Can Australia really defend itself?

From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey. It's Wednesday, May twenty nine. Immigration Minister Andrew Giles has called an urgent review of the dozens of convicted criminals, including rapists and domestic violence offenders, who've been allowed to stay in Australia as a result of the government's changes to migration rules. Queensland's government will ban the anti corruption watchdog from making critical commentary about politicians who are not

The nuclear submarine is the ultimate APEX predator.

Peter malinowskis is the Premier of South Australia and that means more than anyone else. He's focused on the future of how Australia will defend itself.

The moment a nuclear submarine enters the water, it immediately and fundamentally tilts the balance of power in an instant It recalibrates every geopolitical relationship around it.

Australia is committed to borrow by and then build nuclear powered subs as part of ORCUS Strategic Pact with the US and Britain. They'll be built and sustained in South Australia, and they're designed to deter our enemies from attacking and allow us to attack far beyond our shores. Nuclear powered subs are almost silent under the water and can stay submerged from months on end. That makes them a stealth weapon.

We are wise to acquire this power, but to achieve this we must change our thinking about ORCUS and what it means for our nation.

Melanowskis is talking at Defending Australia, a summon in Canberra held by The Australian and our fellow mastheads at News Corp Australia, including The Advertiser.

So Newport News in Virginia, where they build nuclear submarines they've got over twenty thousand people that work there. One thousand of those people individually have over forty years experience building nuclear submarines themselves. One thousand people with over forty years of experience building nuclear submarines every single day of their working lives. Do you know how many of those people that we have working at Osborne or AC None.

He says. We need an entirely new workforce tens of thousands of people to work on the submarines directly. But that's not all.

Now, we can't employ these people as other foreign nationals for security reasons that are well known in this room. We can't even really poach them from the US in the UK because that would be in breach of the very principles that Orcus has been there to design about uplift.

Across the three nations.

Rather than an internal poaching exercise.

That means we need to train Australians and thousands of them will need to be recruited from other sectors.

We need sparkys, we need plumbers, we need fitters, we need turners, we probably need butcher's bakers and candorstick makers. And as we seek to recruit those from existing industries.

Who is going to backfill that labor.

Because if you haven't noticed, Australia already has a critical worker shortage in sectors like construction right now.

First and foremost, Australia does not have a migration problem.

We have a housing supply problem.

That housing supply problem is why both the government and oppositions say they need to slash migration, because Australians can't find somewhere to.

Live without a healthy influx of skilled migrants.

Our nation is not the country that we know today, nor will be the country we want it to be tomorrow. So I would say to my Canberra colleagues that UCUST must be a consideration in deliberations over Australia's skilled migration program. But more than that, AUCUST must be con consideration in just about every area of policy. When we think about housing, what does it mean for ORCUS? When we think about infrastructure,

I sat down with Peter Melanowskis on stage at the Defending Australia Summit on Tuesday night. The British High Commissioner gave you and everybody else in the room today a bit of a warning not to come poaching their staff. You'd made the right noises about that in your speech too, saying that that would be in breach of the spirit of the Orcast Pact. But if you know talented British nuclear physicists want to move to Adelaide and have a wonderful life there, are you going to turn them down?

Well, I'll tell a story that I probably shouldn't.

The Optimal Pathway was announced by the Prime Minister and the British Prime Minister and the US President, and seventy two hours later I was on the ground in Barrow touring their facility, which is very impressive indeed, But the most powerful part to me was actually going through their equivalent of the Training and Skills Academy and I got to talk to young workers learning their craft to build the nuclear submarines in the UK.

And I'm saying to them, oh, you know, would you like to come.

And work in Adelaide like Barrow? If you haven't pictured it, it's a bleak, it's different, right, So I'm saying that these kids, you know, like Allaid's got beaches, We've got wineries. It's a major metropolitan city. You know, we've got lots of festivals and events. And I said, would you can't like to come, and one after the other saying oh, yeah, that sounds pretty good. Stephen Smith grabbed me by the eye.

And he said, this isn't a part of the deal. Well, this is a problem. And I remember that because it was the early stages.

Of the Optimum Pathway announcement, and it is a critical principle that we've signed up to that is not about poaching.

It is about industrial uplift.

Across the three countries, which means we have to accept a profound responsibility that we are developing and procuring our own workforce domestically at home, and as has been identified in all the panels tonight, it is the fundamental challenge.

