As we know, three Chinese dinghies have taken a pleasure cruise down the east of Australia. In doing so, they cannot, surely, have anticipated such wild success.
The hilarity of Australia’s vulnerability to Chinese gunboat coercion grows with each passing minute.
One of the cockles can be, and maybe, equipped with nuclear-armed HN missiles. These are not state-of-the-art, flying well about as fast as your average jetliner (800kms/hr).
But, to be effective against Australia, they could be launched without fuel from a trebuchet.
…we would probably still be in the dark about what happened were it not for the lucky coincidence that Senate estimates hearings were scheduled in Canberra this week. These hearings have flushed out details from Defence officials that would otherwise have remained secret. The more we learn, the worse the chain of events looks.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese stands out for providing a distinctly untroubled interpretation of the live-fire exercises. After being briefed by Defence chief David Johnston on Friday afternoon about the first drill, which took place that morning, Albanese spoke to reporters and gave the impression nothing unusual had happened.
“China issued, in accordance with practice, an alert that it would be conducting these activities, including the potential use of live fire,” he told reporters.
The use of the future tense – “would be conducting” – suggested Australian authorities knew about the drills in advance.
Now, thanks to Senate estimates, we know that Airservices Australia only learnt about the exercise 30 minutes after the live-fire window began. The Australian Defence Force was informed another 10 minutes after that. The lag would have been even longer had a Virgin Australia pilot not tipped off authorities that the exercise was taking place. If the ADF had been relying on the New Zealand Navy, which was shadowing the ship, it would not have known until 90 minutes after the exercise began.
From where the exercise took place, the flight time for a nuclear-tipped HN missile was roughly fifty minutes to either Canberra or Sydney.
Both would have been gone in a mushroom cloud long before any warning was sounded.
Even Brisbane would have had next-to-no warning.
Most disturbing is a PM who is happy to lie about it and let the vulnerability persist.
And where is tough guy Dutton? Imagine had this happened before the last election. Albo would have lost.
Dutton’s too busy kissing arse in Chinese electorates to even notice the missiles flying overhead.
Beijing will be laughing its head off, and Washington wondering what kind of inconceivable pussy it is allied to.
