CANBERRA - 20 October 2021
Deputy Speaker,
This year marks the sixtieth anniversary of the Antarctic Treaty which anchors the current Antarctic Treaty System.
Australia has played a critical role in creating and sustaining this architecture.
But if we want to play the same role over the next 60 years, greater investment and presence by Australia is needed.
This treaty designates Antarctica as a scientific preserve, prohibits military activity, and provides that no action while the Treaty is in force can enhance or diminish the legal basis of any territorial claims to the continent.
Antarctica has experienced no military conflict so far, and we hope that it never will.
However, the Treaty preferred to defer, rather than resolve, the thorny issue of territorial claims, and the Treaty has no enforcement mechanisms.
The continent is increasingly becoming a new theatre of power politics, intimately linked to geopolitical contestation in the Indo-Pacific.
China and Russia are bolstering their investment and military presence under the guise of “scientific research” to press their influence and probe the treaty for weaknesses.
This comes at a time when Australia, and likeminded countries such as the US and UK, have had to scale back our Antarctic programs to prioritise COVID-19 recovery.
We need to be clear about Antarctica’s value – it is enormous, holding deposits of gold, copper, lead, zinc, and uranium, as well as 70% of the world’s fresh water.
These resources aside, bases and ports in Antarctica enable force projection straight into the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans.
Australia has always had a direct interest in protecting Antarctica, and Labor has a proud history in protecting the Antarctic wilderness.
Australia claims 42% of Antarctic territory, the largest territorial claim of any state.
We formalised our claim in 1933 but it stretches all the way back to British claims from 1841, long before the Antarctic Treaty.
For years Australia has been at the forefront of Antarctic science and exploration.
These contributions have bought us real influence in terms of international decision-making on Antarctica.
Ongoing cuts to science and research erode this critical source of Australian power.
If we want Australia’s Antarctic territory to continue to be the integral part of Australia that we have always claimed it is, then we must make Antarctica a strategic priority.
We cannot defend Australia’s sovereignty, let alone achieve our geopolitical objectives in the Indo-Pacific, without working to maintain our influence in an increasingly contested Antarctica.
It is therefore vital that Antarctica gains a prominent place in Australia’s strategic thinking.
But the Government’s Indo-Pacific strategy narrowly focuses on North East Asia. But we are an island nation, and cannot afford to think like this.
A 360 degree security outlook is missing.
The southern end US Indo-Pacific Command is anchored in Antarctica.
Meanwhile, we have left off an entire flank of our national security.
I am looking forward to going to the Australian Antarctic Division in Hobart soon to meet the hardworking team there and discuss what we must do better and what exactly is at stake if we do not keep our eye trained firmly on this great, frozen continent to our south.
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ENDS
