The Greens have ramped up their rhetoric against the alliance with the United States in the wake of Donald Trump's victory, suggesting the strategic arrangement has become a "security threat to Australia".
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Party leader Richard Di Natale says that President-elect Trump's high-profile views on domestic and international affairs represent "an ally's worst nightmare" and highlight a need for Australia to redefine the relationship with the US and operate more independently.
"In light of the threats presented by Trump's election, the Greens are intensifying our calls to undertake a fundamental reassessment of the alliance. This is something we have been talking about for a long time," Senator Di Natale said in a speech to the Australian Institute of International Affairs national conference.
The Greens leader said Mr Trump's views on climate change, refugees, defence spending, nuclear proliferation, trade and authoritarian governments make his country a "dangerous ally".
"We need to recognise that the alliance has served us well; it's served us poorly at times, but there are grave concerns now that the alliance with the US represents a security threat to Australia," he said in response to a question about the secretive joint military facility at Pine Gap.
All US military bases on Australia - including the contingent of up to 2500 Marines in Darwin - should be put on the negotiating table, Senator Di Natale argued, to assess whether they are in Australia's national interest.
The bilateral relationship has been at the core of Australian foreign policy and defence strategy since World War II, although it has frequently been a point of contention. It has regularly divided the left and right factions of the Labor Party.
Since last year, Mr Trump has questioned whether America's allies are pulling their weight, advocated for Japan and South Korea's acquisition of nuclear weapons and proposed a wall on the US-Mexico border and a ban on Muslims entering the US.
The Greens' intervention coincides with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's visit to Lima, Peru for the APEC summit, taking in his last one-on-one meeting with President Barack Obama.
On Monday afternoon, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said Labor could not be trusted on national security partly because the party "declares its bipartisan support for the US alliance but then it crab walks away" to tap into anti-American sentiment from the left.
"Combine the lack of judgment with his weakness, the Leader of the Opposition [Bill Shorten] is a threat to Australia's national security," she said.
In an opinion piece for Fairfax Media last week, Labor's foreign affairs spokeswoman Penny Wong said "we should not be naive" about the risks of a Trump administration, calling for a reassessment of the alliance.
In her speech to the AIIA conference on Monday, Senator Wong said the relationship "remains as central to Australia's security today as it was in John Curtin's time".
"It acts as a deterrent to potential aggressors, provides our defence forces with leading-edge technologies and opportunities for cooperation, training and intelligence sharing, and gives Australia an ability to influence the world's leading great power," she said.
"Australia must support the alliance, including through military, security and strategic contributions, while maintaining its independence as a middle power with interests of its own."
According to the Lowy Institute, 71 per cent of Australians believe the alliance is important. In 2015, however, 45 per cent said Australia should distance itself from the US if Mr Trump was elected.
In his speech on Monday, Senator Di Natale also addressed the far-reaching ramifications of climate change, asserting that "the national security, refugee and diplomatic challenges that Trump was elected to solve will amplify a hundred-fold if he blindly marches towards a four-degree temperature rise".
"Not only is global warming of profound concern in and of itself, but it acts as a threat multiplier, exacerbating drought, famine, displacement, food and water scarcity, refugees and disease," he said.
The President-elect has promised to wipe out government climate change initiatives, tear up the Paris agreement and once said global warming was a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese "to make US manufacturing non-competitive".
