Jim Molan (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise in this place this afternoon to address a particular issue, and that is the disjointed reporting and the use of language under the general theme of 'an aggressive China'. We see an awful lot of articles in the newspapers—of course, newspapers and other media, our main way of receiving information—where we have US generals, many, many of them, admirals and other officials coming to this country and warning of the progress that China has made in relation to its military capability: how it now has the largest army, the largest navy, the largest maritime militia and the largest sub strategic rocket force that the world has ever seen.

China is out there, bullying and dominating, according to these many people, particularly in the western Pacific, and it's much more aggressive. We see nuclear powered torpedoes and we shake our heads in amazement. We think about the extraordinary technology, because we will get nuclear powered submarines in 20 years time but, all of a sudden, China has nuclear torpedoes. And they're saying that in 10 years time they'll have nuclear torpedoes. Speaker Pelosi, of course, wants to go to Taiwan, and if you want a trigger for a bad thing to happen then it seems to me that's a pretty good trigger.

But one by one these things are of vague interest. Put them together and they are absolutely terrifying. It's a beautiful use of language if we talk about the 'massive failure of deterrence'. But what really is the massive failure of deterrence? The massive failure of deterrence is what is commonly referred to as 'war'—that's the massive failure of deterrence. It's quite a simple word, but the next question we have to ask is, 'What are we doing about it?' (Time expired)