Dutton denies ‘overreach’ on Russia claims
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has denied any “overreach” in his reaction to reports that Russia wants to station warplanes in Indonesia.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese accused Dutton of “extraordinary overreach” and of having “verballed the president of Indonesia” following reports on Tuesday that Moscow wanted to base long-range air force planes in Papua, just 1300 kilometres from Darwin.
“What we saw from Peter Dutton yesterday was an extraordinary overreach,” Albanese said on Wednesday.
“He verballed the president of Indonesia.
“Dials it up to 11 at every opportunity. Doesn’t worry about facts. But in verballing the president of Indonesia, who had not made a statement about this issue, nor had the government of Indonesia made a statement, the Foreign Minister, the Defence Minister, it was an extraordinary thing for him to do at any time.”
Local officials scrambled to verify reports in defence publication Janeson on Tuesday that Moscow had sought permission from Jakarta to station military planes at the Manuhua Air Force Base at Biak Numfor.
On Wednesday, Foreign Minister Penny Wong said Indonesian officials had confirmed they were “not contemplating any so-called Russian base, or any Russian assets operating out of Indonesian territory”.
“That was made very clear to us,” she told Sky News.
On Tuesday, Dutton accused the Albanese government of a “catastrophic failure” if it had no warning of the request, suggesting Indonesian president Prabowo Subianto had confirmed the story.
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“There’s comment that’s come out of the administration, out of the Prabowo administration,” he told ABC TV host Patricia Karvelas.
“The Prime Minister knew nothing about it, neither did Penny Wong.
“Penny Wong has set a standard here she hasn’t met herself. I hope she’s able to explain exactly what’s taken place.”
Asked if he had jumped the gun, Dutton said later:
“There’s commentary I have seen reported from the Indonesian spokesperson, that’s obviously come from the administration.”
On Wednesday, Dutton denied going too far in his reaction.
“The prospect of having Russia with a greater presence in our region is very real and there are a lot of questions the government still has to answer. We have asked for a briefing in relation to the matter that has not been forthcoming yet,” he said.
He said his comments related to the Janes report.
“The reference I made was to a credible military website and that talked about government sources and the Prabowo government sources,” he said.
“When you have a Foreign Minister and a Defence Minister and a Prime Minister finding out about decisions from our friends and countries abroad, when they find out about that on CNN or Fox or whatever, you know this government is not up to it.”
Indonesia said the report, which claimed Russia asked to base long-range aircraft in the Papua province, was incorrect. The Kremlin declined to comment on the matter directly.
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“There are a lot of different pieces of fake news around, publications in the media, including those that relate to sensitive areas,” spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
On Wednesday, Wong refused to confirm if Indonesia had revealed an actual request.
“I’m obviously not going to go into all the discussions we have diplomatically, we don’t do that through the media,” she said.
She accused Dutton of fabricating a statement from Prabowo.
“This is an extraordinary thing for a man who wants to be the prime minister to do — to actually try to verbal the president of Indonesia in order to make a domestic political point,” she said.
“He is simply too reckless and too aggro to be the prime minister.”
Defence Minister Richard Marles spoke with his Indonesian counterpart on Tuesday. He said it was “made it utterly clear to me that reports of a prospect of Russian aircraft operating from Indonesia are completely false and that Indonesia has no intention of doing this whatsoever”.
Liberal campaign spokesman James Paterson side-stepped questions about Dutton needing to be more careful in discussing international leaders.
“[He] was referring to media reports in a breaking news story,” he told ABC radio, adding it was appropriate to respond to major stories during an election campaign.
Paterson said the opposition had sought a briefing.
“It does appear [the government] only learned about this from media reports and had to quickly scramble to make a call to find out whether those media reports are true or not,” he said.
“If you have a good bilateral relationship with one of our closest and most important regional partners and if you have good intelligence then things like this should not come as a surprise to the Australian government.”
Coalition finance spokeswoman Jane Hume also defended Dutton from accusations of fabrication. She said Wong had been “blindsided” by the reports.
“That was a bizarre comment. It sounds very defensive from a Foreign Minister. Clearly, she was blindsided by this report and has been on the back foot since,” she told ABC News Breakfast on Wednesday.
“We’re not going to apologise for having a strong leader that will stand up for national interests.”
