Pity we never went ahead with the submarine contract with Japan that would have delivered a dozen or more subs for the defence of our Exclusive Economic Zone at less than half the cost of the AUKUS arrangement. I really don’t think we can get out of AUKUS without mightily pissing off the USA. And in this political climate I’m not sure that would be a good idea. But we do need to up our Defence spending in a layered ‘Echidna Strategy’ with lots and lots of Australian built sea and air drones. But that would require (a) getting extraction companies to pay tax, (b) the Commonwealth stop supporting the extraction companies and (getting rid of upper middle and upper class tax benefits. None of which is going to happen in my lifetime.
*sigh* You really hit the nail on the head with this one JB. I just wish our politicians had the courage of their convictions...or for that matter...convictions at all... How long has it been since we had a truly inspiring political leader? One who was more interested in helping people en masse than lining their own pockets....can't help but think Whitlam was it really and that was way too long ago. We are good and proper screwed now tho I think. Probably just have to hope for a solid minority government...
I guess it depends on your definition of "convictions" doesn't it? But I would argue that none are particularly courageous...And would probably react in a very similar manner to Mr Hacker from 'Yes Minister" if it was suggested that anything they were proposing might be considered in that light.
and this highlights why all the over the top rhetoric about how important is democracy, why western colonial powers like Australia are so much better than those 'others' because we have democracy. Which is illustrated in this case with the two business centered parties who each can not convince much more than at best a third of the population to choose them as their first choice can maintain systems opposed by the majority (or at least more than a third of the public) and claim its a mandate.
In some overseas countries I have heard it described as you can change the policy but not the party, in the west you can change the party but not the policy.
The way we handled China when it put tariffs and other trade barriers up to our exports might be a good example of what we need to do or even what the rest of the world needs to do when it comes to dealing with Trump. We diversified our export markets and sold things like the coal and wine and lobsters and timber etc to other countries.
From what I have heard the steel and aluminium tariffs will add to the cost of Ford's and Lexus' SUVs here so in order to deal with that Ford and Lexus might wind up either absorbing the cost or manufacturing their SUVs elsewhere eg Thailand. Unless the Americans decide to only buy American made cars and ones only made with US sourced parts then they will find out the hard way that other people vote with their hip pockets and the car industry in the US will take a hit.
The other things we could do is to ensure that Tweddle Dee and Tweddle Dumb get the message and protect our services like the PBS and the NDIS and use the cancellation of the submarine deal as a bargaining chip to ward off any serious tariffs on our trade.
The US takes about 5% of our exports, worth around 14bn. $4bn of that is meat, surprisingly. Personally, I don't think we'll have too much trouble finding other trading partners in Asia and the Middle East to buy our stuff. The question for the US is where will they replace it from? You can't snap your fingers and onshore all the land, water, energy, factories, labour and financing for the stuff you previously imported, that's a decade-scale enterprise. The absurdity of what they are doing is Kafkaesque in the Age of Globalism.
But Birmo is right, this election is absolutely about how we redefine our relationship to newly fascist Murica. Whichever side wins, post-election I'd cancel AUKUS and grovel to the French (their smaller subs are more suited to our shallow northern oceans anyway), start charging the US for every base they have here, and jack up the price on that Perth submarine base they seem to be desperate for. Oh, and how about getting serious about ASEAN, and our allies SK and Japan - their are our neighbours, and potentially much more important to us in the long-term anyway. *Gulp* we might even look to become close to China...
The only real positive this morning was that we didn't have to listen to PotatoHead jibber on in response to the Chalming. Well played. The games begin. I'll be watching the Rabbits.....now there's a press conference!
The Dutton / Albo duo are spineless fools who will do no more than pull the cuck chair in the SE Asia hotel room closer to the bed as they watch Australia getting reamed in every possible orifice.
John truer words have never been spoken. I do not hold out any hope that our tame mainstream media will ask the question you are challenging them to ask. It will be up to independent media to report on this. Small as they are (David v Goliath comes to mind) all of us who agree with you must multiply their readers with whatever we can. Thank you for giving me a message I can send out to friends.
