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July 18th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda 
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Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Broadcast: 18/07/2012
Tony Abbott has been accused of smearing Australia’s reputation overseas after criticising cuts to Defence spending in front of an American audience.
Transcript
TONY JONES, PRESENTER: The Opposition Leader Tony Abbott’s trip to Washington has created controversy; the Prime Minister accusing him of smearing Australia’s reputation overseas.
Julia Gillard was responding to Mr Abbott’s criticism of the cuts to Defence spending in the May budget.
His comments were made to an American audience.
Political correspondent Tom Iggulden reports from Canberra.
TOM IGGULDEN, REPORTER: These sorts of tours are normally tepid affairs.
JOHN MCCAIN, REPUBLICAN SENATOR: We have some tea.
TOM IGGULDEN: There is the obligatory awkward photo opportunity with a famous American politician. In this case, former presidential candidate John McCain.
FUNCTION MC: Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the Honourable Tony Abbott.
TOM IGGULDEN: Followed by a speech in which a fondness for the host country is emphasised early and often.
TONY ABBOTT, OPPOSITION LEADER: Few Australians would regard America as a foreign country. We are more than allies. We’re family.
TOM IGGULDEN: But as Tony Abbott outlined his domestic policy plans to his like-minded conservative American audience, he touched on a sore point.
TONY ABBOTT: We will seek efficiencies in defence spending, but never at the expense of defence capability.
TOM IGGULDEN: American officials have been critical in recent days of Julia Gillard’s decision to shave back defence spending in May’s budget.
Senior Bush-era diplomat Richard Armitage was quoted as saying the US military’s decision to refocus resources on the Asia pacific was “not an opportunity for a free ride by anybody – not Japan, Australia or anybody else”. And last week, the US Navy’s top commander in the Pacific noted Australian Defence spending had slipped below levels expected of America’s allies in Europe, and expressed the hope “that there is a long-term view of defence planning that has the proper levels of resources behind it”.
TONY ABBOTT: I can understand his concerns and I think lots of Australians share his concerns, as a result of Defence cuts in the recent budget. Australia’s Defence spending as a percentage of gross domestic product is now at the lowest level since – wait for it – 1938.
TOM IGGULDEN: And the Opposition Leader wasn’t done there.
TONY ABBOTT: It is irresponsible to save money in defence in a way that compromises your military capability. Certainly, the last thing we want to do is to dismay our friends and allies at what is, for everyone, a difficult time.
TOM IGGULDEN: In a later interview the Opposition Leader was pressed on whether that meant he’d restore defence spending as prime minister.
SKY NEWS: Would you set a goal, though, of restoring that spending to two per cent of GDP?
TONY ABBOTT: Well, again, I don’t want to put figures on it.
TOM IGGULDEN: Julia Gillard was touring the remote northwest of the country and talking to a very different audience when news of Tony Abbott’s remarks in Washington filtered through.
JULIA GILLARD, PRIME MINISTER: He has gone overseas, talked our nation’s national security credentials down, having voted for the defence budget he’s now criticising. Now negative can you get?
TOM IGGULDEN: And she said she’d spoken in person to Admiral Locklear last week, and that his comments had been misinterpreted.
JULIA GILLARD: He said he understands nations have to make their own decisions about Defence expenditure, and his nation, the United States, is taking some decisions too that are very tough in its budget circumstances.
TOM IGGULDEN: And she defended her handling of the defence relationship with Australia’s biggest ally.
JULIA GILLARD: We have an alliance that has endured the test of time. And we have taken a new step forward in it with the deployment of the marines in Darwin.
TOM IGGULDEN: The spat over Defence spending will probably only come as music to the ears of China, which has already complained about renewed Australian and American cooperation in the Asia-Pacific, which it sees as an attempt to contain its power in the region.
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