Two weeks after the Queensland branch of the ALP, at its state conference, refused to support a motion congratulating the Albanese government “for investing in the AUKUS agreement”, two motions condemning the government’s actions will be moved at this week’s Victorian state conference.
The main motion, which will be moved by the Left-aligned Australian Manufacturing Workers Union…notes the criticism of AUKUS that has been levelled by Labor elders Paul Keating and Gareth Evans, as well as former MPs Kim Carr and Melissa Parke.
It claims AUKUS “infringes on Australia’s independent and free” defence and foreign policy, questions the government’s claims about the thousands of jobs that will be created, expresses alarm at “the staggering cost”, says the money would be better spent on manufacturing, clean energy and research and development, and shares the ACTU’s view that Australia should have a nuclear-free defence policy.
…Sources said former NSW premier and AUKUS critic Bob Carr had been busy behind the scenes in the lead-up to the national conference where AUKUS will be the most significant point of dissent among the rank-and-file.
All very fair criticisms. AUKUS is completely out of step with any notion of an “independent and free defence and foreign policy”. Indeed, it hands the keys to Washington holus-bolus.
This is made plain by the hilarious absurdity of what our nuclear subs will be used for in any conflict with China. They will form part of a cordon of interdiction preventing trade in key sea routes.
In short, our own subs will blockade our own ports!
For anybody wedded to the independence of strategic policy, this is beyond irksome, it is full retard.
However, there are two points to make in riposte.
First, the notion that we have strategic independence in the first place is fiction. This argument ignores everything about Australia’s history as a dependent ally and the current state of the world.
The United States is and always has been a liberal empire. From its advance across the western plains, its invasions of Mexico, to its post-colonial 19th-century trade pushes to its WWII dominance.
This liberal empire is today under a challenge from an illiberal empire led by China. It seeks to displace the liberal hegemon with the CCP, the single most vicious and anti-freedom organisation on earth.
Within this contest, Australia is a US satrap. Never has there been a US war for which we did not guard the supply dumps. Quite sensibly. The shared values of the US liberal empire with our own is an incredible stroke of historical good fortune.
America is the most benign overlord in the long history of international relations. Notwithstanding its many mistakes and bloody interference with divergent systems within its sphere of influence.
Crucially, the only two alternative choices to US satrapy are:
- to shift the satrapy to Chinese allegiance, giving up our freedoms. See the 14 conditions to end democracy, or
- given we currently exist under the US nuclear umbrella, aim to be independent and build our own nuclear weapons, which the China grovellers clearly abhor.
In short, Labor’s China grovellers exist in a state of delusional idealism, have virtually no grasp of real politik, and are outright dangerous to the freedom of your children.