It is the single biggest risk to the program.

I think that in turn invites a nationally coordinated effort about how we're going to develop that workforce because it's not just about my state. This is not an industrial policy for South Australia or Western Australia. We are at full employment. We're not trying to work out how to make more work. We're trying to work out how we get the work done, and that is going to require a lot more uplift from the Eastern States in a way that I don't think is fully being computed.

Up until this point.

Coming up a for much Spy reveals what China really thinks about Australia. We'll be back after this break. In twenty twenty, as the pandemic raged, Australian journalist Chang Lai was detained in China. He She is describing her ordeal on Sky News Australia.

It's to make you feel isolated and bored and pained and desperate. My experience was the first five months I got to read books and I had a pen and paper with which to write, and that was much less painful than the final month of just twelve hours a day of pure sitting and very little chance to get up and just walk, just pace around a very little room.

Every dream was a nightmare. Almost three years later, and following extensive diplomatic maneuvering by Foreign Minister Penny Wong, Lay was finally freed.

More than one thousand days behind bars. Today, Freedom Australian journalist Chung Lay embraced by Foreign Minister Pennywong at Melbourne Airport this afternoon.

Now, Chang Lai is working as an anchor on Sky News, and on Tuesday she moderated a panel at the Defending Australia Summit on conflicts past, present and potentially future. She was joined by Senator Dave Sharma, Ukrainian Ambassador Vassel Marishenko, and a former spy for the Ministry of Public Security for the People Republic of China. We're calling him Eric to protect his identity.

Now, two points I want to make at the top. One is an ex con, an ex spy, two diplomats on a stage talking freely without fear. That's what we're defending. You know, when Eric's story came out, everyone who I.

Knew said he has balls.

So I want to ask you, Eric, what exactly did you do or were you forced to do for the government.

Eric explained he had three main tasks as a spy, writing intelligence reports, gathering information about opponents of the Chinese Communist Party and dealing with targets.

But I relaxed. I have protected all the targets, and the null one had been arrested because of me, and a lot of evenists can prove that I have my own secret under the secret of police.

Don't know.

Chang Lai translated some of the panel's questions for Eric and his responses in real time.

Right, and you were forced into this because you supported a dissident movement?

Is that correct?

In the Jusula Union? So will you hype b B it's what JO should you know?

Yes?

Correct?

Senator Dave Chalma jumped in, Well.

Look up. Firstly, Eric, I commend you for your personal bravery. Must have taken a huge amount of courage. Can I ask him in what was it that triggered your decision to leave your employment seek asylum in the country like Australia. Was it something you particularly asked to do? Do you lost faith in the political system them or you had ethical or moral concerns with what you're being asked to do?

What he actually chose Canada first. So on the same day he got two emails, a rejection from Canada acceptance from Australia. He also applied to New Zealand, but then he tossed a coin to decide between Australia and New Zealand.

Will we some Yo Holy Year? So Jens Sushi un.

So he's always been anti CCP Chinese Communist Party, that's in his DNA, and he had his own secrets in that. The first time he sought to escape, he went to Hong Kong and sought assistance at the US consulate and more secrets about that will be revealed in due course. And the second escape also the Chinese secret police.

Didn't know about.

Then he did some really like genuine anti CCP work that started to attract the interest of the Beijing h Q of the secret police, and that's when he felt the danger and he started to plot his way out.

So what you told us was.

That you were asked to collect information to monitor and also try to abduct Chinese distance in other countries. How concerned should Western governments be about that?

What you're s.

So? He says that Western politicians are usually not concerned about these behaviors. They think it's all within Chinese people, but in fact, the CCP's attempt to control voices in the Chinese community actually then in turn affects voting in those countries and influences politics. So that does erode rights in Western countries and should be something that we're all

Seem more sure and what.

To the So he's noticed that among academics and some people in the strategy sphere that people seem to think if there is a China US conflict, that Australia should not take sides. And he doesn't know whether these voices are being funded by China, but he thinks If Australia stands by and not help the US, it's going to be the start of Australia's nightmare.

New South Wales police say a strikeforce into the suspected murder of missing Bromwyn Winfield is open and ongoing. She's the subject of The Australian's new investigative podcast series, Bromwyn. You can register to listen to the first two episodes right now at Bronwyn podcast dot com. That's b ro n w y n podcast dot com and join us subscribers for all the nation's best journalism at The Australian dot com dot au.