LIVE: British and Australian Foreign and Defense Ministers Hold a Press Conference

Penny and Richard with us here in London today. I've seen Penny Wong lots since starting the job in Washington DC, in Laos, in New York and in Samoa and we had lots of contact previously when I was Shadow Foreign Secretary but today was different. It was a chance to step back and as Penny says we face the most challenging strategic circumstances in the post-war world. With DPRK troops in Ukraine it's clear that the Indo-Pacific and the Euro-Atlantic security are now indivisible and we are holding this opening at a time when clearly global growth is stuttering and so with the energy and tech transition fueling geopolitical competition it has been hugely important to continue to share our common assessment of the challenges that we face and it's clear too that the Indo-Pacific will deliver over half of the world's global growth over the next period. We don't characterize under this government our focus on the Indo-Pacific as a tilt, we see it as a systemic must for responding to these challenges. Our shared history has produced thriving multicultural democracy and I admire Penny's trailblazing as an Asian Australian in Australian politics. Clearly our Five Eyes partnership is unique and AUKUS too will transform our defence and industrial cooperation long after we have left office and many of us in this room are still alive. That's how important it is to our global security and we see it as a floor not a ceiling on our security partnership and we hope that it will continue to drive growth and jobs in both of our economies. We have many economic opportunities, the UK formally of course acceded to the CPTPP yesterday and it now comprises 12 economies with 15 percent of global GDP. Both our countries share a very common outlook, we're aligned on so many issues. AUKUS of course reinforces our commitment to a free open Indo-Pacific on China. Penny has spoken of cooperating where we can but disagreeing where we must and we in the UK repeat that and our shared commitment also to the global south which was on display at Chogom and our strong belief in the Commonwealth system. Today we've how we take that cooperation even further. John and Richard will talk further about our cooperation in Ukraine, particularly if Putin got away with it we would all pay the price from Europe to the Indo-Pacific. We welcome Australia's growing climate leadership, we back their bid to host COP 31 with Pacific Island partners, we're excited about our bilateral climate and energy partnership that we signed at COP 29 and we're joining up our efforts to help Pacific Island partners particularly on the issue of climate finance and their investment in clean energy. We will do more in the Indo-Pacific delivering joint training in Pacific Island partners on hydrography where we both have cutting edge expertise. It's been a very productive day, hugely important and I think significant that we've been able to have AUKMIN twice within the space of a year. Thanks very much David. Can I begin by thanking you and John for hosting us here in London for AUKMIN and say how much we have enjoyed the engagement and the discussion today. Holding this meeting twice in one year is a recognition of two things, the sharpening strategic circumstances we face but also importantly the enduring close strategic partnership these two nations share and that was reaffirmed in the discussions today. The depth and dynamism of our partnership was on display. It's a partnership grounded in our history but also our values and one we are transforming as we face this increasingly unstable and uncertain world together. As David said and he and I, I want to say how much I've appreciated my engagement with the Foreign Secretary since he's been elected but also prior to that and we share a great deal in terms of world views, different histories but very similar world views. The context of these discussions is clear as David said we are navigating the most complex strategic environment since the end of World War II and the rules that protect our nations are under pressure possibly more than ever before. So that's why we're working together to protect and uphold the rules. That's why we insist all countries abide by international law, adhere to international law because we recognise that we all benefit from a world where there are agreed rules which manage disputes. We discussed our unwavering support for Ukraine in the face of Russia's illegal and immoral invasion. We are united in our condemnation of the DPRK's support for Russia and today I have joined David and other partners to reiterate our strongest condemnation of the DPRK's increasing military cooperation with Russia. We've coordinated closely and been united in our approach to the Middle East and the work to helping to break the cycle of violence in the Middle East and I want to thank David personally for his support of our drive to protect aid workers in conflict zones and today we agree to work more closely to advance Australia's declaration for the protection of humanitarian personnel. Obviously we spoke at length today about the Indo-Pacific and our shared commitment to the AUKUS partnership. It is the purpose of to contribute to stability in our region. In other areas we welcome the United Kingdom's commitment to ensuring a peaceful, stable and prosperous region including in agreeing to formalise a maritime security dialogue. David's spoken about the importance of the climate and energy partnership which we discussed at Chogom in Samoa and today we've agreed to improve climate finance access to the Pacific. We welcome the United Kingdom's endorsement of Pacific quality infrastructure principles aimed at improving the quality of infrastructure investments in the Pacific. We work together on digital development to strengthen the digital ecosystem and resilience in the region and of course we also welcome today the UK's accession to the comprehensive progressive trans-Pacific partnership which took effect yesterday and builds on the success of our bilateral trade agreement. There's a lot more we could talk about but I want to close these opening remarks by again reiterating my personal thanks to my friend David and also to John and your teams for hosting us here today. Thank you Penny. For me as a new Defence Secretary it's a real privilege to be on this platform with Richard