They will blame the pandemic for nine years of doing nothing, except for submarines
Come the next election, it’s a fair bet that Scott Morrison will use the pandemic as the reason he and his Coalition partner have been unable to deliver on anything or appropriately act on many unfinished reports, too numerous to mention. Such as how much the Prime Minister knew about Brittany Higgins’ rape allegations. Too busy on COVID will be the shrill word of the next campaign.
However, the Prime Minister and his government haven’t been too busy to play war games with the good old USA. In typical Coalition fashion, they have ditched an agreement with France to build submarines for our defence while at the same time destroying our international trust and reputation on matters of security. We have now dudded both Japan and France. Shameful on many levels.
It seems we have been leading France on for some time by disclosing nothing – the cost is around $2 billion dollars plus. They know how to waste a dollar or two, this mob.
The Prime Minister made his announcement with the usual scarcity of information. No detail, no costings. Not even some twaddle in the fine print to haggle over. It was all impressively incompetent diplomacy.
The decision’s intent is for Australia to plug a hole in America’s defence of the Pacific forty years down the track. And with nuclear technology supplied by the US and England.
We have to ask ourselves why we need to be in the pocket of the Yanks all the time when they don’t give us any guarantee or protection. They will always do what is in the best interests of America. And all we do is insult China, pretending we are a wholly-owned subsidiary of the US and the UK when it comes to military matters.
Then, after insulting our largest trading partner to the point of burying the word diplomacy, we pronounce them an existential threat?
Global warming is also an existential threat that requires global action, so why isn’t the Coalition spending with equal enthusiasm on this pending disaster.
As Katherine Murphy wrote in last Saturday’s edition of The Guardian.
” … a problem just as visible as the militarisation of the South China Sea – Australia can promise nothing unless Barnaby Joyce gets a spreadsheet identifying the precise costs of the transition for the average worker in Muswellbrook, and graciously grants his permission?
I mean, seriously. What a crock.”
All this is for a nation that seems to be perpetually at war with someone and who perceives China to be a threat to everyone’s security at the same time as climate change is readying itself for an event worse than war. An event that will require us to save ourselves from the emerging fires, drawn-out droughts, famines, conflicts over water and a refugee problem ten times worse than the one we have now.
I wish our government were as smart on these matters as they pretend to be at beating the drums of war.
The peoples of all the world nations increasingly seem to be having less to say about their destiny.
So, in forty years, we will have built some nuclear-powered submarines to be used against China at a time when we will all be fighting to save the planet from overheating.
I hope I don’t sound flippant, but it doesn’t make much sense to me. I have always thought that men have never really grown up. Oh, and it is said that the subs will become obsolete when we have finished fighting.
I don’t know about you, but I think the Prime Minister is just trying to frighten people. At least those who will be alive in 40 years.
I asked my Facebook friend John Amadio, who is generally on top of these matters, just what he thought. He answered:
“Unless, of course, it’s a play to the domestic political scene to divert attention away from Morrison and paint another ‘boogie man’ such as terrorism or asylum seekers.
Maybe it’s to instil some good old fear into the general public so that the government can project and ‘look strong’ on protecting Australia.
And, of course, wedge the ALP into a corner. I think it is a shameless political stunt to hang onto power but also potentially a dangerous one. It’s not a significant step from being nuclear powered to nuclear-armed.”
History is just an ongoing commentary on the incompetence of men.
In my state of insinuation, some things become abundantly clear to me:
- That we have pissed off China.
- That we have angered the French.
- That we have wasted a few billion dollars of taxpayers money.
- We have now dudded both Japan and France who has withdrawn its ambassador.
- Paul Keating was so upset he couldn’t tell the time on one of his French clocks.
- And the Greens were nonplussed.
- ANU strategic policy expert Hugh White and independent senator/former Navy submariner has called it a “new Cold War.”
- Rex Patrick raised questions that should have occurred to Morrison.
- News Corp commentators had little hesitation in describing the decision as a “historic defence of democracy.” One that will be well regarded by history.
Never bullshit to an older man with a good memory.
We may very well now face a khaki election where the focus is on who has the best security policy to protect the people from external threats, real or perceived.
Three certainties arise from this poorly thought-through decision.
The first is that the Coalition will dust off all their very best scare campaigns and attack Labor like the crazed do-nothing party they are.
The second is that it will see over 40 years many changes, reviews, and updates because it is so poorly thought through. And as is the reality in builds of this nature, you can add another ten years onto the completion date. And of course, the time lost already. What a stuff up.
Thirdly, trust in Australia will be significantly diminished as a global citizen.
And, of course, the language of diplomacy will have been lost.
My thought for the day
Will we ever grow intellectually to the point where we can discern, understand and act on those matters that seek the good within us?
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Return to home pageI heard Rex Patrick, the independent senator and former submariner, being interviewed the other day and he identified the group think that predominates in the major parties as a major problem in the decision making process. How the coalition initially were all over the French submarine option even though it made no sense to convert these machines from nuclear to Diesel electric. In addition, these submarines were too expensive and would likely be obsolete when eventually launched.
He made the point that so many government decisions are made for political reasons (e.g to keep Christopher Pyne in his seat at that time even though he has since retired from parliament) and the decisions are made by people who have no expertise (i.e. politicians).
This final decision may be the correct decision when it comes to submarines but inevitably to become lethal weapons of war these machines will need to be armed with missiles which may have to be submarine based ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads.
Significantly, Rex Patrick made the strong point that as an independent he can stay out of the partisan group think and focus on the facts on so many issues.
As an Australian living in Australia i just have one more thing to say
HELP!……..
As always you are spot on, John. I can’t believe the current Labor opposition looks like it is going along with it.
