Defence force not told of Chinese navy live fire drills

PM Anthony Albanese explains how he was notified about Chinese warships in the Tasman Sea. Video by AAP

Transcript

00:00I've been in contact by phone of course and have been discussing these issues with Prime Minister

00:08Deluxe. Prime Minister, specifically on the timing of it, I understand it's come out in

00:13estimates this morning that there was no notification from China until planes were

00:17flying over. Air services was told first, is that correct? The New Zealand task force

00:25was aware at the same time. There were two means. When were Australians aware? New Zealand notified

00:34the Australian Defence Force, which is what we were cooperating on. But was Air Services

00:41telling Defence before the New Zealand task force was? Well I've just answered the question,

00:46which is that at around the same time there were two areas of notification. One was from

00:57the New Zealand vessels that were tailing. We were cooperating, we've been monitoring

01:04the vessels in the area by both sea and by air. So that occurred and at the same time

01:11through the channels that occur when something like this is occurring, Air Services got notified

01:18as well.