The first signs appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald, the front page reading “The Dragon Rears its Head: China’s Southward Bound Expedition”. Although the article lacked strategic depth or any military analysis, the sensationalist message was clear: China was coming, and Indonesia was helping them do it. Whether these accusations held any weight didn’t matter to the average reader. Soon it filled every paper and every news ticker, Sunrise had a new ASPI analyst on every morning with the same talking points. It was truly impressive how many ways they could say the exact same thing. Social media was no better. Every middle-aged guy with a ute and an impossibly red face had a new theory on how Xi Jinping had colluded with Labor and the Greens to sell us to China. Sky News was running infographics of various Labor leaders in full Soviet winter getups, which were quite flattering if Peta Credlin wasn’t demanding they be thrown in jail in the foreground. Even more moderate outlets were running articles about how we should reevaluate our relations with our northern neighbours. Of course, reevaluate in this case means consider Indonesia to be an enemy state and completely isolate them.

In the political sphere, the government was beset on all sides by demands for action. As the nation’s top military minds were rushed in and out of cabinet meetings, the opposition set to work trying to tear them a new one on the parliamentary floor. Opposition Leader Julie Bishop was not at all impressed, declaring that the government “has been completely and utterly blindsided by these developments. Frankly it’s embarrassing that Australia has just shown the world how blissfully unaware we are of the strategic realities of our region. This government clearly cannot be trusted to deliver on national security commitments and needs to be removed immediately”. OneNation leader Pauline Hanson was less diplomatic “It’s really quite simple Kochie, China and Indonesia have colluded and caught us with our pants down. It should be plain as day that they’ve switched sides and we should treat them as such. If this government wants to maintain any credibility they need to contain the Chinese threat right now.”

The Northern Approaches Defense Act

The Wong government knew they faced a tough choice: too strong of a response could spark an arms race with Indonesia, too weak and they’d never survive an election. Although some of the opposition claimed the bill wasn’t enough, Labor’s supply allowed them to block any provocative amendments.

The Northern Approaches Defense Act was designed to reimagine the military environment and strategic situation around Australia’s northern borders. The first port of call, so to speak, is the controversial Port of Darwin deal, penned by the Northern Territory government in 2015. Its $500 million sale to a Chinese firm with links to the CCP sparked a long and intense debate about the threat it posed to our national security. After much deliberation, the decision was made to purchase the port for $550 million from the company, in the hopes of lessening the backlash from Beijing. In its place, facilities will be expanded and Washington will be invited to develop a permanent naval presence in the city. This will send a very serious message: we do not take Jakarta’s actions lightly and we will not give in so easily.

The Cocos Keeling Islands and Christmas Island have a commanding view of the Indian Ocean and Indonesia’s western coastlines, making them ideal for military development to counter this new threat. Christmas Island has a rather unforgiving coastline that makes substantial naval facilities difficult to construct, but its volcanic base is ideal for military grade air fields. The current airport will be upgraded into a parallel 11,000 ft x 200 ft runway with hardened aircraft shelters, fuel storage facilities, a drone control station, hardened personnel and equipment storages and a AN/FPS-132 radar station. These will be protected by new LRASM-SL anti-ship and SM-6 ground based SAM batteries. Small upgrades will be made at Norris Point to allow for naval resupply, but the weather and geography of the island do not permit any further naval development. The Cocos Keeling Islands will receive more substantive developments. A naval replenishment facility with a MILHDBK-1025/UFC compliant pier plumbed for POL, and capable of Roll-On Roll-Off transfers of vehicles and materiel will be built at Port Refuge, located at the northern tip of Direction Island. Covered submarine sheds will be constructed here too for covert replenishment of their stores. A concrete ring road will be built on short pylons along the length of the atoll allowing free movement between facilities and protection for electrical cables and water pipes. A parallel 11,000 ft x 200 ft runway will be constructed on the northern end of West Island, currently a defunct palm plantation, along with 44 hardened aircraft shelters, hardened personnel housing and hardened storage facilities. An AN/FPS-132 radar system and a drone command centre will be installed along with 3 batteries of SM-6 and LRASM-SL systems.

In 2018, the United States and Australia collaborated with Papua New Guinea on the renovation of Lombrum Naval Base to handle their patrol boats. Now, if both parties agree, we would like to go further to upgrade the wharfs and storage facilities to make the base capable of resupplying large warships from Australia and the US. Furthermore, we would like to renovate the Momote Airport to be dual use military/civilian capable. This would enable our three armed forces to better patrol the waterways between Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, which in recent years have become a hub of islamic militants and illegal trade.

Lastly, to our valued ally India, we would like to establish a joint agreement around the patrolling of the Indian Ocean. We will allow Indian patrol aircraft to use runways and fuel stores at the new Cocos Island facilities in exchange for use of facilities at Port Blaire by our patrol aircraft.