Opposition demands briefing on Russian request to Indonesia after PM’s ‘shifty responses’
The Coalition has accused Anthony Albanese of “shifty responses” to questions regarding Russia’s request to station warplanes at an Indonesian air base and demanded an immediate briefing after it was reported authorities learned of the matter in March.
Who knew what and when about the request has emerged as an unexpected twist in the federal election campaign, with the Prime Minister and cabinet ministers keeping coy when asked publicly.
A blunder from Peter Dutton earlier this month — when the Opposition Leader falsely said Indonesia’s president had publicly confirmed the Russian request — revealed the opposition seemingly knew very little.
The Coalition’s defence and foreign affairs spokesmen on Monday said they had been kept in the dark.
“The Government has refused to provide the Opposition with a briefing on this matter, which goes to the core of Australia’s national security,” Andrew Hastie and David Coleman said in a joint statement.
“Any attempt by Russian to gain access to airfields just 1300km from Darwin is plainly an issue of grave concern.
“Instead of providing a briefing, the Government has provided a series of evasive, deceptive, shifty responses.”
They said Defence Minister Richard Marles had told them the opposition would get a briefing but “then reversed his position and said no briefing would be provided”.
“A briefing should be provided to the Opposition immediately – in the same way that the previous Government provided briefings on national security matters to the Opposition, including during the last election campaign,” the senior Coalition MPs said.
“The Government has deliberately sought to mislead and obfuscate in order to not come clean on what knowledge it had – and what action it took – in relation to the Russian proposal.
“It is obvious that the Prime Minister is hiding something.”
Speaking to reporters on Monday, Mr Albanese again refused to reveal what he knew and when about Russia’s request.
He instead again accused Mr Dutton of verballing the Indonesian President.
“What adults do on intelligence is receive them and not … conduct it through the media,” Mr Albanese said.
“What we know about the importance of transparency, what we know is, I’m sorry, but adults, adults, when it comes to intelligence, act like adults.
“They don’t engage in seeing every international issue as a domestic political opportunity. “The key issue here is that Peter Dutton verballed the Indonesian President, that’s the issue here.”