1. Lots and lots of small autonomous subs - we’ve got them in the water already.
2. Rapid transition to an economy that is independent of oil imports.
3. Trade with the other kids instead. 14Billion of trade with the US is stuff all- although last month they bought 36Billion of AU gold before the tariffs kick in - source SMH)
4. Take your US bases and fuck off
5. Get our own satellites up in the air.
6. Shift all investment capital out of the USA.
7. Deport all of the fire ants in QLD to the much more friendly lawns of Mar A Largo.
Yep. Ironically the collapse of the US as a trusted ally and strategic partner is probably what’s going to secure another 3 years in the top job for Albanese, since Dutton has spent the last 3 years casting himself as a Temu Trump, and now that’s exploded in his face.
Albanese needs to review our defence posture quick smart though. You have to wonder if we stop shilling for US foreign policy and adopt an independent foreign policy of our own, how many of the perceived problems or threats with China would suddenly recede?
I hope you're right, but I have less faith in the sense of the average Aussie voter. I think Albo will scrape in, but there are a lot of Trump-lite fans out there who desperately want to "stock it to the man" at they see it.
I definitely don't see a majority government in his future, but I think the chaos in the US and its collapse into authoritarianism will spook enough people that they'll go with the invisible man who seems fairly harmless over the guy who's been openly borrowing from the Trump playbook wholesale for the last 3 years.
The AUSUK alliance is a continuance of Australian defence and foreign policy lynchpin that predates Federation. The fact that the US and UK is trying to outsource blockading the Malaka straite looks good on paper but falls over as there is no capacity for nuclear boat construction in US or UK (both are at capacity). The irony is the only place with capacity for nuc boats construction is France ....
The fact that Australia is now in deep shit as the suck up with the major sea power policy has no new candidates now the US is going isolationist and the UK dealing with its own isolationist kick in the balls with Brexit. The only sea power neer peer is India and they are at most a brown water navy with dreams of the wide open sea.
We understand that the Minnesota crew have defected to Australia and brought us a free sub ! Territorians now have control of the Minnesota's nuclear weapons and this is going to be the best cracker night ever !
If, as expected, Dutton and Albanese trot out the old line that this election is the most important ever, they will indeed be telling the truth as far as they are capable. It will be an important election because of Trump and the death of the USA but it will also be an important election because it will be the last free federal election we have in Australia. The reason for this is because the Coalition and Labor have connived and stitched up electoral funding for the next election and those thereafter hugely in their favour.
As Guardian journalist Simon Jenkins points out sooner or later there will be a counter-revolution in the USA. “Greenland is unlikely to be an American Ukraine. Tariffs will come back down. The Democrats will recover their nerve. Many of Trump’s “broken things” will be patched together. But in among the chaos are challenges to convention that were overdue. Nato could become realistic. A forever war in Ukraine – or wider – could be avoided and Russia readmitted to the community of nations, as China was after Nixon.
“This is at least possible. More to the point, the US may review its role in the world, a role that has meant a quarter of a century of moral belligerence, with appalling cost and slaughter. It should revert to being what it is, another nation among nations.”
There is hope. We just need the right people in Australia to pull the wool from over their eyes and turn us into one of those nations among nations looking after our own business first and foremost.
Who knew that the Zero Day Code that undid the US was going to be deployed by a kid employed by Elon Musk using the moniker Big Ballz. Clearly not you, JB.
Nobody writing fiction could have imagined this clusterfuck; it's just too stupid. But the stupidity is clearly dangerous, and it's only so long until it descends first to protests and then to some shooting.
Meantime, foreign leaders, including whoever gets The Lodge after 3 May are going to have to start putting some serious brain cells into thinking like Carney, who seems like he has a solid hold on the new reality and is prepared to do what's needed to ensure Canada remains safe. Neither Albanese nor Dutton have the nerve to step this way, despite clear signals (pun somewhat intended) that there's not much choice left.
And, as you say, JB, the media will continue on with whatever the dumb question or gotcha of the day is because the bloody Fourth Estate in this country is about as useful as a spare dick at a wedding.
And today, we got the protests. Peaceful this time, but it has started. It's only going to take someone with solid cop brain to descend it into chaos and shoot the first white girl.
Pity we never went ahead with the submarine contract with Japan that would have delivered a dozen or more subs for the defence of our Exclusive Economic Zone at less than half the cost of the AUKUS arrangement. I really don’t think we can get out of AUKUS without mightily pissing off the USA. And in this political climate I’m not sure that would be a good idea. But we do need to up our Defence spending in a layered ‘Echidna Strategy’ with lots and lots of Australian built sea and air drones. But that would require (a) getting extraction companies to pay tax, (b) the Commonwealth stop supporting the extraction companies and (getting rid of upper middle and upper class tax benefits. None of which is going to happen in my lifetime.