and Penny and David and a real pleasure to welcome and host Richard for the third time in less than five months in this job and in many ways that's as it should be for the Defence Minister and Deputy Prime Minister of a nation that is one of our closest longest standing allies in this world. One of course with a long sporting rivalry as well which continued this morning before first light around St James's Park when he bested me on a 5k run. Mind you he's a 7k a man, he's a 7k a day man, I'm a 3k once in a blue moon man so the outcome was never really in doubt Richard but it was a pleasure to do it. Look our two countries share an enduring unbreakable bond, a bond that's of increasing importance in an increasingly unstable and threatening world. We are the closest of allies Australia and the UK, we fight together, we stand together and we underline the increasing indivisibility between security in the Euro-Atlantic area and security in the Indo-Pacific area and that's really at the heart of why these talks and this meeting between the four ministers in my view was so important. We met of course after a weekend where we saw the Russian bombardment of Ukraine reach a new intensity, over 100 ballistic and cruise missiles fired over the weekend, more than 200 drones, a time when Ukraine requires its staunchest allies to step up and part of our discussions were to make together a commitment that we will stand by Ukraine, we will remain steadfast allies over Ukraine and we will step up the support we are willing to give Ukraine. I was able to thank Australia for the extraordinary help and contribution they've made to the UK-led training program Interflex which has trained over 50,000 Ukrainian soldiers. We've made the commitment that that will continue throughout 2025 and Australia today has also confirmed their commitment that they will be involved in that training throughout 2025 and we talked about ways that we can potentially step up that training support to Ukraine. We talked about ways we could step up support through the UK-led international fund for Ukraine and also through the capability coalitions that we are both committed to supporting. In the Indo-Pacific we unsurprisingly focused a great deal of our discussions on the challenge of maintaining peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific, the challenge of China increasingly active, increasingly assertive in the region and the vital importance of maintaining both deterrence and freedom of navigation. So in that vein we discussed plans for the UK carrier strike group visit during the course of 2025, made the announcement that the carrier will visit Australia in Darwin, it'll be the first time a UK carrier has visited and docked in Australia since 1997 and I was able to thank Australia for the support they're offering throughout the carrier strike group's deployment and crucially for us we're able to join what is perhaps one of the most exacting military exercises that we can put our own ships and we can put our own forces through with the talisman sabre exercise which will join north of Australia next year. We're looking to develop our defence cooperation more fully in the year ahead, we will develop further the historic partnership that we have through AUKUS now with the US but particularly with the UK and Australia. This is a programme that will boost jobs and growth in both of our countries as well as boosting our national security. We will in the UK look to accelerate the validation exercise that will allow Aussie firms to increasingly play a part in the supply chains in Britain to our submarine building programmes now ahead of the point at which we start also to develop and build the SSN AUKUS submarines in the future. Why are we doing this? Because it helps wire our two countries together, it reinforces our joint commitment to the AUKUS programme and it makes that programme itself more resilient and more likely to succeed. And finally we face a new global period of insecurity and in this new era of global insecurity the one thing that is certain is that our two nations could not be more secure in the partnership and the commitment they have to work together and I thank you for that. Well thank you John and thank you David, it's really been an enormous pleasure for Penny and I to be with you today to have such fruitful conversations as part of the second Aukmin of this year. This morning I had the distinct honour of being presented by John the Victoria Cross which was awarded to Private Richard Norton for actions that occurred in May of 1968 in the battle of the fire support base Coral in the aftermath of the Tet Offensive. We did that presentation in the office of the Duke of Wellington and so there was some history to that. This is the 103rd Victoria Cross which has been awarded to an Australian. The first was awarded in July of 1900 by Neville House for actions that took place in that month, six months before Australia federated and of course as people will know the Victoria Cross, the actual Victoria of the Metal, is fashioned out of metal that is taken from two or three I think captured cannons of Russia during the Crimea War. The history of the Victoria Cross in so many ways speaks to the history and the depth of the relationship between our two defence forces, between our two militaries. As I said it extends prior to the formation of Australia itself and this is the most significant, the oldest, the deepest defence relationship that we have had and perhaps because of that the legal underpinning of it had never really been put in place until this year. It was at the Auckman in Adelaide at the beginning of this year that we signed the Defence Security and Cooperation Agreement which as we've observed in this Auckman will be ratified shortly within both of our systems. During the course of this year we've also put in place the Interim Submarine Cooperation and Delivery Arrangement which is underpinning the day-to-day workings of the AUKUS arrangement between our two countries. In August of this year we signed the Trilateral Treaty Agreement between Australia, the UK and the United States which gives expression to the optimal pathway that we announced in March of last year. We've also announced that there will be a bilateral expression of that treaty through a treaty that will be negotiated between Australia and the United Kingdom. Progress on that has been very