http://theaustralian.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,2013461%255E7583,00.html

AUSTRALIA has had over the past few months a most unedifying phony debate about US President George W. Bush's proposed missile defence plans. Both sides of politics have used exaggerated rhetoric and sought short-term gain from what should be bedrock bipartisanism on fundamentals of our foreign policy.

This argument should now end. Last weekend Kim Beazley removed any grounds for substantial disagreement as to how either side of politics would behave on missiles.

Beazley, before meeting US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia, Jim Kelly, reiterated Labor's in-principle opposition to missile defence.

However, in remarks that deserve much more attention than they got, he also committed a future Labor government to allowing the joint US-Australia satellite relay station at Pine Gap to participate fully in a US missile defence program.

What Beazley said, inter alia, was "We are very supportive of the joint facilities [Pine Gap], they serve Australia's interests."

Well, of course, everyone knew that, but the nub is that one of Pine Gap's functions is to provide early warning of missile launches. It does this by relaying information from satellites to other parts of the US system.

Threatening to pull Pine Gap out of the US missile launch detection network is the only genuine leverage Australia would have in missile defence diplomacy. To threaten to use such leverage would be irresponsible and dangerous, but if you were serious about impeding missile defence, that's what you would do.

Beazley, on the other hand, said: "We have always made absolutely clear. . . knowledge is indivisible. Knowledge in the system is going to be there for whatever particular purpose and these joint facilities serve many and varied interests between Australia and the US."

Just in case Bomber Beazley's military prolixity has you a bit fogged here, what this means in simple English is that a Beazley government will do nothing to interrupt or place conditions on information relayed through Pine Gap to the Americans. Pine Gap would be free to play perhaps an integral role in missile defence.

Yet how can this be? For months we've heard so much of Labor's opposition to missile defence. As recently as May 4, Labor's foreign affairs spokesman, Laurie Brereton, said: "In Government we will review any Australian involvement in National Missile Defence through the early warning satellite relay station located at Pine Gap."

So what's going on? Is Labor going to review the snack bar facilities at Pine Gap?

All this huffing and puffing over missile defence is going to produce nothing but press releases. Which is just as well, because Pine Gap's primary role, as an analysis station for all the vast intelligence picked up electronically for the US and Australia in the Asia-Pacific, is of critical and growing importance to us.

Lest you think that Labor will at least do some hard talking to the Americans in private, it ought to be reported that after the meeting between Kelly's group and Beazley and Brereton and Labor's defence spokesman, Stephen Martin, senior US officials said not only was Labor's position not causing them any concern, but that the Labor team had not even mentioned Pine Gap in the entire meeting.

In fact, that morning Beazley had gone even further in giving de facto if not in-principle endorsement to missile defence. Beazley said: "We have recently drawn a distinction between what might be described as theatre missile defence systems and national missile defence systems . . . We have never denied that, for example, a fleet is entitled to defend itself. Indeed Australia has been engaged in devising fleet defences itself, including in joint projects with the US."

That is also sensible policy and gives Beazley cover to continue to support the research Australian defence scientists have been engaged in with the Americans since 1995 (when Labor was still in government) on missile defence.

But think for a minute what this means. Bush has made it clear that he is no longer pursuing national missile defence of the type Bill Clinton was pursuing, which was a land-based system of interceptors based in Alaska. Instead he is pursuing missile defence, pure and simple, which he is happy to share with allies and which will involve sea, air, land and possibly space-based components.

The point is that the sea-based component, which will likely be the most effective arm of any system, will be identical whether it's "theatre" defence or "national" defence. If you're worried about North Korea firing off a ballistic missile you'll station a few ships nearby which have the capacity to intercept the missile in its early, heavy, slow, boost phase. Theatre defence merges with national defence.

Thus Labor is going to keep Pine Gap fully in the missile defence loop and maintain our research commitment in "theatre" missile defence. Apart from rhetorical support you can't imagine any Australian government doing more. In giving the impression it was so passionately opposed to what is the inevitable development of missile defence, Labor has created expectations in its own party it will sorely disappoint.

The Howard Government has been right to take an energetically positive approach to the Bush administration. But because it has done so poorly in Asia this looks unbalanced. Labor in emphasising its Asian commitments has gone close to taking cheap shots at the Bush administration, which remains determined to keep clear of our domestic politics.

Both sides in Australia could do a lot better.