Australia has been warned that Chinese warships stalking the country's coastline are rehersing for land strikes on Australian soil.
Last week, Australia's top defence bureaucrat Greg Moriarty told a Senate Estimates hearing the Chinese were 'practising, rehearsing and they are collecting'.
After the hearing, former Home Affairs secretary Mike Pezzulo warned Chinese military was rehearsing for 'land strike missions against Australia infrastructure and bases.'
Those warnings were backed by strategic defence expert Michael Shoebridge, who told Daily Mail Australia that China's live-fire exercises just 600km off Australia's east coast proved that Australia can no longer rely on its remoteness as protection.
'The heavily armed Chinese warships that just circumnavigated Australia were certainly demonstrating that China no longer needs to rely on just launching long range missiles from the mainland' in an attack on the country, Mr Shoebridge said.
'And successive Australian governments have told Australians that our distant location no longer protects us from military threat.
'But they have done nothing about it to date and our Defence Force has very limited capabilities to protect its own bases, let alone critical infrastructure or any of the Australian population.'
Australia was first alerted to the presence of the Chinese navy...
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