No matter how 'advanced' or 'nice' or 'enlightened' or 'educated' you think we should become, we probably will be attacked at some point - Australia is a big country with huge resources, and not many people.
Most of our neighbours to the North are small countries with scant resources and lots of people. You don't have to be Einstein to work it out. A strong, credible deterrent is what is needed. Not everyone plays by the rulebook all the time. Witness ISIS et al.
Asians think we are weak, self indulgent, arrogant, rude and lazy. They don't like us. We don't have to like them either, but we need to be able to defend what we have. Otherwise we will lose it.
