"Dutton is so fucking lazy and ill-prepared that even when the homework is ordering in some Chinese and watching The Hunt for Red October, he still couldn’t be arsed doing it."
This had me sitting back in my chair and howling with laughter.
For context I'm the defence and foreign policy spokesperson for the Australian Democrats, so yes another group who are not serious applicants for the job because we're not even in parliament, BUT... I've had to update our defence platform twice now, to take into account *waves hands at the world generally*. Suddenly the independent self defence policy platform we put forward in 2021 to show that we're grown ups who think about stuff seriously and are attempting to offer something other than the bipartisan lockstep hivemind from the two major parties became the only logical response to *waves hands*, and boy, that was not on our bingo card a year ago.
For a couple of decades - inspired mostly by the bungling development of the F35 (an egregiously complex and expensive plane that does nothing very well) - my friends and I have occasionally discussed Australian defence policy.
Our primary question was always why Australia isn't changing its defence strategy towards drones and missiles in the age of drones and missiles. We have basically everything we need to construct them, they are highly portable and a lot cheaper than planes and ships, and it could be a valuable export industry while improving national security at the same time. Apparently even people who know what they are talking about think the same: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/apr/21/an-alternative-to-aukus-australia-strategic-defensive-approach
But our defence planners are still living in the 1950s, fiercely protecting their budgets with outdated ideas rather than adjusting to the reality of modern warfare.
We have also discussed our absurd reliance on Middle Eastern oil, which should have triggered a rush to transport electrification on a Norweigan scale long ago. And as for the stupidity of storing the majority of our "strategic oil reserve" in the US (sure, they'll send it to us in a crisis, that'll be Orange Cthulhu's #1 priority!), and how easy it would be to completely shut down this country with a few well placed missiles into oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz... but that is a topic for another day.
Time for a complete rethink of how we defend ourselves, but I'm not sure those in charge are up to the task in any sense. This new Era demands radical thinking and significant investment, and this country has a poor recent record in both.
In a way, I'm closer to voting for Dutton than I ever have been, because the way he's fucked this all up has been quite relatable*. He's spent three years watching Albo wandering around bumping into furniture and engaging in lively discussions with floor lamps and assumed that when the election came around he'd just rerun his Voice campaign with the words "defence", "cost of living" and "immigration" substituted for "no". Then someone asked him a question and he felt that horrible sinking feeling we've all experienced where we realise we've brought a knife to a gun fight, and also the invitation very clearly said it was a gun fight, and also lots of people have sent us emails asking us to outline our plans for the gun fight so they could make sure they were on the same page, and also right at the top of our to do list it says, "Buy knife".
*In another, more accurate way, I'm still at a 0% chance of voting for Dutton.
"Survival is as fundamental" yeah but it seems weird to get worked up about the virtual threat posed by China to our biggest trading partner China, or imagined Russian bombers magically appearing for some reason through a Stargate at an Indonesian airfield when we seem to be staring down a real and present danger posed by a planet warmed by 3oC which our political parties can't seemed to be arsed to take seriously. Yes see previous caveat re the Greens.
Part of our defence platform includes addressing the effects of climate change, since that is a very real and present danger to our security vs the mostly imaginary ones the blunder-spud and the media love to froth at the mouth about 😬
I think you're being a bit harsh. Our recent defence spending has been perfect for defending the coastline of our tiny Sceptred Isle and for fighting a land war in Europe circa 1952. Defence procurement has long been a joke. You read of the folk in charge of purchases being whisked to America and shown a great time and then us buying something hugely inappropriate. The F35 [can't fly in storms, and maybe rain] and the Collins Class are excellent examples. We love to buy Big Shiny Things that look good in parades and on TV. Billions upon billions spent on useless tech and massive expenditure on gear that will be outdated before we get it -hello AUKUS subs! It might be time to remove the military from the purchasing process.
I just want someone to explain to me how the ADF is spending three years on the acquisition cycle for tactical drones which cost $75 000 each and are unarmed. Meanwhile, our service personnel can see twenty new videos of FPV TUAVs killing and maiming soldiers just like them, all around the world, every day and wonder why CSG doesn't just buy them $1k/pop Chinese death machines and strap a surplus RPG-7 warhead on the bottom. Seems to be killing more guys than all the M1s, Bushies and surplus F-16s combined.
Neither party has a cogent defence policy. Big ticket items are about regional vote-buying and scoring the Khaki vote; and policies are decided by whatever looks good on the news, not what is actually happening in the real world - our Great and Powerful Friend will deal with all the real-world stuff...
Fortunately we aren't quite in the middle of active conflict at the moment, but Ukraine is certainly finding that while the Orange Demigod will happily take their critical minerals and odd billion dollars, the chances of getting anything more in return are fading fast. Our AUKUS deal certainly leans more awks than any likelihood of us getting a single sub ever. The attitude from the two leaders with a chance of being PM seems to be "Don't mention the war"/Subs.
Given the current state of the world, even though I'm anti-war, I'd like to see us spend a bit more on defence and also become more independent of the US before things really go to hell in a handbasket.
