As Minister for Defense Industry and Minister for Pacific Island Affairs, Pat Conroy is at the center of debates over AUKUS, China’s designs on the Pacific, and Australia’s efforts to mend relations with its neighbors. POLITICO sat down for a wide-ranging interview with Conroy this month, just weeks after the Albanese government struck its second landmark treaty in the region.
It was a big news month for Conroy, who announced an overhaul of defense procurement, promoted the new Australia-Fiji security pact, and toured AUKUS production and training sites in the U.S.
Conroy is Australia’s longest-serving minister for the Pacific, and the only one to serve in the role while a Cabinet member. He represents the electorate of Shortland, in New South Wales, which covers the area south of Newcastle, and parts of the Central Coast.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
Over Parliament’s winter recess we’ve had the Australia-Fiji treaty signed and the PNG treaty has come into force. Can you explain for an average Australian why these Pacific security moves are important?
In the Southwest Pacific, or in the Pacific more broadly, we are in a permanent state of contest with other countries. That’s why you’ve seen an unprecedented level of engagement from the Albanese government in rebuilding relations.
Alliances only work if all parties believe genuinely that there will be follow through. It’s a contested region, and we’re talking about potential war in our region. In the case of foreign interference or military attack, what lengths is Australia prepared to go to defend its specific allies?
Well, the language in the alliances with Fiji and PNG make it clear that we will consult and act to meet a common threat. It’s the same language that’s in ANZUS.
What does Australia expect in terms of China testing that resolve?
We want to be the partner of choice for this region, and that’s contested. There are multiple sides in a contest pursuing their own interests.
Penny Wong, Albanese are very keen to refer to “the Pacific family.” Under Scott Morrison we often had references to it as Australia’s backyard.
It’s not our backyard, it’s not our neighborhood. We’re a proud member of the Pacific family — not our family, the family. That nomenclature is important because it signifies respect and I think a level of humility that Australia hasn’t always engaged in in this area.
Back to your earlier question about the Wale proposal; We’ve signaled if that’s what he wants to drive, if that’s what the Pacific leaders decide to pursue, we will back it 100 percent. But ultimately it’s within their sovereign decision-making.
What’s the deeper point of rugby league diplomacy, beyond adding a PNG NRL team or giving leaders a social outing?
It’s fundamental. This is the first time in the history of the world a country’s used sporting diplomacy to this level. It’s an essential factor in building people-to-people connections. It interlinks our countries at fundamental levels. It’s about economic development in Port Moresby itself. It will also unite their nation.
I call it “PM Marape’s Nelson Mandela vision,” just as in ’94, Mandela used rugby to unite in a post-apartheid South Africa. PM Marape sees this as one of the ways to uniting a very diverse country, a country of — I think it’s 800 languages spoken across 1000 tribes. Rugby league is one of the few things that unites all of them, so we’re helping him with his national project. Then introducing an NRL visa means that not only will Australians be traveling more to watch their teams get smashed by the Chiefs, you’ll see Papua New Guineans traveling to Townsville and Melbourne to watch the Chiefs play here.
It seems to be — and is this part of the strategy? — that rugby league is something that uniquely Australia can offer in a contested area.
We’re using every lever of statecraft to be the partner of choice, and that means picking things that are of high value to our Pacific partners that only we, or very few countries, can offer. So whether it’s rugby league, or opening up Australia to Pacific migration through the Pacific Engagement Visa, or our labor markets through the PALM.
On the PALM visa. We’re obviously in a pretty febrile debate about immigration at the moment. If there were to be an extension of the PALM visa, is there the political space to push that through?
I genuinely think that for most Australians, we’ve got such a strong Pacific diaspora that there’s a lot of sympathy for Pacific Islanders in Australia.
Fifty percent of NRL players are of Pasifika heritage, so they are walking ambassadors. Even if they’re born in this country, it might be their mum or dad that came from Tonga or Samoa or PNG — or their grandparents. That bond is so powerful.