I have voted Labor for the last 51 years, but if Labor is going to support this one, I am off to the Greens.
JL, your friend John Amadio is probably right, “instill some good old fear into the general public”, it’s the main game in town. This is bread and butter stuff for manipulators in govt and msm. The many can be easily steered to suit a bigger agenda with the use of fear and greed. Talking up a hot war with China or creating an medical apartheid system in a once democratic society is good way to downgrade the frequency of a community. Given Western nations have outsourced the production of most everyday items to China or other low cost nations, and that this trend was cheered on by msm for decades, does anyone think the pieces on the chess board are lined up so that the West will win. The leaders of all Western nations are sell-outs to the globalists, we have been taken over by Big Tech-Pharma-Ag-Oil. China is the model they want to impose – a top-down dictatorship, and if anyone can’t see that happening by now, wow.
The tried and tested modus operandi of dickheads, find or identify and external ‘enemy’ before you call an election. Putin does it everytime, just as he did a few days ago before his elections.
It always works on the dunderheads (there are many here in Australia)
CH 9 ( Arsewipe Costello’s propaganda tool) is promoting a program to be aired this sunday, casting Xi Jin Ping as the ogre who is about to declare war of the democracies. Murdoch and his creepy maggots will no doubt be writing up ‘inside’ investigations on Chinese infiltration into defense establishments or some such scurrilous BS.
Porter has been taken off the front pages.
Yes folks, Scummo’s re-election campaign has begun !!!!!! The braindead are just itching to exercise their democratic right to vote the bastards in again.
Henry, Xi ‘jazz’ Ping is a secret hero of maimstream media. This is all theatre – the CCP, the elite, & big corps want top down control over all the public, not just those in China. We had it too good for too long, we lost perspective, most were unwilling to rein in their carbon footprint. We collectively voted in mini-dictators rather than real people. We’re now on the brink of a one-party State. ‘Safe & effective’ the only mantra msm/govt needs, the asleep will accept anything. Anyone sitting inside a msm circlejerk and saying nothing even though they know what is happening is complicit.
As regards Porter, this was not a Blind Trust it was a monetary gift to a politician by anonymous third parties of undisclosed amounts of money.
As Porter has shrouded the whole thing in legal double-talk and still refuses to disclose the name(s) of the donor(s) or the amount of money involved it’s looking very much like a Liberal Party donor, probably a WA mining billionaire.
Now who could that be ?
Terence: A grossly corpulent one, perchance?
I dunno wot the Frogs are screamin’ about. If the bloody subs are as good as they reckon, all they ‘ave to do is finish the job in 15 years or so and keep the subs for themselves. We won’t even ask for our deposit back – that’s fair enough, isn’t it?
JL, I approach your articles with fear of continuing exposure of Liarbral Nazional$ self-serving incompetence and the vain hope that LABOR is putting up meaningful policies.
The AUSUK submarine dirty deal will go down in history as some of the best preparation for the 1950s Cold War and all at the total expense of Australian taxpayers. It is a wonderful military strategy for repelling the attack decades after it has occurred by ICBMs supported by second wave paratroops to surround key strategic places.
More international markets for the NE Military Industrial Complex of the USA (United States of Apartheid) and the ”World in Perpetual War” economic strategy.
Time to recognise that Australia cannot rely upon the USA for anything except military expenses, like the BILLIONS wasted in Iraq & Afghanistan locking up the Iraqi known and unproven oil reserves for the benefit of US multinational oil corporations. All on the basis of US ”intelligence” of WMDs ….. ”Words of Mass Deception” as agreed in most post-event commentaries.
Remember East Timor? Three battalions of Indonesian troops replaced three weeks later by a further three battalions of FRESH occupation troops. Australia had almost one battalion at that time, counting Army Reserve, sick parade & overweight desk jockeys.
And when China stopped accepting our Barley, where did they get it from?
Our “pals” the USA.
But lets put trillions into military hardware while the country drowns in pandemic diseases that have not been adequately prepared for, just so that some testosterone charged politicians can have a photo op in the cockpit of a fighter jet.
The country is run by idiots.
“…instill some good old fear into the general public”.
A well proven tactic to subdue opposition and to ensure subjugation of the masses.
Popes, Princes and Priests have been doing it for millenia.
The French are seething about Australia ditching the French U-Boats.
They say Australia is unreliable and does not keep its word, among other French expletives.
Have they not met Australian government ministers? All they had to do was ask Jacinta Ardern, she would have set them strait. There must be a few French speakers here that could have told monsieur le president Macron the bar for accountability and transparency is set so low shark shit couldn’t pass underneath.
Talk about getting ready to fight the last war rather than the next one. Obsolete weapons, obsolete ideas. In 40 years’ time it is possible that China will be the leader of the world while the USA and maybe Australia have splintered into warring states quarreling amongst themselves.
Exactly how are these subs going to make a difference compared to conventional?
Gone are the days of simply staying submerged endlessly, somewhere in range, while packed to the gunnels 🙂 with nukes waiting for the launch command as either first strike or retaliation at the end of the world. As an attack class sub, considering the price and the primary weapon is possibly 100+ Tomahawk cruise missiles at about $2M a pop each with a range over 1,000 km, it is unlikely missiles would be launched very close to the “enemy” as the launch is highly detectable. There may be some advantages if used as a covert “listening” platform. Given that international maritime borders are 22km out and mobile phones vary their transmit power depending on how close they are to the base station, it may not be possible to hear both sides of the conversation in international waters! At the price UUVs would seem more appropriate.
Fred,
“Exactly how are these subs going to make a difference compared to conventional?”
Could it be that Saint Scotty of the Marketing likes big hard nuclear powered tubes because they make up for a personal inadequacy?