satisfactory and today we can say that we look forward to being able to sign that treaty in the coming months. All of that speaks to the fact that the Auckmans which have occurred in the course of this year are really putting in place the legal underpinning of the oldest defence relationship that Australia has with the United Kingdom and befitting that relationship and the legal underpinning that we have put in place what we are also seeing and what we've discussed today is an increased tempo in the operations and the exercises which are occurring between our two defence forces. As John said, next year we will see a UK carrier strike group come to the Indo-Pacific which will have a huge impact. It will participate in Exercise Talisman Sabre which is the signature exercise which occurs for the Australian Defence Force and this will be the biggest presence of the UK Talisman Sabre in the history of this exercise. The carrier strike group will also participate in Exercise Basama Lina which is the signature exercise of the Five Powers Defence Arrangement, a mini-lateral arrangement which involves both the United Kingdom and Australia within the Indo-Pacific along with Singapore, Malaysia and New Zealand. Today we can announce that there will be a number of Australian elements participating in the carrier strike group which will include at times HMAS Sydney and Brisbane, two destroyers which will participate in the carrier strike group's activities. This builds on work which occurred this year with Exercise Predator Run which saw UK Marines training with the Australian Army in lateral exercises which is so important in terms of developing the mobile army which Australia needs. We're seeing increased cooperation between our defence forces in the joint operations space and special forces across our intelligence agencies including ASD, the Australian Signals Directorate and GCHQ here in the United Kingdom. As John said, part of this is the work that we are doing together in the support of Ukraine. In 2022 we first announced that Australia would participate in Operation Interflex which sees the training of soldiers in the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Today we're announcing that we will extend our participation in Operation Interflex through to the end of 2025 as part of an ongoing contribution that we continue to make to the support of Ukraine and we do so very much with the leadership of the United Kingdom and with the guidance of the United Kingdom in terms of how Australia can best contribute to supporting Ukraine in its conflict. Finally, we discussed AUKUS today and the really considerable progress which is being made and has been made over the course of the last three years. Again, as John said, we are looking at how we can accelerate the process by which Australian companies can be certified to contribute to the supply chain here in the United Kingdom for the building of the Astute Class program which will be really important. We've also looked at how we can develop and bring to conclusion very quickly the build schedule for AUKUS in Adelaide. As part of this we are establishing the Submarine Program Interface Office which will be based in Bristol and in the coming months we'll see about a dozen Australians participating in that program office which will be really essential in terms of managing the day-to-day delivery of AUKUS Pillar 1. There is much more that we discussed in the course of today but all of that speaks to the fact that with our oldest relationship with the United Kingdom we now in 2024 have very much a strategic dimension to that relationship which is very profound and makes this one of the most significant relationships that Australia has with any country in the world. For Penny and I we feel very grateful that we are able to manage that relationship with both David and John in what has been an exceedingly productive conversation today. Thank you very much. Now questions from the media. We've got Deborah Haynes at Sky News. Obviously there's a lot of news today about this alleged Chinese spy. How worried are you that Yangtangbo is just the tip of the iceberg and that actually the British public can expect many more Chinese nationals being banned from traveling to the UK? And if I may, just on Syria please. You've said that the UK can engage diplomatically with Hayat Tehrir al-Sham, this rebel group that led the taking of Damascus. Can you give a bit more detail about that? What does that engagement look like? Are you talking to members of the transitional government? If I may have a question for the Australian Foreign Minister please. Obviously Australia understands fully the threat posed by China but as well it's a big economic power and there is a need for dialogue. The UK government is undertaking a review, a China audit of its policy on China. But given that Donald Trump is about to return to the White House and given his very strong view on seeing China as a threat, is it delusional to think that you can have any kind of meaningful positive relationship with Beijing when a core member of the AUKUS trilateral alliance is Donald Trump and the United States? Thank you. I think that was three questions from Sky News but we will attempt to answer them. Could I begin on Syria? I can confirm today that we have sent a delegation of senior UK officials to Damascus this week for meetings with the new interim Syrian authorities and members of civil society groups in Syria and it underlies our commitment to Syria. Yesterday I announced a £50 million package of humanitarian aid, also further money to help secure chemical weapons stockpiles in Syria. It was important that we were represented in Aqaba at the weekend. We confirm of course our support for the principles that have been set out, an inclusive transitional political process that is Syrian-led and Syrian-owned. On China, I welcome the court's decision to uphold the Home Office's position on Yang's exclusion. And where individuals pose a threat, as you would expect, the UK government is absolutely committed to using the full range of powers available to disrupt them. I raised these issues when I was in Beijing a few weeks ago. This case does not exist, sadly, in a vacuum. The UK is in the most complex threat environment that we've seen for a very significant time, including terrorism and states, including China, Iran and Russia, that pose a threat to us. Six