We’ve now got a league fan in Number 10. Is that a point of leverage with London, and is Andy Burnham coming to the World Cup?
Well, I hope so. I have no idea. Look, it’s great. The northern English Rugby League heritage is incredibly powerful.
There’s a jersey I received when I last went to Barrow from the local team that a couple of BAE workers presented to me. So it’s a great opportunity. One of my greatest rugby league heroes is Adrian Morley [NRL player from greater Manchester].
On Barrow, you visited recently. It’s facing an uphill battle just on ballistic submarines, let alone the new attack class. Is there anything Australia can be doing to help the U.K. get over the line, and is there anything you want to see changed under Andy Burnham compared to Starmer?
Well, I think declarations of the death or struggles of the U.K. sovereign industry have been completely overblown. They’re scaling up massively. I was in Barrow in February 2023 [and] went back in February this year.
In February 2023, they had 8,000 people in a shipyard. Now it’s 16,000, and they’ve got strong plans on expanding both Barrow, to deal with their increased build rate, but also move work to other places. So they’re ramping up, but they’ll get to a position where, if they can get to continuous nuclear submarine building, then the efficiency will be really strong. At the moment, they’ve had some big gaps.
One of the reasons I’m convinced AUKUS will succeed is in the national interest of all three countries. It really adds sustainability to their industry, which is really important.
How else can we help? Well, obviously, we’ve got Australian companies that are entering the supply chain. Pacific Maritime Batteries down at Osborne is supplying batteries to SSN AUKUS, as well as other nuclear submarine programs. Thales in Rydelmere already makes parts for the sonars.
One of the benefits of AUKUS isn’t just us receiving technology and building our base. We’ve got untapped potential in our base that is helping both the U.K. and U.S. programs.
Obviously, there’s been a change of leader even since you were there. Do you expect the path on AUKUS to change at all?
No, it’s survived changes of government in all three countries, and I think it will go strong.
Every leader might have a little individual focus on what they want to do, it’s fair to say. For Boris Johnson, and I don’t mean this as a pejorative, I think he saw this as part of his post-Brexit narrative about economic development in the U.K. I think Prime Minister Starmer and President Biden, when they were combined with Prime Minister Albanese, were much more focused on the strategic benefits of sharing this technology, as well as the industrial uplift.
John Healey is a great friend of Australia, and having him as Chancellor of the Exchequer is a great boon for us.
And Andy Burnham has a big fixation on reindustrialization of the north…
Absolutely, and this is part of it. I’ve got Luke Pollard, my counterpart, visiting and he’s charged with leading this. They see their defense industry as a key part of their economic rejuvenation of Britain as a whole, but particularly northern Britain.
There’s obviously been an optimum path to AUKUS laid out for a while now. You sound pretty confident that we’re still on that path. Do you think the public understands that there might actually be multiple paths to get towards what are our ultimate AUKUS goals?
I think we’ve been pretty open with people that this is the most complex industrial undertaking this country’s ever attempted, and that’s going to be challenging. That’s why you’re building contingency — we build in 50 percent contingency.
The first U.K. AUKUS submarine is due to hit the water in the late 2030s. There’s roughly a five year gap [from that] to our first one. So they’re taking the “first of type” risk. Their plan is probably to have two AUKUS submarines come off the production lines before we get our first. So a lot of risk is being borne by them.
Is there a common misconception that you see as a through line in the reporting of AUKUS here?
The Virginias are a very important waypoint. But AUKUS is a technology sharing pact that means that we go from three submarine construction yards across the three countries to four, and we’re becoming capable of producing our own nuclear powered submarines, with the exception of the reactor module. So for me, that’s probably common misconception number one: that AUKUS is all about Virginias. That’s one part of AUKUS — an important part — but not the whole part.
Misconception number two is people that think that AUKUS is ANZUS. They’re two very different things. One’s an alliance, the other is a technology sharing and industrial collaboration agreement.