I have a whole column I want to do about this
"I'm sorry you absolutely raving Tory reactionary nutbag Tony Abbott, turns out you were a submarine procurement prophet after all"
for the price of ANKUS we could have 40 non-nuclear submarines in Australian waters but then that's not what ANKUS submarines are for are they.
Ghostbuster, "who you gunna call?" GHOST BUSTERS!
Who knew the boys were documentry film makers, like who knew?
Is there a class action against the script writers of the "simpsons" fuck their mathimatical therums & fish bowl predictions.
Labor plonkers should do wot duttons been doing & go we'll match fuel excise reduction.
Not gunna win any seats in queersland screw them first for retaliation.
What choice is there? You just know PDuddy will be offering Australia’s mouth up to America’s knob.
*sigh* You really hit the nail on the head with this one JB. I just wish our politicians had the courage of their convictions...or for that matter...convictions at all... How long has it been since we had a truly inspiring political leader? One who was more interested in helping people en masse than lining their own pockets....can't help but think Whitlam was it really and that was way too long ago. We are good and proper screwed now tho I think. Probably just have to hope for a solid minority government...
C'mon many do have courage & many have convictions
I guess it depends on your definition of "convictions" doesn't it? But I would argue that none are particularly courageous...And would probably react in a very similar manner to Mr Hacker from 'Yes Minister" if it was suggested that anything they were proposing might be considered in that light.
and this highlights why all the over the top rhetoric about how important is democracy, why western colonial powers like Australia are so much better than those 'others' because we have democracy. Which is illustrated in this case with the two business centered parties who each can not convince much more than at best a third of the population to choose them as their first choice can maintain systems opposed by the majority (or at least more than a third of the public) and claim its a mandate.
In some overseas countries I have heard it described as you can change the policy but not the party, in the west you can change the party but not the policy.
The way we handled China when it put tariffs and other trade barriers up to our exports might be a good example of what we need to do or even what the rest of the world needs to do when it comes to dealing with Trump. We diversified our export markets and sold things like the coal and wine and lobsters and timber etc to other countries.
From what I have heard the steel and aluminium tariffs will add to the cost of Ford's and Lexus' SUVs here so in order to deal with that Ford and Lexus might wind up either absorbing the cost or manufacturing their SUVs elsewhere eg Thailand. Unless the Americans decide to only buy American made cars and ones only made with US sourced parts then they will find out the hard way that other people vote with their hip pockets and the car industry in the US will take a hit.
The other things we could do is to ensure that Tweddle Dee and Tweddle Dumb get the message and protect our services like the PBS and the NDIS and use the cancellation of the submarine deal as a bargaining chip to ward off any serious tariffs on our trade.
The US takes about 5% of our exports, worth around 14bn. $4bn of that is meat, surprisingly. Personally, I don't think we'll have too much trouble finding other trading partners in Asia and the Middle East to buy our stuff. The question for the US is where will they replace it from? You can't snap your fingers and onshore all the land, water, energy, factories, labour and financing for the stuff you previously imported, that's a decade-scale enterprise. The absurdity of what they are doing is Kafkaesque in the Age of Globalism.
But Birmo is right, this election is absolutely about how we redefine our relationship to newly fascist Murica. Whichever side wins, post-election I'd cancel AUKUS and grovel to the French (their smaller subs are more suited to our shallow northern oceans anyway), start charging the US for every base they have here, and jack up the price on that Perth submarine base they seem to be desperate for. Oh, and how about getting serious about ASEAN, and our allies SK and Japan - their are our neighbours, and potentially much more important to us in the long-term anyway. *Gulp* we might even look to become close to China...
The only real positive this morning was that we didn't have to listen to PotatoHead jibber on in response to the Chalming. Well played. The games begin. I'll be watching the Rabbits.....now there's a press conference!
The Dutton / Albo duo are spineless fools who will do no more than pull the cuck chair in the SE Asia hotel room closer to the bed as they watch Australia getting reamed in every possible orifice.
John truer words have never been spoken. I do not hold out any hope that our tame mainstream media will ask the question you are challenging them to ask. It will be up to independent media to report on this. Small as they are (David v Goliath comes to mind) all of us who agree with you must multiply their readers with whatever we can. Thank you for giving me a message I can send out to friends.
