Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has criticised North Korea for what she calls its "provocative and belligerent" behaviour a day after it launched its largest-ever military exercise.
Analysts say North Korea's actions cannot be ignored, although there is a suggestion the actions are rational from the North Korean government's point of view.
As tensions continue to rise in the Korean Peninsula, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has stepped up her condemnation of North Korea's military activities.
"Its provocative and belligerent behaviour is causing great tension in our region. That's why Australia and others have called for North Korea to change its behaviour. I note that North Korea is threatening nuclear war against a whole range of countries in our region."
Ms Bishop says she supports the United States and South Korean military build-up on the Peninsula.
She says countries have had to take defensive measures to protect themselves against any attack from North Korea.
Speaking at a news conference in the Estonian capital of Tallinn with Estonian counterpart Sven Mikser, she called on North Korea to focus on eliminating poverty in the country.
"The United States and South Korea are allies, and they have decided to take defensive measures. And that is their right, as South Korea is facing an existential threat from North Korea and has for many decades. My message to North Korea is to focus their resources and energy and efforts on improving the lot of the impoverished people in North Korea, rather than seeking to develop weapons of mass destruction to use against countries in our region."
A senior analyst at the Australia Strategic Policy Institute in Canberra, Malcolm Davis, says the United States is right to be putting military pressure on North Korea.
"They have to act. They can't ignore North Korean provocations. And, most certainly, if North Korea were to do another nuclear test, then I think there would be very strong pressure on the Trump administration to take more decisive action."
The Turnbull Government's 2016 defence policy paper termed the risk of a North Korean missile attack on Australia as "low."
But it warned longer-range and submarine-launched ballistic and cruise missiles could threaten Australian territory.
Dr Davis says it is in Australia's interest to discuss the impact of North Korea's actions with the United States because they have a direct impact on many Australians.
"We have interests there, in the sense that there are large numbers of Australians on the Peninsula -- in South Korea -- and, also, in Japan that would be at risk in the event of a conflict. So we'd need to extract those people, and we're talking tens of thousands, if not potentially hundreds of thousands, of people across the region. I think that, in terms of Australia becoming a target, well, if we were silly enough to let North Korea to get a nuclear-armed ICBM capability, then, yes, we could technically be a target, but we can't afford to let them get to that point."
But in the United States, Jenny Town, assistant director of the US-Korea Institute at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, says North Korea's actions are rational.
"There's absolutely a rational underpinning to it. Especially in this regime, the Kim Jong-un regime, there have been a lot of signs -- and even in the human-rights aspect of it -- by targeting Kim Jong-un himself, all of this, in their view, is basically, you know, the hostility for the North Korean regime. So, as they build this into their calculus, they also want to protect the sovereignty of their regime."