Amusingly, when asked how they’d fund the increase in Defence spending, they replied with, “We’ll grow the economy.”
Now that is a cop out that politicians (can and do) use to explain expenditure that’s fixed in nominal dollars, or even indexed to inflation, when they don’t want to fess up to the fact that someone is going to have to pay, either via higher taxes or because they are soon going to miss out on some government largesse that they’ve grown attached to.
But the thing about an increase in expenditure that’s expressed AS A SHARE OF GDP, is that “growing the economy” can’t ever pay for an increase. Ever. Period.
It is axiomatic, because growing the economy, that is accelerating the rate of increase in GDP, simply increases the amount you have committed to spend on Defence, so you never catch up.
And these are the arsehats who think they can win on their stellar economic management.
You’re overlooking the extraordinary power of institutions like Macquarie Bank to pump up GDP with state of the art engineering.
Been asleep for the past 40 years or something? I know I have. These are the finest minds yet grown from weetbix. Hawkey was right: the clever country. These smart cunts can add more to our defence tardiness by lunchtime than you can shake a stick at. Then it’s wagyu burgers all round down the Rocks.
Please read what I wrote carefully. I’m simply making the point that if you are promising to take defence expenditure from 2% of gdp to 3% of gdp, you can’t do it purely by increasing gdp, no matter what you do to gdp.
Too much time with his Murdoch fanboys and not enough time getting ready to govern. Maybe he genuinely believes everything will magically work better if his lot are in power. Seems no one else does.
Nice work JB. Hope the 9fax feature last weekend got you some more pairs of eyeballs. It's election giggle time, he'll front the next announcement holding a bunch of chives, a tub of sour cream and a pack of grated cheese.
I caught up with a friend today and read this aloud to her; vocalising the WARFIGHTING tweet was particularly enjoyable while she fell about laughing. Her feedback was that it was magnificent, and satire, far from being dead as had been assumed in this epoch, is cuttingly brilliant and thriving.
"Dutton is so fucking lazy and ill-prepared that even when the homework is ordering in some Chinese and watching The Hunt for Red October, he still couldn’t be arsed doing it."
This had me sitting back in my chair and howling with laughter.
For context I'm the defence and foreign policy spokesperson for the Australian Democrats, so yes another group who are not serious applicants for the job because we're not even in parliament, BUT... I've had to update our defence platform twice now, to take into account *waves hands at the world generally*. Suddenly the independent self defence policy platform we put forward in 2021 to show that we're grown ups who think about stuff seriously and are attempting to offer something other than the bipartisan lockstep hivemind from the two major parties became the only logical response to *waves hands*, and boy, that was not on our bingo card a year ago.
Thank you JB, that was very cathartic.
For a couple of decades - inspired mostly by the bungling development of the F35 (an egregiously complex and expensive plane that does nothing very well) - my friends and I have occasionally discussed Australian defence policy.
Our primary question was always why Australia isn't changing its defence strategy towards drones and missiles in the age of drones and missiles. We have basically everything we need to construct them, they are highly portable and a lot cheaper than planes and ships, and it could be a valuable export industry while improving national security at the same time. Apparently even people who know what they are talking about think the same: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/apr/21/an-alternative-to-aukus-australia-strategic-defensive-approach
But our defence planners are still living in the 1950s, fiercely protecting their budgets with outdated ideas rather than adjusting to the reality of modern warfare.
We have also discussed our absurd reliance on Middle Eastern oil, which should have triggered a rush to transport electrification on a Norweigan scale long ago. And as for the stupidity of storing the majority of our "strategic oil reserve" in the US (sure, they'll send it to us in a crisis, that'll be Orange Cthulhu's #1 priority!), and how easy it would be to completely shut down this country with a few well placed missiles into oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz... but that is a topic for another day.
Time for a complete rethink of how we defend ourselves, but I'm not sure those in charge are up to the task in any sense. This new Era demands radical thinking and significant investment, and this country has a poor recent record in both.
I don't know. The F35 seems ideal for bombing the shit out of unarmed women and kids.
Only brown ones, of course. We have to keep it civilized.
"Your ideas are intriguing to me, and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter."
I have actually been considering starting up a free substack as a release valve for my pent up, fermenting thoughts...
EXACTLY! All of that!!!!
In a way, I'm closer to voting for Dutton than I ever have been, because the way he's fucked this all up has been quite relatable*. He's spent three years watching Albo wandering around bumping into furniture and engaging in lively discussions with floor lamps and assumed that when the election came around he'd just rerun his Voice campaign with the words "defence", "cost of living" and "immigration" substituted for "no". Then someone asked him a question and he felt that horrible sinking feeling we've all experienced where we realise we've brought a knife to a gun fight, and also the invitation very clearly said it was a gun fight, and also lots of people have sent us emails asking us to outline our plans for the gun fight so they could make sure they were on the same page, and also right at the top of our to do list it says, "Buy knife".
*In another, more accurate way, I'm still at a 0% chance of voting for Dutton.