individuals have been charged under our National Security Act to date. So we recognise the threat, we've raised it with the Chinese government and we will act wherever we need to. Thank you. So I think the question goes to, given that President-elect Trump has articulated his view about the US competition with China, what are the implications for the rest of us? I think we're very clear-eyed about our relationship with China. I've described it in and that reflects the reality of the relationship, which is there are areas where we can cooperate, where we do engage economically, we do engage on other areas, but also recognises there are areas where we are going to disagree because of who we are and because of our interests. I think it's important for us all to bring a degree of realism to the relationship with China. The first is China, as I've said publicly, China is going to continue to be China. And we understand China is doing what great powers do. We, from Australia's perspective, and this is in part why we are here, we want to work with others to uphold our interests. Secondly, China is not going anywhere. It will continue to be a very important part of the global economy and of the strategic landscape of the globe. We also have to deal with that reality as well in the way we approach our relationship with China, but also how we approach our relationship with others in support of strategic stability in our region. Thank you. Minister Wong, is Yang Teng-bo currently able to enter Australia or is he already under a travel ban? Given the history of Chinese foreign interference in Australian institutions, at these talks, were you able to share any experience or strategies and tactics with your foreign counterparts and on Syria as well? Have you engaged at all with HTS? In relation to the first, obviously that's a decision for the Home Affairs Minister, but I can say to you that for some time now Australia has understood that the resilience of our democracy is an important part of assuring our democracy, regardless of the ways in which the resilience might be tested. We put in place in bipartisan places when we were in opposition, and I was part of the Intelligence Committee that recommended this, foreign interference legislation and a framework to deal with foreign interference. So we have a degree of experience. There's always a lot more to do, but a degree of experience in how we seek to regulate the engagement that you describe and to assure ourselves that the democracy is resilient. In terms of Syria, not to my knowledge. We obviously did discuss the leadership role that the United Kingdom plays in the Middle East and the events in Syria today. Daniel Sheridan at The Telegraph. Hi, this is for David Lammy. The Foreign Secretary, do you think that Prince Andrew should reveal any money he's received as a result of his dealings with the alleged spy? This is a serious matter. Whilst we have been conducting Auckland today, there has clearly been a statement in Parliament. The National Security Minister has dealt with issues that have arisen from parliamentarians, and I underline what I have said. We have a National Security Act. Six individuals have been detained under that Act. This is an issue that I raised when I was in Beijing, and I am content that the system, in response to what we have found, has acted appropriately on behalf of the British people. And Rob Harris, Europe Correspondent for the Sydney Morning Herald. Thank you. Secretary Haley and Minister Miles, if possible. On Ukraine, given attention is now turning to a potential peace deal, and we know what President Zelensky has put down in terms of that, do you see peacekeeping troops, European peacekeeping troops, as essential to that security guarantee that President Zelensky is asking for? Does that include British troops? And Minister Miles, given the involvement of China and North Korea in the Ukrainian conflict, how far is Australia prepared to go in contributing to any sort of peacekeeping action? Would that include troops? It's important not to get ahead of ourselves. I explained what Ukraine is facing now. Our task and our duty now is to support Ukraine in every way that we can, to resist the Russian offensive, to hold and retake its ground, and to put itself in the strongest possible position if President Zelensky decides to start talking as well, or instead of fighting. When that moment comes, our job as allied nations that stand steadfast with Ukraine is to support them in any negotiations, just as we will through any battlefield fighting. And one of the important things that we discussed today, that we have affirmed publicly, is our commitment to stand with Ukraine throughout 2025. It's designed to reinforce the confidence of the Ukrainian people that it has allies in the West that will stand with them as long as it takes. And it's designed also to message to Putin that he cannot prevail, he will not prevail, and Ukraine will have our support for as long as it needs. John really has answered the question. Our focus right now is on supporting Ukraine now, such that it can resolve this conflict on its terms. We spoke a lot about this during the course of today's meeting. In fact, during the course of this year, Australia has committed $650 million of support to Ukraine, which is about half of the military support that we have committed to Ukraine since the beginning of the war. So that actually represents an increased tempo, if you like, of the commitments that we have made. And we spoke a lot about how we can continue to provide support during the course of 2025 and the announcement that we will continue or extend our contribution to Operation Interflex is an example of that. But we will continue to look at ways in which we can support Ukraine for as long as it takes. And we work really closely with the UK in terms of what that commitment looks like. And obviously, we work closely with Ukraine itself. But the role that has been played by the United Kingdom in support of Ukraine, I think, has been inspirational, as has, of course, the resistance that has been shown by Ukraine itself. And we have greatly appreciated Britain's leadership in the way in which it has convened support amongst countries around the world, including Australia for Ukraine, and we will continue to work with Britain in terms of what support we can continue to provide. Thank you very much indeed. Thank you.