Coalition home affairs spokesman Andrew Hastie says Australia isn’t obligated to declare position on hypothetical Taiwan conflict

Australia is not obligated to disclose whether we would support the United States in a potential conflict sparked by China’s hypothetical invasion of Taiwan, Coalition home affairs spokesman Andrew Hastie says. Mr Hastie, a former SAS commander, has lashed the Pentagon demand as “unreasonable”. The Financial Times has reported Elbridge Colby – Pentagon policy chief and the man leading the US review into the AUKUS agreement – has urged Australian and Japanese officials to reveal their position in meetings. Asked whether Australia was “obligated to clarify what our role is”, Mr Hastie said: “I don’t think we are”. “I think the US is ambiguous in its position with Taiwan. If that’s the case they can’t expect their allies to be declaring their position hypothetically,” Mr Hastie said. “I know at the operational level I’m sure there’s all sorts of war gaming and war planning about different scenarios that could occur in the Indo Pacific, but I think it’s unreasonable for Australia to have to declare a position for a hypothetical.” However, he said Australia needed to be “ready” and willing to work with the US to ensure we were “intimately involved in integrated deterrence throughout the region,” something he said Anthony Albanese was “failing” on. “The US has made it very clear that that’s what they want as well, and that’s why our partnership is so important, and that’s why the Prime Minister is failing, because he’s yet to secure a meeting with Donald Trump,” Mr Hastie said. “And he’s yet to really voice the national interest in personal terms to the President of the United States.” Asked about the reports on Sunday, the Prime Minister said he supported the “status quo when it comes to Taiwan”. Speaking from Shanghai on his six day trip to China, he said it was “important” to have a “stable, orderly, coherent position” and reiterated calls for “peace and security in our region”. Mr Hastie also rebuffed comments from Mr Albanese that there needed to “be a little bit of perspective” on a potential meeting with US President Donald Trump. Mr Hastie said the leaders needed to have a conversation about the AUKUS review, as well as demand transparency around whether Australia would be asked to deploy the Virginia-class submarines obtained from the US through the AUKUS agreement. “I think (it’s been) 250 days since President Trump was elected, and the US is our closest security partner,” Mr Hastie said. “I think he needs to go to Donald Trump and have an intimate conversation with him about AUKUS and many other issues, particularly given that it is such a close partnership we have with the United States.”