Aussie PM Hit by Election Eve Cabinet 'Leak' Accusing Him of Rejecting Offer to Amp Up Pacific Aid

Several leading opinion polls in Australia have predicted that incumbent Prime Minister Scott Morrison will lose to Leader of the Opposition Anthony Albanese in the federal election scheduled for Saturday. Canberra’s relationship with Beijing took centre stage in the election campaign, which concluded on Friday.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison shot down a proposal by Foreign Minister Marise Payne to increase Canberra’s economic assistance package to its small island neighbours in the Pacific Ocean, The Australian daily reported on Friday, a day ahead of the country's federal election.

According to the report, Morrison rejected Payne’s offer at a meeting of the National Security Committee (NSC) this year.

The NSC is the peak decision-making organisation of the Australian government and chaired by Morrison himself. Its other members include Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce, Defence Minister Peter Dutton, as well as Foreign Minister Marise Payne.

Morrison has previously revealed that Canberra’s funding for its Pacific partners stood at an all-time high of $1.26 billion last year. Payne suggested that the sum be increased to nearly $1.9 billion, amid increasing concerns in Canberra about the growing influence of Beijing in what Canberra describes as its “Pacific family”.

The meeting took place before the draft security cooperation agreement between China and the Solomon Islands surfaced online in the last week of March this year.

The agreement was ratified last month and it has become a contentious election issue Down Under, with the federal opposition Labor Party as well as former prime ministers describing it as an “absolute failure” on the part of the Morrison government.

Speaking at a press conference on Friday, the Australian PM refused to comment on the veracity of the news report in The Australian.

“You shouldn't jump to conclusions about these things. I know what the reports are, but I don't discuss national security matters”, he stated.

Morrison also rejected speculation that ministers in his Cabinet could have leaked the information to the newspaper ahead of the vote.

“My national security committee has been extremely tight. And I have no doubt the members of my national security committee are very, very tight. I'm not going to confirm one way or another the matters in that report. I don't discuss things. My ministers don't discuss things that are addressed and worked through at the national security committee”, the prime minister remarked.

He wouldn’t say if he believed that the information could have been leaked by officials from Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) who might have been present at the meeting.

Further, the PM denied a suggestion by a reporter that increasing Canberra’s funding package in the neighbourhood would have helped Canberra vis-à-vis Beijing.

“You're suggesting if you double funding in the Pacific, somehow the Chinese government doesn't have any influence or won't be seeking to coerce or exert its influence. That assumption doesn't hold”, he reckoned.

"We invest in the Pacific because they're our family and they trust us and we always will and we don't seek things in return”, Morrison further claimed.

Amid the opposition Labor’s attacks on Morrison over the Sino-Solomon pact ahead of the election, the Australian PM has accused the party's leaders of “playing politics” with issues concerning national security.

Morrison also stated this month that a potential Chinese military base under the Sino-Solomon Pact would constitute a “red line” for both Canberra and Washington, a major security partner of Australia.

Morrison has said that Australia and the US shared the same “red line” when it came to opposing a Chinese “military base” on the Solomon Islands. Both Beijing and Honiara have on several occasions rejected allegations of crossing a red line.

Beijing has also slammed Morrison and other Australian politicians for “spreading disinformation to disparage China for their own political gains”.

“Island countries in the South Pacific are independent and sovereign states, not a backyard of the US or Australia”, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin remarked last month, while responding to criticism from Canberra and Washington about the new security pact.