Anthony Albanese says Australia has made the “appropriate diplomatic representations” to China following a dangerous military incident after the Opposition Leader called on him to pick up the phone to Xi Jinping.
The Prime Minister has condemned China after it dropped flares close to an Australian navy helicopter on Saturday, saying it was “unprofessional and unacceptable”.
An Australian navy Seahawk helicopter – operating off air warfare destroyer HMAS Hobart – was enforcing sanctions against North Korea in the Yellow Sea, when it was forced to take emergency action about 7.30pm after a Chinese J-10 fighter dropped a number of flares in its flight path.
Mr Albanese said the Australian public “would expect” some form of explanation from China but would not be drawn on whether he had personally spoken to Mr Xi.
He said Australia had used “all measures at our disposal”, including by making the matter public.
“We’ve made the appropriate diplomatic representations, as you’d expect. We regard this as unprofessional and that it is unacceptable. We’ve made it very clear through all of our channels, at all measures at our disposal,” Mr Albanese told Channel 9.
“(When) we speak out when events like this occur, it’s important that we make clear our position, which has been done at the diplomatic levels, at government to government, but also defence to defence as well.
“(We made the issue) public in order to be able to speak out very clearly and unequivocally that this behaviour is unacceptable.”
Asked whether the incident put any future trip by Mr Xi to Australia in jeopardy, Mr Albanese confirmed the Chinese president “isn’t visiting later this year”, and the pair might instead meet on the sidelines of the G20 and APEC summit.
While no one was injured in Saturday’s incident, Mr Dutton said that could have gone differently.
“The Prime Minister needs to pick the phone up, frankly, and speak to President Xi, and express our deep concern, because at some stage there’s going to be a miscalculation, and an Australian Defence Force member is going to lose their life,” he told Channel 9.
“And that is a tragic circumstance that has to be avoided at all costs. But there will be a miscalculation by somebody who’s flying that jet or somebody who’s on the deck of a Chinese naval ship, something will happen.”
He said unless Australia called China into line, things could escalate and prompt unintended consequences.
“At the moment we’ll see a response from China to deny that it happened or that we had made a mistake. We’ve seen this. We’ve seen this movie before, but it is at some stage going to escalate, perhaps by accident,” He said.
On Monday, Defence Minister Richard Marles condemned the incident as “unsafe and completely unacceptable”, and said the government had already lodged a protest with Beijing.
“This is a very serious incident. The consequence of being hit by the flares would have been significant,” he said.
“We have formally expressed our concerns about this incident, and formally expressed that this was both unsafe and unprofessional.
“It is our expectation in the interaction of our two militaries is that they happen in a manner which is professional and safe for all concerned.”
It follows an incident last November, when a Chinese naval sonar blasted in the vicinity of Australian divers off Japan as they cleared a fishing net from the HMAS Toowoomba’s propeller.
No one was seriously injured, but there has been ongoing questions about whether Mr Albanese raised the matter directly with Mr Xi at face-to-face meetings that took place around the time.