Keith Wolahan (Menzies, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The title of an MPI is quite important, and often, as the member for Parramatta did, we stray from the actual title. The title here is 'The importance of Australia's relationship with our key allies'. The day after the United States election, we really are referring to the United States, but I would like to refer to the word 'importance' because, when it comes to our relationship with the United States, its importance is everything. That's how important it is, and I want to illustrate that through one example.

I want to take the chamber back to a time before anyone here was born: 1942, 4 to 7 June. It was six months after the attack on Pearl Harbor and one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea. Japan had taken Hong Kong, the Philippines, British Malaya, Singapore and the Dutch East Indies. Japan sought to eliminate the US as a strategic power in the Pacific. They correctly assessed that the source of that power was their carrier forces—each carrier being a floating 'death star', for those more familiar with Star Wars. Midway is a small atoll 2,000 kilometres north-west of Hawaii. The Japanese felt that, by attacking it, they would compel the Americans to defend it, and it would shift the trajectory of the war.

Assumptions were made on intelligence and, thanks to the ingenuity of young US officers, the Japanese naval code was broken, and they were able to guess not only where but when and how the attack would occur. The battle was immense. The Japanese lost 3,000 men and four carriers. The US lost 300 and one carrier, and it struck a fatal blow to the Japanese military machine. This was the Allies' first victory, and, had the US not won, the war would have taken a different course, including for Australia.

There are two points to note about that one battle that shaped the course of that war and why it is known as one of the most consequential battles in military history. The first was industry. The US had an inferior capability in terms of equipment, they had lower numbers and they had been wounded by previous battles, yet they still prevailed because US industry in Hawaii repaired the Yorktown and put it back into operation within 48 hours. Very few countries on earth would have been able to do that at that time, and that is why US industry is so important to our national interests.

The second was human will. We don't just have alliances with random countries because of their ranking in power and status; we have alliances because of what they believe in, who they are and what drives them to bet everything on fighting for their country. Young men flew into hell at Midway, and, in doing so, they helped keep Australia safe. The War Memorial just down the road, which has 103,000 names, would be maybe five times as large if not for the bravery of young United States men who fought in battles like that. But they didn't just fight for a flag, an oath or a constitution; they fought for a country worth fighting for. They fought for a country that believes in values that are very similar to ours and that are their true north: democracy, the rule of law and freedom.

There has been a lot of hyperbole in the last 24 hours, and that's all it is: hyperbole. The United States isn't its president, and it isn't the political party that is in power there. It is a nation of people who believe in things, as we are. With all due respect to the Prime Minister, Australia isn't Anthony Albanese, and Australia isn't the Labor Party. Australia is the people and the people who will come next. The same applies to the United States.

One of the issues we have to deal with in keeping Australia secure is the security dilemma. The security dilemma goes like this: if our adversaries feel insecure, we will be insecure; if we act, they will counteract. The source of that insecurity is not that democracies, which we are and the United States is, will destroy nations. That's not the fear; the fear is that we exist, that we set an alternative example. And the counteraction is to throw sand in the gears of democratic institutions. We've seen a lot of that in the last 24 hours—a lot of that sand thrown by people in this country. It feeds off mistrust, and it's deliberately designed to undermine democracies. The way we practise democracy matters, and the way the United States practises it matters, and it is a great credit to them that they had a peaceful transfer of power.

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