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Speaker 1: Job mission with join Z and Amanda Well. The West's

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Speaker 1: conflict with China has been a hot topic. One of

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Speaker 1: the most notable China watches is the former Prime Minister

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Speaker 1: Kevin Right. He's written a.

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Speaker 2: Book called The Avoidable War.

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Speaker 1: It provides a way forward how to avoid superpower conflict,

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Speaker 1: the chilling vision of what will happen if that superpower

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Speaker 1: conflict is unleashed. And also we are in the midst

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Speaker 1: of an election campaign, we thought it was timely to

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Speaker 1: get him on. Kevin Right.

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Speaker 3: Hello, okay, folks, good to join you this morning in

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Speaker 3: a bit of haul Sydney.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, it's been a while since we spoke to you, keV.

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Speaker 4: So China, should we all be building bunkers? What's going on?

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Speaker 1: What is it a big deal with their deal with

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Speaker 1: the Solomon Islands?

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Speaker 3: It is actually the book, by the way, is about

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Speaker 3: the future of possible conflict between the United States and China.

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Speaker 3: The only bills in small part with Australia because frankly,

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Speaker 3: most countries in the region have all got their own

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Speaker 3: challenges and dealing with Beijing. Question just now about the

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Speaker 3: Solomon's Yeah, it is a big deal. Since World War Two,

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Speaker 3: successive Australian governments have done their absolute best to make

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Speaker 3: sure that the Southwest Pacific, which is made up of

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Speaker 3: thirteen different island states, basically remain within the strategic orbit

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Speaker 3: of the United States Astrada in New Zealand. That's after

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Speaker 3: we all defeated Japan in World War Two. Guess what

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Speaker 3: we managed to do that through successive governments liberal and labor.

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Speaker 3: But now with this move in the Solomons, frankly through

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Speaker 3: a combination of Chinese assertiveness and I've got to say

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Speaker 3: the Morrifon government dropping the ball. We now have the

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Speaker 3: prospect of this naval base in the Solomon Islands, only

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Speaker 3: a couple of thousand miles off the Quentin coast where

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Speaker 3: I'm bringing you from.

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Speaker 4: And Scott Morrison said that it's not our business, that's

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Speaker 4: the Solomon Islands. We can't interfere in Solomon Islands policy.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, but can I put it to you in these terms,

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Speaker 3: Solid Island's government makes a decision based on its perceptions

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Speaker 3: of Australia's reliability long term and its perceptions of China.

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Speaker 3: All right, and I'm sure there's money floating around the

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Speaker 3: system as well, but let's just put that to one

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Speaker 3: side for the moment, and the problem we have with

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Speaker 3: the island states in the Pacific is that they've taken

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Speaker 3: a pretty dim view of Australia over the last near

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Speaker 3: deca because we've done two things. When the current government

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Speaker 3: in canber Is elected, they radically cut the normal levels

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Speaker 3: of aid delivery to these island states, which if you're

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Speaker 3: a small country like the Solomon's, it starts to punch

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Speaker 3: the hole in your budget. The second thing that's happened

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Speaker 3: is those island states their number one concern is righting

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Speaker 3: sea levels and climate change because many of them have

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Speaker 3: a great grave danger of just disappearing. Not the Solomons

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Speaker 3: so much, but the others. So as a result, these

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Speaker 3: island countries have looked at the Morrison government and said

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Speaker 3: they don't care about climate change, not arguing for our

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Speaker 3: interests in the big meetings that count around the world.

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Speaker 3: So for those two sets of reasons, and frankly not

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Speaker 3: even sending in the Australian Foreign Minister to go to

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Speaker 3: Honiarra to fix this problem up when it first bubbled

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Speaker 3: up a couple of months ago. Frankly, it's just evidence

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Speaker 3: of Australia, through this government, dropping the ball, and that's

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Speaker 3: why we have a problem together with Chinese are servedness

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Speaker 3: and aggressiveness.

