Mike Pezzullo's grim prediction of Australia's ability to defend ourselves against China - and why we can't ignore the regime's three main strategies

The former boss of Australia's Home Affairs department has said it is 'now too late' for the nation to be properly prepared to defend itself against Chinese military aggression. 

Mike Pezzullo said although trade relations with China have improved under Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Australia must prepare for a potential war and highlighted the communist country's three main strategies for achieving power. 

'We should have upped the tempo of... our defence spending in the last decade and a half,' Mr Pezzullo told Sky News host Sharri Markson on Wednesday night.

He wrote about the military threat posed by China in a 2009 Defence White Paper, and said successive Australian governments have not done enough since then. 

Mr Pezzullo said Australia should have commissioned and brought into service 'large platforms' such as 'the 12 large submarines [and] the general purpose frigates that were announced in that white paper'.

'That opportunity was lost some 15 years ago and indeed since,' he said. 

'It's now too late to bring those platforms into the time frames that we need. We need to rethink with a larger fleet of perhaps more basic capabilities, such as drones, to act as substitutes, because we don't have 10 to 15 years to build up that kind of force.'

Mr Pezzullo said the lack of preparedness concerned him given Australia's policy of 'defence self-reliance'.

'We don't want to rely on the combat assistance of the United States or indeed anyone else, [so] it troubles me that there's some glaring gaps now,' he said.

He said there were three 'dimensions' of the Chinese regime which should be the 'centre of our analysis' in dealing with events such as military taunts and the physical blocking of journalist Cheng Lei in Parliament House by Chinese officials this week, as Anthony Albanese appeared alongside the visiting Chinese Premier Li Qiang.

Mr Pezzullo said the first dimension was China's aim to 'push' the US out of the Indo-Pacific so it could begin to dictate to the countries in the region, including Australia.

The second was the interference China uses to affect supply chains and technology, such as changing the value of its currency to undermine trade, or by using sanctions, such as those placed on Australian goods such as wine.

Thirdly, Mr Pezzullo referred to what he called 'political and cultural relativism' and said Australia should speak out about the value of Western civilisation, the rule of law and the prevention of arbitrary detention.

'I think we should be standing up for the universality of those principles and not accepting that relativism,' he said. 

Mr Pezzullo was sacked as Secretary of the Department of Home Affairs last October after an inquiry found he had breached the public service code of conduct

But that hasn't stopped Mr Pezzullo from slamming the Labor government. 

He was stood aside from his $900,000 role last September over a series of explosive texts alleging he sought to influence government affairs.

Mr Albanese confirmed the top bureaucrat had been fired on November 27.

Seven months on from his sacking, Mr Pezzullo said Australia 'will fall into a trap' if it did not build coalitions and 'band together' with other like-minded nations, rather than relying so much on China for trade. 

He said while the trade improvements achieved by the Labor government were 'not to be sneezed at', he found it odd that Australia welcomed the lifting of sanctions that had been used as weapons in the first place.

'We shouldn't accept that that's normal behaviour where turning those trade linkages into political weapons and then having those barriers lifted is something for us to applaud and congratulate,' he said.

'The Chinese approach is to divide and conquer. What they want is a bilateral relationship with everyone other than the Americans.'

Mr Pezzullo said his views were 'not about the Chinese people, but the regime (which) is a Leninist communist regime that believes in the absolute authority of the party ... to control all organs, not just of the state, but also the economy, the culture, and indeed politics'.

He said if the Australian government did not factor in exactly what the communist state's way of operating is, 'we're going to get it wrong every time, and we're going to be surprised by what it does'.

Markson asked him if China was trying to buy Australia's silence over its military aggression and human rights issues by lifting trade sanctions, to which he answered 'yes'.

'Getting those bilateral wins is important. The thing is, what do you do after that?' Mr Pezzullo said.

He said having 'normalised' the relationship with China through the visit of Premier Li Qiang, it would be a 'policy failure' to lessen the importance of The Quad diplomatic partnership between Australia, India, Japan, and the US.

'If we trade away those multilateral or regional groupings and the bandings in order to gain these bilateral benefits, which really aren't benefits because they shouldn't have been punishments in the first place anyway, that's where I think we're at risk of policy failure,' he said.

'In other words, yes, but the bilateral engagement is fine. Having the visit here is fine. Notwithstanding the atrocity in our parliament in relation to Cheng Lai. Having that trade engagement is fine. 

'It's what you do next that I'm concerned about.'