1. Lots and lots of small autonomous subs - we’ve got them in the water already.
2. Rapid transition to an economy that is independent of oil imports.
3. Trade with the other kids instead. 14Billion of trade with the US is stuff all- although last month they bought 36Billion of AU gold before the tariffs kick in - source SMH)
4. Take your US bases and fuck off
5. Get our own satellites up in the air.
6. Shift all investment capital out of the USA.
7. Deport all of the fire ants in QLD to the much more friendly lawns of Mar A Largo.
Yep. Ironically the collapse of the US as a trusted ally and strategic partner is probably what’s going to secure another 3 years in the top job for Albanese, since Dutton has spent the last 3 years casting himself as a Temu Trump, and now that’s exploded in his face.
Albanese needs to review our defence posture quick smart though. You have to wonder if we stop shilling for US foreign policy and adopt an independent foreign policy of our own, how many of the perceived problems or threats with China would suddenly recede?
I hope you're right, but I have less faith in the sense of the average Aussie voter. I think Albo will scrape in, but there are a lot of Trump-lite fans out there who desperately want to "stock it to the man" at they see it.
I definitely don't see a majority government in his future, but I think the chaos in the US and its collapse into authoritarianism will spook enough people that they'll go with the invisible man who seems fairly harmless over the guy who's been openly borrowing from the Trump playbook wholesale for the last 3 years.
Of course I could be wrong 😬
The AUSUK alliance is a continuance of Australian defence and foreign policy lynchpin that predates Federation. The fact that the US and UK is trying to outsource blockading the Malaka straite looks good on paper but falls over as there is no capacity for nuclear boat construction in US or UK (both are at capacity). The irony is the only place with capacity for nuc boats construction is France ....
The fact that Australia is now in deep shit as the suck up with the major sea power policy has no new candidates now the US is going isolationist and the UK dealing with its own isolationist kick in the balls with Brexit. The only sea power neer peer is India and they are at most a brown water navy with dreams of the wide open sea.
We understand that the Minnesota crew have defected to Australia and brought us a free sub ! Territorians now have control of the Minnesota's nuclear weapons and this is going to be the best cracker night ever !
If, as expected, Dutton and Albanese trot out the old line that this election is the most important ever, they will indeed be telling the truth as far as they are capable. It will be an important election because of Trump and the death of the USA but it will also be an important election because it will be the last free federal election we have in Australia. The reason for this is because the Coalition and Labor have connived and stitched up electoral funding for the next election and those thereafter hugely in their favour.
As Guardian journalist Simon Jenkins points out sooner or later there will be a counter-revolution in the USA. “Greenland is unlikely to be an American Ukraine. Tariffs will come back down. The Democrats will recover their nerve. Many of Trump’s “broken things” will be patched together. But in among the chaos are challenges to convention that were overdue. Nato could become realistic. A forever war in Ukraine – or wider – could be avoided and Russia readmitted to the community of nations, as China was after Nixon.
“This is at least possible. More to the point, the US may review its role in the world, a role that has meant a quarter of a century of moral belligerence, with appalling cost and slaughter. It should revert to being what it is, another nation among nations.”
There is hope. We just need the right people in Australia to pull the wool from over their eyes and turn us into one of those nations among nations looking after our own business first and foremost.
Who knew that the Zero Day Code that undid the US was going to be deployed by a kid employed by Elon Musk using the moniker Big Ballz. Clearly not you, JB.
Nobody writing fiction could have imagined this clusterfuck; it's just too stupid. But the stupidity is clearly dangerous, and it's only so long until it descends first to protests and then to some shooting.
Meantime, foreign leaders, including whoever gets The Lodge after 3 May are going to have to start putting some serious brain cells into thinking like Carney, who seems like he has a solid hold on the new reality and is prepared to do what's needed to ensure Canada remains safe. Neither Albanese nor Dutton have the nerve to step this way, despite clear signals (pun somewhat intended) that there's not much choice left.
And, as you say, JB, the media will continue on with whatever the dumb question or gotcha of the day is because the bloody Fourth Estate in this country is about as useful as a spare dick at a wedding.
May we live in interesting times...
And today, we got the protests. Peaceful this time, but it has started. It's only going to take someone with solid cop brain to descend it into chaos and shoot the first white girl.
Why did it seem more plausible that China would destroy the USA than the USA itself?