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Speaker 1: What are the implications if China build a military base

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Speaker 1: on the Solomons? What are the implications for Australia.

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Speaker 3: Well, I said, it's the first time in three quarters

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Speaker 3: of a century or more that we will have had

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Speaker 3: an external power with a military facility within our immediate region.

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Speaker 3: That's the first problem. The second is it also would

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Speaker 3: provide China with an opportunity to use its own naval

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Speaker 3: assets in time of a crisis, to shall we say,

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Speaker 3: engage with the normal lines of commercial traffic, sea traffic

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Speaker 3: between sea lines of communication between Australia and other American allies,

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Speaker 3: Japan and Korea, where we export an enormous amount of stuff.

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Speaker 3: Of course we export to China as well. And there's

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Speaker 3: a final reason why this area is so important, and

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Speaker 3: that's because all of our undersea table communications between Australia

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Speaker 3: go through the islands the Pacific. So all those pet

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Speaker 3: reasons Australia have been determined through one government and another

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Speaker 3: labor and liberal to not allow this sort of thing

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Speaker 3: to happen. And as I said, our current government, in

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Speaker 3: my judgment, just dropped them all.

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Speaker 4: I know you've said that, Kevin, but what would you do,

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Speaker 4: so you are Prime minister, what would you actually alchemy

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Speaker 4: fix this?

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Speaker 3: Yeah? Three things, and I've written a piece in Today's

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Speaker 3: Financial Review which actually goes and not just the criticism

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Speaker 3: for how this happened, the criticisms real, but three things

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Speaker 3: that can now be done to try and turn it around.

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Speaker 3: Number one is the Australian Foreign Minister, who's our number

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Speaker 3: one represented in the world, should have been on a

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Speaker 3: plane to honey Are yesterday and that must happen today.

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Speaker 3: You just can't. You can't just pretend that this is

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Speaker 3: not a probably be on the ground and jaw burning

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Speaker 3: the come of concern Number two across the region and

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Speaker 3: not just the signs. You must restore the development of

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Speaker 3: systems levels to where they were, frankly when we learned

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Speaker 3: office in twenty thirteen, and give them guarantees that these

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Speaker 3: will be sustained in These are the small countries with

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Speaker 3: very tiny budgets, with not much resources. They need to

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Speaker 3: know that they've got to So you've got to restore

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Speaker 3: the development of systems flows and keep them guaranteed for

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Speaker 3: the long term.

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Speaker 2: And Number three, fund or your final science.

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Speaker 4: China is not interfering with that, lines ke that would

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Speaker 4: be iron Try number three again, Kevin's gone, He's gone.

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Speaker 1: Number three is as you say, number three, line number three.

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Speaker 2: Let's party like number three.

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Speaker 1: Never say name what fascinating though it is fascinate fascinating.

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Speaker 1: And that's what we forget is our aid is he's

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Speaker 1: keeping fund.

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Speaker 2: That's what it is.

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Speaker 1: We need to keep up aid in all those regions

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Speaker 1: for exactly this reason.

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Speaker 2: Well look we've run out of time anyway.

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Speaker 4: But you know that is and like it's quite easy

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Speaker 4: to sit in your arm chair and say, well, why

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Speaker 4: don't you do this, why don't you do that?

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Speaker 2: But like Kevin Rudd, he was, he speaks Chinese, he's

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Speaker 2: done experience, and I'd like to hear his.

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Speaker 4: Opinion on what we can do because I don't want

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Speaker 4: to go to war with China as like the rest

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Speaker 4: of us. And we had men and women who died

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Speaker 4: for this country, and it seems odd to me that

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Speaker 4: where we defended this you know, when we're getting a base,

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Speaker 4: it's going to be over there at.

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Speaker 1: The piece in this region is very important. It all

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Speaker 1: for well, Kevin Rudd's book is the Aoudable War in

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Speaker 1: all good bookstores now. You can also get it through

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Speaker 1: Kevin Rudd dot com