Blunt Questions to Minister Omitted From Official Transcript

An Australian journalist has taken aim at the Albanese government after pointed questions she put to Defence Minister Richard Marles were omitted from an official transcript and marked simply as “inaudible”.

The exchange occurred at a press conference in London earlier this month, where Marles was pressed on his assertion that Australia’s defence spending sits at 2.8 per cent of GDP — a figure he has argued places the country ahead of most NATO members.

Latika Bourke, a UK-based Australian journalist who was at the event, said in a newsletter published on Friday that her questions were largely missing from the official record, despite being asked from roughly a metre away from the minister.

“At Defence Minister Richard Marles’ last press conference in London, I asked him about his intentions — or not — to raise defence spending,” Bourke wrote.

“But the official transcript issued by his office and posted on the department’s website rendered nearly all my questions ‘inaudible’.

“Given I was standing about a metre from the minister, it’s unfortunate that the official transcribers were unable to hear my questions.”

When Our News Outlet checked the document on Saturday afternoon, several questions believed to have been asked by Bourke were indeed recorded only as “inaudible”.

Bourke expressed scepticism about the omission, though she acknowledged one unusual factor: the diplomatic service had chosen to stage the media conference during what she described as a “windstorm”, a decision she called “mystifying”.

Ms Bourke said she was prepared to give Marles’ office the “benefit of the doubt”. But Michael Shoebridge, director of Strategic Analysis Australia, said the circumstances amounted to a “striking coincidence”.

“Claiming inconvenient questions are ‘inaudible’ can be a way of censoring information while being able to claim it’s just a technical issue,” he told Our News Outlet.

‘If that’s what’s going on, it is covert censorship, and that’s damaging in a democracy. 

‘It’s a striking coincidence that the journalist’s questions drilling into Marles’ creative accounting on defence spending seem to be the ones listed as “inaudible” in the transcript. 

‘I’ve often found I have trouble hearing inconvenient questions, but it’s sad to see it happening to a minister and their staff.’

Mr Shoebridge also echoed Ms Bourke, saying the claim that Australia spends 2.8 per cent of GDP on defence is still short of the NATO benchmark of five per cent (which is made up of 3.5 per cent on core defence items and a further 1.5 per cent on related items, such as infrastructure capable of handling military systems). 

‘Marles’ media performances create the impression that he has been open and clear about defence spending and his claimed increases,’ Mr Shoebridge said.

He claimed, by his analysis, the figure is ‘just over two per cent of GDP and will slowly move to about 2.3 per cent in 10 years’. 

‘Australia’s spending is not matching Marles’ words about the increasingly dangerous world we are living in,’ Mr Shoebridge said.

‘The lack of openness and clarity from the government on defence spending is helpful to ministers because it means key partners – like the Trump Administration – don’t understand what Australia is actually committing to. 

‘Clarity might result in political pressure on the government to make actual increases towards the NATO five per cent benchmark.’

Our News Outlet has contacted Marles’ office for comment on the claims made by both Ms Bourke and Mr Shoebridge. 

Ms Bourke included her questions – and Mr Marles’ answers – in her newsletter.

She said she was sharing them ‘in the interests of posterity and the ongoing debate about whether governments are funding their militaries adequately, given the increasing security threats’.

According to Ms Bourke’s transcript, she repeatedly asked Mr Marles when Australia would raise defence spending to five per cent of GDP – the NATO standard – as well as the NATO target of 3.5 per cent by 2035.

Marles’ first comments, which were transcribed by the defence department, criticised Ms Bourke’s coverage in The Nightly.

Ms Bourke had written that Australia would only reach a NATO spending target of three per cent in 2033 and 2034, and the figure had not been raised ‘in any meaningful way’.

‘I saw what you’ve written in your commentary. I mean, it is wrong, actually wrong,’ Marles said.

‘We increased defence spending in terms of capability by $40billion over the forward estimates by $53billion over the decade in the National Defence Strategy this year alone over the decade.

‘That is a $53billion injection, and that’s in terms of capability, not the other stuff that you’re talking about, is the single biggest injection in terms of Australian defence spending in decades, more than anything that occurred during the Coalition period.’

Marles said Australia is ‘injecting $117 billion more over the planning ten-year period’, adding that it ‘represents the biggest increase in defence spending in peacetime Australian history’.

When Bourke asked if Marles would release what is calculated in all defence spending, he said the government had already done so. 

‘We do, we release all of that information,’ he said.

– READ MORE: How Aussie universities are helping the Chinese military build state-of-the-art missiles amid fears they could one day be turned on our navy ships

– READ MORE: I’ve seen the real face of China and it’s sadistic and cruel beneath the ‘Botox’ façade