Misconception number three, which is probably the most egregious one from the critics of AUKUS, is that somehow this is selling out our sovereignty, that in return for this submarine technology we’re pre-committing to something, which — excuse my language — absolute bullshit.
We can print that?
That’s absolute bullshit. We retain full sovereignty. These will be built in Australia, they’ll be crewed by Australians, captained by Australians, and reportable to the democratically elected government of the day. No pre-commitments to any future conflict have been given, nor will they ever be, because that is not what this government does.
People arguing for different things are actually arguments for less sovereignty. Malcolm Turnbull’s argument that if you wanted nuclear-powered submarines, why don’t you look at European nuclear-powered submarines — the French as an example. They need to be refueled every 10 years. You actually have to swap out the fuel rods every 10 years. That would require an Australian submarine going to a foreign country and being there a couple of years, The average refueling cycle is a couple of years.
Whereas [with Virginias and AUKUS class submarines] the reactor module will come sealed. We will not touch it for the 30 to 40-year life of these submarines.
We touched on it before this kind of febrile atmosphere with One Nation. My name is Finn McHugh and as a descendant of Irish Catholics, something you said the other day stood out to me. The exact quote: “They had a very different culture to our English Protestant jailers.”
Multiculturalism may be something that Australians have to grapple with for the first time in a long time at the next election. What do they need to remember about their own history?
They need to remember that we’ve always been a multicultural society. Even if you go back to the indigenous pre-European settlement, there were hundreds of tribes, hundreds of different cultures.
The Irish convicts were the original boat people. It is what it is, and we’ve never lived in a monoculture. People who paint a false past can’t be expected to deliver a real future.
The polls suggest there’s a pretty big constituency for this kind of rhetoric [questioning multiculturalism]. Do you believe this will just flame out by the next election?
When I talk to people who are saying to me when I door knock that “I’m considering voting for someone else,” I rarely get immigration.
What I get is unhappiness with the system, a view that the system is not delivering for them and their kids. And that’s why this government is very consciously saying the system is broken. We’re fixing the system. We’re delivering real change. We’re not defending the status quo.
When I talk to people, I say to them: “I get it. We want to make sure you can see a doctor for free. We want you to be able to get a decent wage. We want your kids to be able to afford a home, and we’re going to deliver that. We’re not going to try and blame the bloke down the street and say he caused your problems.”
Outside the obvious changes to your workflow, how’s your life changed since you were appointed to cabinet?
Probably an appreciation of the broader approach to the government. When you’re a [non-Cabinet] minister, you get really siloed. It’s all about what you’re delivering in your portfolio. So the importance of the cabinet is the opportunity to have broader strategic discussions about the direction of the country. So that’s something that is really a privilege being privy to. Obviously, being a member of the National Security Committee of Cabinet from day one of this government was an enormous privilege, and I was only the second Defense Industry minister after Christopher Pyne, and the first Pacific Minister, to have that. So I’ve always had that broader national security approach beyond my portfolio.
What do you think the elevation of the Pacific Minister to NSC says about the government’s approach?
It says that we think this is core business for the Australian government. You’d expect me to say that.
I’ve done, now, 37 trips to the Pacific. The Foreign Minister has gone to every PIF member. The PM has made multiple visits to multiple Pacific countries, including walking the Kokoda Track with PM Marape. The first two prime ministers [to do that]. They slept in tents next to each other for three bloody days. So that level of personal commitment symbolizes and demonstrates this government’s commitment to this region.
Does personal diplomacy matter more in the Pacific than it would in Europe, for example?
One of the things that I found in this role is that Pacific leaders, like their people, are really polite. There’s a hesitancy to often disagree with people visiting or when you’re visiting their country, because it can be seen as a sign of disrespect. So occasionally you’ll get people, if you don’t know them, not feeling like they can have honest conversations with you. Whereas having that depth of relationship means we can have really honest conversations. And that’s why those first relationships really matter.
