Pearls and Irritations

AUKUS: signed and sealed by the Liberal government when it joined the pact in September 2021, the spoils of which have been delivered by the Labor Government in March 2023. The Labor Government and Australia will pay a heavy price for what is being done in our name. We are being humiliated by our own government.

The AUKUS alliance has forever changed Australia’s sovereignty. Foreign policy and diplomacy has been pushed aside by military policy.

US Admirals and Generals regularly visit to pull us into line. Our media hang on their every word.

Our Department of Defence employs US Admirals to ‘advise’ on submarines to attack China. It should be renamed the Department of Attack .

For the first time we will be engaging in the development and ownership of nuclear powered submarines. And for what purpose? Not for our own safety, prosperity or gain. The China threat is manufactured by a failing hegemon, aided by our own media desperate to contain a time stamped world order.

China is not a military threat to Australia or the US.

The hysteria over China has given rise to a new age of McCarthyism displayed in the unforgivable sham of a Red Alert by our own media. Albanese, Wong and Marles said not a word in criticism.

And if this isn’t enough, the eye-watering budget could well have been put to use to tackle our real threat, climate change. The plight of our poor is ignored.

We have been struggling for decades to build bridges to our region. But instead of building bridges we have now become a spear carrier in the region for the US. With AUKUS we are retreating to the Anglosphere.

AUKUS is not about defending Australia. It is about aiding the US in its panic over the economic challenge of China. We have fallen in the US trap. Acting as a proxy for the violent and aggressive US, we have greatly increased our own risks.

There is something seriously wrong when a Labor Government finds its key supporters on AUKUS are the Murdoch Media (Greg Sheridan), the Nine Media Group, Peter Dutton, Andrew Hastie and the United States Studies Centre in Sydney.

Arthur Calwell on Vietnam and Simon Crean on Iraq showed leadership and courage. But Anthony Albanese…!

Our series of articles by some of Australia’s best analysts are collated into an AUKUS collection here, to share a view of the many challenges AUKUS creates for our government, sovereignty and to the Australian people. More articles will be posted as the debacle unfolds.

 

Paul Keating

Paul Keating – Australia locks in Asian Century as subordinate to the US

Mike Gilligan

Keating exposes ministerial incompetence in Albanese Government

Brian Toohey

Nuclear safety agency silent on disposal of AUKUS radioactive waste

Mike Scrafton

An AUKUS ménage à trois

Geoff Miller

AUKUS: A greedy pup

Mack Williams

Albanese and the subs: a looming “Goat Rodeo”

Jack Waterford

We don’t need subs or war with China

Caitlin Johnstone

On war with China, Australia Is caught between a rock and a Pentagon

Wanning Sun and Minran Liu

Red Alert: news media ‘Sleep-Walking’ into US war propaganda

John Menadue and Aran Martin

AUKUS and the drive to war with China: Special Issue

Richard Heggie

Opportunities foregone in AUKUS submarine decision

Greg Bailey

“China threat” a distraction from climate change, economic inequity

 

Marilyn Lake

From Yellow Peril to Red Alert

Allan Patience

Paul Keating excoriates AUKUS as exercise in security policy stupidity

Tim Dunlop

Beating Keating and losing

David Armstrong

On AUKUS, gallery journalists defend the line

Percy Allan

The fiscal fallout of AUKUS

Henry Reynolds

Penny Wong’s faltering foreign policy

John Lander

War mongering and the peace rally

Roger Bradbury, Anne-Marie Grisogono, Elizabeth Williams and Scott Vella

“Billion-dollar coffins”: detection tech to render AUKUS submarines useless

William Briggs

When a war economy became an industry policy

Allan Behm

AUKUS: Submarines on the never never, or castles in the sky?

Alex Lo

Diplomacy in Beijing, war pact in San Diego – who’s the belligerent?

Sue Wareham

Twenty years on, ‘coalition of the willing’ rebranded

Tony Smith

Two decades on, history should condemn the real ‘butchers of Baghdad’

Alison Broinowski

Here we stand: Twenty years after our first war of aggression

Jack Waterford

Albanese a pale shadow of Keating, even on subs

Caitlin Johnstone

Empire-funded think tanks are not valid sources: notes from The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

John Jiggens

The AUKUS orchestra, Julian Assange and Iraq

Dennis Argall

To justify nuclear submarines as protecting trade routes is nonsense

Mack Williams

Marles… At least get the spin on the subs right!

Scott Burchill

AUKUS and Military Keynesianism

Allan Patience

The myth of Australian sovereignty

Noel Turnbull

Guardian Essential Poll: AUKUS support collapses, 3-in-4 oppose

Melissa Parke

Josh Wilson’s welcome concern: AUKUS will cost the earth

Kim Carr

The Federal Labor Caucus did not endorse AUKUS

Richard Tanter

AUKUS – “These are the horrors”

Geoff Raby

China’s big foreign policy plays leave Australia in the cold

Ainslie Barton

ASPI takes exception to media scrutiny

David Armstrong

Japan in diplomatic offensive – Asian Media Report

Alison Broinowski

Out of touch, out of date, or out of their minds?

Mary Kostakidis

Turning Damocles’ Sword against the people

Alex Lo

A tale of two octogenarian politicians

Daryl Guppy

Australia’s paper sea horse

Barry Jones

China and the AUKUS submarine deal: unanswered questions

Judy Hemming

American Fascism: A prior question to the AUKUS arrangements

Adam Hughes Henry

The gatekeepers have spoken

David Legge

Stop preparing to participate in a US war against China

Bronwyn Kelly

Australia: can we avoid a future that is truly frightening?

Max Hayton

AUKUS a test of NZ’s independent foreign policy

Maddison Connaughton

AUKUS gets awkward Down Under

Marianne Hanson

The absurdities of AUKUS