Dutton defends ‘war’ warnings after McGowan’s criticism

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“We’re being honest with the Australian people and these personal attacks, I think, say more about Mr McGowan than they do about me,” he said.

“It’s in the midst of an election campaign, so I suspect that is his motivation but for me, I want to make sure that we can take decisions to keep our country safe and that’s why we’re investing $270 billion in this decade.

The movements of PLA-N Dongdiao AGI-792 from May 8-13.Credit:Department of Defense

“It’s why we’re spending $8 billion across the north of our country in the northern approaches. It’s why we have invested more into the Australian Defense Force and we’re making up ground because when Labor was there, they took money out of defence.”

Dutton described the appearance of the Haiwangxing off WA’s coast as an “aggressive act”.

“It is unusual in terms of the way it has come so far south and the way in which it is hugging the coastline as it heads up in the direction of Darwin, so we’ll continue to monitor that,” he said.

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“Its intention, of course, is to collect intelligence right along the coastline, it has been in close proximity to military and intelligence installations on the west coast of Australia.

“It’s a Chinese warship with intelligence gathering capabilities … it’s very unusual, we haven’t seen a ship from the People’s Liberation Army come this far south.”

As of 6am on Friday morning, the ship was some 250 nautical miles north-west of Broome traveling north-east at a speed of 12 knots.

Dutton said the ship would be gathering information on routes for submarines and military facilities like the Harold E Holt base in Exmouth.

Australian military aircraft have been monitoring the progress of the vessel.

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