This article first appeared in The Daily Telegraph on 27 February 2025.

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The Albanese Labor government frequently boasts about having “stabilised” Australia’s relationship with China. But in the past week we have seen China send a naval task force into the Tasman Sea, further south than China’s navy has ever travelled.

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China’s navy then conducted live-fire exercises, which posed a risk to civilian air traffic and forced the diversion of commercial airlines.

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It was a provocative act without precedent.

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This naval group, which the Chief of the Defence Force told the Senate may include a nuclear-armed submarine, was still in Australia’s exclusive economic zone, off Tasmania’s coastline, yesterday morning.

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Alarmingly, the first we heard of China’s live-fire exercises was courtesy of a passing Virgin aircraft that happened to pick up the broadcast. Prime Minister Albanese claimed notice was given in advance by China of these exercises.

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But the Chief of the Defence Force told myself and other Senators yesterday that this was plain wrong. China’s live-fire exercise commenced at 9.30am. The first time the Australian government knew the exercise was under way was at 10.10am.

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Alarmingly, Australian defence assets were not monitoring China’s naval task force at the time – we did not have eyes and ears on the target.

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This is a clear failing of Defence Minister Richard Marles. He should have instructed our defence forces to ensure continuous monitoring of China’s naval task force once it started steaming down our eastern coastline. Nor, it seems, was the National Security Committee of Cabinet convened by the prime minister.

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Through its provocative acts, Beijing is seeking to test Australia’s reaction and establish a dangerous precedent.

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And we are failing this test.

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Labor’s pursuit of its vaunted “stabilisation” – which seems to entail speaking softly, but carrying no stick – is clearly not working.

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How we respond now will set the pattern for the future.

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If we do not want our coastline turned into an exercise ground for China’s armed forces, then we need to be responding with gravity and seriousness – not weakness and evasion.

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Dave Sharma is a former diplomat and current Liberal senator for NSW