"Survival is as fundamental" yeah but it seems weird to get worked up about the virtual threat posed by China to our biggest trading partner China, or imagined Russian bombers magically appearing for some reason through a Stargate at an Indonesian airfield when we seem to be staring down a real and present danger posed by a planet warmed by 3oC which our political parties can't seemed to be arsed to take seriously. Yes see previous caveat re the Greens.
Part of our defence platform includes addressing the effects of climate change, since that is a very real and present danger to our security vs the mostly imaginary ones the blunder-spud and the media love to froth at the mouth about 😬
I think you're being a bit harsh. Our recent defence spending has been perfect for defending the coastline of our tiny Sceptred Isle and for fighting a land war in Europe circa 1952. Defence procurement has long been a joke. You read of the folk in charge of purchases being whisked to America and shown a great time and then us buying something hugely inappropriate. The F35 [can't fly in storms, and maybe rain] and the Collins Class are excellent examples. We love to buy Big Shiny Things that look good in parades and on TV. Billions upon billions spent on useless tech and massive expenditure on gear that will be outdated before we get it -hello AUKUS subs! It might be time to remove the military from the purchasing process.
I just want someone to explain to me how the ADF is spending three years on the acquisition cycle for tactical drones which cost $75 000 each and are unarmed. Meanwhile, our service personnel can see twenty new videos of FPV TUAVs killing and maiming soldiers just like them, all around the world, every day and wonder why CSG doesn't just buy them $1k/pop Chinese death machines and strap a surplus RPG-7 warhead on the bottom. Seems to be killing more guys than all the M1s, Bushies and surplus F-16s combined.
Neither party has a cogent defence policy. Big ticket items are about regional vote-buying and scoring the Khaki vote; and policies are decided by whatever looks good on the news, not what is actually happening in the real world - our Great and Powerful Friend will deal with all the real-world stuff...
Fortunately we aren't quite in the middle of active conflict at the moment, but Ukraine is certainly finding that while the Orange Demigod will happily take their critical minerals and odd billion dollars, the chances of getting anything more in return are fading fast. Our AUKUS deal certainly leans more awks than any likelihood of us getting a single sub ever. The attitude from the two leaders with a chance of being PM seems to be "Don't mention the war"/Subs.
Blunder-spud indeed. Well said, Mr Birmingham.
Given the current state of the world, even though I'm anti-war, I'd like to see us spend a bit more on defence and also become more independent of the US before things really go to hell in a handbasket.
My perspective from inside the US is that things have gone to hell on a rocket sled here. However bad you may think it is, it's worse.
Amusingly, when asked how they’d fund the increase in Defence spending, they replied with, “We’ll grow the economy.”
Now that is a cop out that politicians (can and do) use to explain expenditure that’s fixed in nominal dollars, or even indexed to inflation, when they don’t want to fess up to the fact that someone is going to have to pay, either via higher taxes or because they are soon going to miss out on some government largesse that they’ve grown attached to.
But the thing about an increase in expenditure that’s expressed AS A SHARE OF GDP, is that “growing the economy” can’t ever pay for an increase. Ever. Period.
It is axiomatic, because growing the economy, that is accelerating the rate of increase in GDP, simply increases the amount you have committed to spend on Defence, so you never catch up.
And these are the arsehats who think they can win on their stellar economic management.
Only one thing's for certain, and that is they will keep insisting that they are the better economic managers.
You’re overlooking the extraordinary power of institutions like Macquarie Bank to pump up GDP with state of the art engineering.
Been asleep for the past 40 years or something? I know I have. These are the finest minds yet grown from weetbix. Hawkey was right: the clever country. These smart cunts can add more to our defence tardiness by lunchtime than you can shake a stick at. Then it’s wagyu burgers all round down the Rocks.
Sorry, I meant defence readiness.
Please read what I wrote carefully. I’m simply making the point that if you are promising to take defence expenditure from 2% of gdp to 3% of gdp, you can’t do it purely by increasing gdp, no matter what you do to gdp.
Of course.
Too much time with his Murdoch fanboys and not enough time getting ready to govern. Maybe he genuinely believes everything will magically work better if his lot are in power. Seems no one else does.
Blunder spud says it all really. They spend more effort on high vis photo opps than policy. So disappointed in this election cycle.
I'm not disappointed. I'm just thankful that Mr Plod Dutton is so woeful that I doubt he'll even vote for himself.
Yowza! Thank you for the laugh and the cuttingly accurate analysis.
Nice work JB. Hope the 9fax feature last weekend got you some more pairs of eyeballs. It's election giggle time, he'll front the next announcement holding a bunch of chives, a tub of sour cream and a pack of grated cheese.
What, not even bothering to grate it himself?
Ironic as he grates on everything except cheese.
See JB's comment about being too fucking lazy to order some Chinese and watch "Hunt for Red October".
The WARFIGHTING blunder-spud. Thanks for the laughs and the writing.
I caught up with a friend today and read this aloud to her; vocalising the WARFIGHTING tweet was particularly enjoyable while she fell about laughing. Her feedback was that it was magnificent, and satire, far from being dead as had been assumed in this epoch, is cuttingly brilliant and thriving.