Michael Pezzullo: Former Australian Home Affairs Secretary on the case for a joint Aus-NZ military

A former Aussie Home Affairs secretary is calling for New Zealand to get rid of our nuclear-free policy and sign up to Orcus.

Former Australian Home Affairs Secretary Michael Pezzullo says the chances of a conflict with China mean New Zealand and Australia should be working together to create a combined military force.

"Our defence are probably several decades old, and in this highly disrupted world, everything is changing at such a great rate that we just need to re-examine everything," he said. 

Former Australian Home Affairs Secretary Michael Pezzullo talks to Ryan Bridge. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The next topic we're talking about is slightly related to that.
A former Rossie Home Affairs secretary is calling for New
Zealand to dump our nuclear free policy and sign up
to ORCUS. Michael Pazzullo says the chances of the conflict
with China are high enough that New Zealand and Australia
should be working together to create a combined military force
for our shared territorial defense. Michael Pezzulo is the former

(00:23):
Australian Home Affairs Secretary. He's with me this evening.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Michael, good evening, Oh good afternoon from here, and good
evening to you.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
Thank you. Why do you need Why do we need
to be in ORCUS? Why does New Zealand need to
be in.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
My concern is less about UCUS, so I'll quickly jump
to that. It's really about having an integrated approach to
our common defense. A lot of the assumptions, both in
Australia and I dare say in New Zealand regarding our
defense are probably several decades old, and in this highly
disrupted world, everything is changing at such a great rate
that we just need to re examine everything. I would

(00:59):
start with a common defense area, the defense of Australia
and New Zealand as the anzac area, if you like,
and then from that would flow certain consequences and implications,
including the structure of our militaries, our command and control arrangements,
and how God forbid, if it came to it, how
we would fight a war to defend ourselves.

Speaker 1 (01:17):
Wouldn't it effectively make us the little cousin, you know,
the subordinate to your defense forces.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
Well, if you want to be in charge, I suppose
you could flip it the other way. But I mean
I put it to I put it to my very
many friends in New Zealand. I had so many fond
memories of professional associations over four decades in government service.
I put this privately. I'm now a retired pension and
so I'll put it to your listeners publicly. The defense

(01:48):
of New Zealand and this might be a controversial statement,
but you know, we've got free thinking, hopefully, and we
can debate these things. I would contend starts in the
Indian Ocean. In other words, the defense of New Zealand
starts at the outer edge of the Australian Territorial Barrier,
which are our Indian Ocean territories, the Cocos Islands, Christmas Island,
the Northern Australia, and across the defensive barrier that we

(02:11):
would erect across the North, across the North, including into
the Coral Sea. There's a very low probability of this occurring.
I said in the podcast that might have triggered the
interest that's caused this interview, or give them rise to
this interview that I think the chances of a military
conflict principally between the US and China is around ten

(02:31):
to twenty percent, which the good news is the chance
of peace and the chance of there not being a
conflict is obviously eighty to ninety percent, which is good news.
But the problem is, of course, ten to twenty percent
probability of something that you know is disastrous and catastrophically
consequential is something you should do something about.

Speaker 1 (02:49):
Do you have any I've been talking to a lot
of people lately about Taiwan and the potential for China
to do a blockade or invade, and that would be
the match, that's the whole the fire. Do you have
any sense of when this might be happening. I mean
a lot of people speculate about it. But do you,
I mean, how soon do you think that that could

(03:10):
be on the horizon.

Speaker 2 (03:11):
Well, look, I'll be very cautious and discreet as I
am in Australian media about talking about anything that might
allude to classified matters that I learned in my government service,
which came to an end about eighteen months ago. But
just going off the public record, we have quite a
stark data point from the former head of the CIA,
William Burns, who was appointed by President Biden now no

(03:34):
longer an office obviously in February twenty three, so that's
two years and a little bit ago. He gave a
very interesting speech, I think from a memory, was at
Georgetown University. So this is the head of the CIA.
I've heard and seen many public comments by CIA directors
over the years. They typically are very guarded and they
say things like, where we have some conjecture, we have

(03:55):
an estimates, we have an assessment. Bill Burns, who is
a very moderate person, very careful, thoughtful person, said two
years ago, the CIA knows as quote and I'm paraphrasing,
but it's close enough, knows as a matter of intelligence
that President she has given directions to his military to

(04:16):
at least have the option available to the Chinese leadership
to launch a military operation to annexed Taiwan from February
twenty seven onwards. So, in other words, less than two
years away. Burns was at state. Was it pains to
say that no decision had been taken at that point
that was two years ago, and that it was really

(04:37):
about ensuring that the military is ready. But that alone
is stark enough and concerning enough that they're at least
giving themselves the option if they can't achieve a resolution
of this matter to their satisfaction, otherwise of giving themselves
the option of violence, and that itself is concerning.

Speaker 1 (04:55):
Yeah, fascinating too, Michael, thank you very much for coming
on the show. That's Michael Pasula, Australian Homo Fairs Secretary.

Speaker 2 (05:02):
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