Australia news as it happened: China fleet monitored in Philippine sea

Coalition defence spokesman Angus Taylor says a planned departmental overhaul will only “move bureaucrats around”.

Three existing agencies within the Defence Department will be merged into a new super-agency, to be known as the Defence Delivery Agency, reporting directly to the defence minister and defence industry minister.

The agency will control the budget for all major defence acquisitions.

Taylor said the department’s focus needed to be on procuring equipment for a capable defence force.

“There’s nothing in this announcement that gives us any confidence that we’ll be any closer to where we need to be on that,” he told the ABC’s Afternoon Briefing.

“There’s no increase in funding … expert after expert is telling us that our defence force is chronically underfunded.

“The government’s only answer to this is to move bureaucrats around,” Taylor said.

Plane crash investigators are reviewing data, footage and wreckage after a well-known aviator’s death following a midair collision.

Eddie Seve, 64, died after two light aircraft collided south-west of Sydney on Sunday.

The crash that killed pilot Eddie Seve, 64, is now under investigation.Credit: Nine News

Seve was part of the Freedom Formation Display Team, a group of amateur pilots who fly in aerobatic formations at airshows and aviation events across Australia.

The planes collided near Napperfield Airfield at Wedderburn, near Appin, just before midday on Sunday.

Australian Transport Safety Bureau chief commissioner Angus Mitchell said investigators had begun examining wreckage, data and footage of the incident as well as interviewing other pilots involved, with a preliminary report expected within eight weeks.

“At this stage we don’t know what went wrong,” Mitchell said on Monday afternoon.

“This team has been together for some time, so we’re really looking at not only the flight that occurred yesterday and obviously the very tragic outcome, but equally, how did that differ from any of the other formation flights that this team has done together as well?

“This pilot was very well known, as were many of the others in that formation, so this is certainly a very tragic way to end the year.”

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute warned three days ago that the Chinese flotilla could be heading towards Australia, almost a year after a naval task group dispatched by Beijing sent commercial airlines scrambling to reroute during unscheduled live firing exercises.

The fleet in February this year then circumnavigated Australia as Defence Minister Richard Marles copped criticism that the Chinese had seemingly taken the Australian navy by surprise in the Tasman Sea.

As our national security correspondent Matthew Knott wrote then, our defences were tested and they failed.

Australia is monitoring a Chinese naval flotilla that is travelling through the Philippine Sea with an unknown destination, Defence Minister Richard Marles said.

“I want to confirm today that Defence is monitoring a Chinese PLA Task Group, which is currently in the Philippine Sea,” he said.

“We maintain constant maritime domain awareness in our geographic areas.

The Chinese frigate Hengyang off Australia’s coast in February.Credit: AP

“We do not have a sense of where it is going, but we continue to monitor it as we monitor all movements.”

Chinese warships operating close to Australia in February prompted a rare statement from the Australian Defence Force about monitoring their presence.

Marles revealed the Chinese flotilla was being monitored while on Monday outlining changes to the Department of Defence.

He did not concede that money had been wasted in the department under Labor, but blamed blowouts on previous Coalition governments.

“You can always do better, and … we feel an absolute obligation to ensure that money is spent in the best possible way,” said Marles, who is also acting prime minister while Anthony Albanese is on his honeymoon.

“When the last government was in power, we saw massive blowouts in defence programs, both in terms of the budget that was being applied to them, but also in terms of their schedule.

And we need to ensure, going forward, that … it’s being done in a cost-effective way, but that programs are delivered on time and on budget.”

Marles did not put a figure on how much Australia would commit to defence spending in the next budget.

Defence Minister Richard Marles is addressing reporters in Canberra to outline a major overhaul of the department.

“Since we’ve come to power, relative to what we inherited from the former government, we have increased defence spending by $70 billion over the decade,” said Marles, who is also acting prime minister while Anthony Albanese is on his honeymoon.

“What comes with very significant increase in defence spending, the largest increase in defence spending in Australia’s peace time history, is an obligation to ensure that this money is spent well.”

Marles said the establishment of a defence delivery agency would ensure any challenges facing programs or projects are flagged and resolved sooner.

The Albanese government is poised to announce a major overhaul of the Department of Defence intended to reduce the multibillion-dollar cost blowouts and years-long delays that have marred recent major military projects.

The changes, to be announced as early as today, have been described by industry sources as a “wholesale reorganisation” of the defence bureaucracy and the most significant revamp in decades as Australia ramps up military spending.

The Department of Defence has a current budget of $56 billion a year, a figure that is set to rise to approximately $100 billion by 2034 amid growing regional tensions and pressure from the Trump administration for nations to spend more on their own defence capabilities.

Acting Prime Minister Richard Marles during question time at Parliament House.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Defence Minister Richard Marles flagged the changes in a speech in June in which he declared “everything is on the table, including bureaucratic reform of the Department of Defence, of the Australian Defence Force, and of defence agencies”.

“When we came to government, there were 28 different projects running a combined 97 years over time,” Marles said.

Read the full story by foreign affairs and national security correspondent Matthew Knott.

Thank you for following our national news live blog for Monday, December 1. Here are some of today’s headlines, at a glance.

• Opposition Leader Sussan Ley slammed the government for what she claimed had been a mismanagement of the energy transition, following warnings from the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) that the energy grid was not prepared for the closure of the Eraring coal-fired power plant in the Hunter Valley in 2027. “We don’t have the grid stability in the renewable energy grid, none of it is there. That’s why the energy market operator is calling out this warning, and that’s why this part-time energy minister needs to turn his attention to the part-time energy grid and get working,” she told reporters today.

• eSafety have warned Australians that smart cars are being used by perpetrators of domestic and family violence to control victims, following a report by the e-Safety Commission’s Technology-Facilitated Abuse Support Service that found connected cars were being exploited as sophisticated tools of surveillance.

• Almost 1000 people are dead across Asia after the latest extreme weather events to hit the region, with hundreds more missing following floods, cyclones and landslides that devastated Indonesia and Sri Lanka over the past week. Read the most recent update from south-east Asia correspondent Zach Hope.

• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has asked the country’s president, Isaac Herzog, to grant him a pardon from corruption charges, seeking to end a long-running trial that has bitterly divided the nation. Netanyahu submitted a request for a pardon to the legal department of the Office of the President on November 30, the prime minister’s office said in a statement. Herzog’s office called it an “extraordinary request”, carrying with it “significant implications”.

Stay with us as we continue to bring you the latest live news updates from Australia and around the world this afternoon. I’m Emily Kaine, handing over now to Jack Gramenz, who will helm your coverage for the rest of the day.

A Canberra-based florist says she unknowingly arranged the prime minister’s wedding flowers, and only found out when a friend sent her a photo of Jodie Haydon and her bouquet.

Loulou Moxom had arrived home after a day of arranging flowers for several weddings, not knowing the roses she’d prepared earlier that morning were for Anthony Albanese and Haydon’s nuptials, The Canberra Times reported.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Jodie Haydon walk down the aisle after getting married on Saturday in Canberra.Credit: Mike Bowers

“My brief was, I was doing flowers for Marie and Matthew, that’s who I thought my bride and groom were,” Moxom said. “I’ve not stopped smiling, let’s put it that way”.

In a post on Instagram on Monday, Moxom said: “I truly did not know that’s who my bride and groom were … ain’t life grand?”

Albanese and Haydon got married in a Saturday ceremony at The Lodge in Canberra with around 70 guests present.