works in this ecosystem recognize how busy these people are both in terms of at the political level and in terms of senior policymakers who ultimately advise them really closely and A, really tailor what we do in a way that's tractable and useful for people who really have an incredibly broad range of responsibilities and are in an incredible time pressure themselves. And B, as much as of course it's also our role to be incredibly critical where we need to be and identify where things aren't working. Also bring a level of sympathy for people that are also making difficult trade-offs and often are brought to new areas of responsibility and expected to perform very quickly in very difficult circumstances. 

Sally Bulkeley 

Thanks Will, appreciate a very empathetic stance there on the positioning of party politics and politicians and where they're positioned over the term. And finally, David, last thoughts. 

David Andrews  

Well, I don't know if this is technically permissible. I'm not deep into the ins and outs of ministerial versus backbench territorial politics, but I'd say talk to the department. So not just talk to us as people outside of government, but there's such a wealth of expertise and passion and knowledge within our public service, within the defense force, within all these sort of agencies of government. So talk to them hear firsthand what they've been advocating for and what they can share, as well as learning from people outside. But I think there's a good chance, and really an imperative, think, particularly for new MPs and senators and for backbenchers in such a big party room as the government will have this term of office, to be bold and innovative, to really try and push for change that I think governments will naturally be more conservative in their disposition because they have to actually make decisions and balance these things and adjust for risk.  

Equally, there's a lot of reform out there that can be made. So take the chance, push for it. Maybe if you have a national security background, learn about something else. Learn more about tax or about trade and climate change and development. Or if you come from those backgrounds, come learn more about international security because Australia is ⁓ an inherently 

global country by way of our economic connections and our interests, that we can't separate the purely domestic from the international because those things are coming together. And you spoke at the beginning, Sal, of things like anti-Semitism and Islamophobia and those sort of international dimensions which are being brought home to the domestic. So there's so much more to learn there. And I'll just say finally, ⁓ visit the region. Don't leave Australia. Go and go on parliamentary delegations. Go on study tours. Go and see how democracies work in 

South East Asia, in North East Asia, Japan, Taiwan, Korea, Indonesia. Go see these places firsthand, learn more about the world that we're living in and how other places operate. And I think that can be really both inspiring but productive use of time. 

Sally Bulkeley 

Well, David, it's a lovely note for us to end on this podcast. Some positive reflections there on this current term and the outreach that can be provided to our parliamentarians. Thank you for joining us today on the podcast and we look forward to having you on future podcasts. Thank you. 

David Andrews 

Thanks, Sal. 

Bec Strating 

Thank you. 

Will Leben 

Thanks. 

National Security Podcast 

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