Scott Morrison has dismissed suggestions he should have met with Chinese ambassador Xiao Qian and noted Australia did not “interfere” in the sovereignty of its Pacific Islands neighbours.
, who had instead met Foreign Minister Payne, former prime ministers John Howard and Paul Keating, and Labor foreign affairs spokesman Penny Wong.
Meeting the ambassador “would be a demonstration of weakness on our part, and I can assure you as Prime Minister, that’s the last message I’ve ever [sic] sent to China”, Mr Morrison said. But he added: “Australia needs to up our presence in the Pacific. We need to engage. It was a mistake for this government, when it came into office, to cut our foreign aid in the region.”
“We actually increased our investment in overseas development assistance in the Pacific by 50 per cent. It was a step-up because we had to step up from where Labor was investing in this area,” he said.
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