Defence MP Richard Marles won’t reveal if Albanese Government has answered Trump’s call to arms

The Albanese government has refused to reveal if Australia will agree to a Trump administration request for military support in the war against Iran or if it will leave our oldest ally hanging.

Defence Minister Richard Marles disclosed the American request in a television interview on Tuesday night before jetting off to Indonesia for a diplomatic trip.

It came after he faced questions over Australia’s decision to send an E-7A Wedgetail surveillance aircraft to the United Arab Emirates and an unspecified quantity of medium-range missiles, known as an AMRAAM.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese the UAE requests had come after he spoke with president Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan on the phone last Tuesday and received a “written” request.

Mr Marles said Australia had received a range of defensive capability-based requests since the US and Israel launched their attack on Iran late last month - including from America.

“The request that we’ve responded to is the UAE,” Mr Marles told ABC’s 7.30 Report on Tuesday evening.

“A number of other countries, including the US have made requests which are centred on helping to provide for the defence of the Gulf countries.”

When questioned on the Trump administration’s requests, Mr Marles insisted it was solely based on UAE’s call to action and refused to detail exactly what Washington’s wish list included.

“I’m not going to go into the specifics of it. As I said, that does include the United States,” he said.

“The thrust of their request and others has been fundamentally in respect of helping in the defence of the Gulf states.”

A rejection of the request could be a significant shift in Australia’s formal alliance with the US, as the nation has fought alongside America at every major conflict since World War I.

The pair are engaged in several agreements, including the ANZUS Treaty, AUKUS pact, and Five Eyes intelligence-sharing network.

Australia also welcomes thousands of US marines on rotation through Darwin for training and holding exercises like Talisman Sabre together.

Mr Marles’ disclosure on the ABC left a storm in his wake on Wednesday — with his acting Defence Minister Pat Conroy peppered with questions about the request during a Canberra press conference, while it sparked a fiery exchange between the Foreign Minister and Greens in the Senate.

Penny Wong was defensive in Senate question time when twice asked “Is Australia at war?” by Greens leader Larissa Waters.

Senator Wong talked around the issue by insisting Australia isn’t engaging in offensive action but didn’t respond to rule it out.

“What the government has made clear is we are not taking offensive action against Iran, and we are not deploying Australian troops on the ground in Iran,” she said.

“This is about the safety of Australians. We act in Australia’s national interest. That is what our government does.

“I made clear that there had been a number of requests.

“We also have made clear the request to which the government is responding is a written request from the United Arab Emirates.”

On multiple occasions Labor minister Tim Ayres had tried to jump into her defence.

Mr Conroy remained tight-lipped on whether Australia had ghosted the US call for action or rejected it when repeatedly asked.

“I’m not going to go into the details of those requests. We don’t engage in megaphone diplomacy,” he said.

It prompted a reporter to follow up as to why it had taken repeated questioning to the government for Mr Marles to finally admit there had been US requests.

“Well, we’ve been very clear that we don’t engage in megaphone diplomacy,” Mr Conroy said.

“We consider requests and respond to them in an orderly way.

“We make decisions based on cabinet processes. I’ll leave the commentary to you about how long we take to respond to your questions, but we’ll always act in the national interest.”

While the PM claimed that Australia’s deployment of assets was only linked to the UAE request, it had come just hours after a phone call with US President Donald Trump at 2am AEDT on Tuesday.

When asked directly by The Nightly if the world leaders also spoke about military support on the 40 minute phone call, the PM on Tuesday avoided directly answering, insisting it was a “private conversation”.

Despite being tight-lipped on those specifics, the PM offered details about their conversation on the plight of the Iranian women’s soccer team seeking asylum in Australia after their Women’s Asian Cup silent protest.

“I had a range of discussions . . . primarily about the Iranian soccer team, but obviously we also discussed world events,” he said.

Official readouts from both the Australian Prime Minister and the UAE President’s conversation last week didn’t mention whether military support was discussed.

When later asked by The Nightly to clarify details around the request, Mr Conroy’s office refused to comment further — referring back to both his press conference on Wednesday and the PM’s on Tuesday.