By Dominic Giannini and Andrew Brown in Canberra

A Chinese fighter jet dropping flares above and in front of a RAAF plane was an unsafe action, the prime minister says.

The flares were dropped in front of an Australian P-8A Poseidon on Tuesday, coming within 30 metres.

No injuries were recorded and the plane did not sustain damage, but Australian officials have conveyed its concerns to China over the incident through representations in Canberra and Beijing, calling it an “unsafe and unprofessional manoeuvre” that risked personnel safety.

In his first public comments since the military incident became known publicly, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said there was concern.

“We have made representations through our normal diplomatic channels,” he told reporters in the Illawarra on Friday.

“We regard this action as unsafe. We’ve made that clear, we’ve made it public as well as in private.”

Defence Minister Richard Marles said defence personnel and military equipment could have suffered serious damage if they were hit during the incident.

“The proximity within which they were released was such that there was no way the pilot of the Chinese J-16 could have been able to control where the flares then go,” Mr Marles told ABC TV on Friday.

“They could have hit our P-8 – had that occurred it would have done significant damage to our aircraft and that, obviously, puts in danger the lives of our personnel.”

It’s not the first time an Australian plane has been targeted with flares. A Seahawk helicopter had to take evasive action when a Chinese jet dropped flares in front of it in May 2024.

While Opposition Leader Peter Dutton said Australia shouldn’t tolerate such behaviour, he criticised the government for not revealing the incident until after parliament rose on Thursday, perhaps for the last time before the election.

“It’s obviously very concerning and it’s incredibly unsafe,” he told Nine’s Today Show.

“I hope that the prime minister can provide more detail because I think the Australian public deserve it.”

Mr Marles defended the decision to delay news of the event until Thursday, saying it was important Australia “got its facts straight” before making an accusation. He added that disclosing it two days after the incident was relatively quick.

“We go through a process, firstly, of assessing all that occurred, to really make a judgment as to whether we regard the interaction as being unsafe,” he said.

“We then made this public as soon as we could.”

China has so far rejected Australia’s concerns, saying the RAAF plane had jeopardised its national security with a “deliberate intrusion” into its airspace.

Australia, and allies like the US and regional partners, routinely conduct freedom of navigation exercises through the South China Sea in accordance with international law.

But China sees part of the area as its own.

Australian Strategic Policy Institute senior analyst Malcolm Davis said China was “clearly trying to use this incident to intimidate us into accepting their claim to the entirety of the South China Sea as their territory”.

“It’s international waters and international airspace so their response has no basis in fact.”

Australia is also monitoring three Chinese ships – a cruiser, frigate and tanker – to the country’s north.

The Jiangkai class guided missile frigate detached from the other ships and went through the Torres Strait before meeting back up with the tanker in Australia’s exclusive economic zone, Mr Marles said.

The cruiser was further north.

“To be clear, those ships are abiding by international law, so they’re within their rights to be there, but we’re also within our rights to monitor them,” he said.

There was “a range of options” the ships could pursue, the defence minister said.

“Whenever this mission is over, we will assess it to understand exactly what the Chinese were trying to achieve,” he said.