Pearls and Irritations

One of Lyndon Johnson’s sage pieces of political advice was that one should never get into a piss fight with a skunk. Kamala Harris should take note. But so should Anthony Albanese, who is inadequately equipped for an argument over AUKUS and the submarine deal with his predecessor Paul Keating.

The want of equipment is not about facts. It’s about cred. And judgment. And his understanding of Australia’s place in the region and the world, and about Labor’s place in the history and culture of Australia. Put bluntly, he has neither the reputation nor the stature, the judgment, the background or the current knowledge of affairs to engage in a pitched battle with an old Labor warrior far closer to Labor history, tradition and understanding of Australia’s modern place in the world.

Albanese is the prime minister and deserves respect, whether as the nation’s leader or the party’s. But Keating has moved into the pantheon, even if (in his own phrase) his arse still points towards the ground.

Albanese has, of course, no desire to make an outright enemy either of Keating or the substantial body of Labor opinion which agrees with him. It could only damage the party, and his own standing in the caucus, the wider party, and the wider electorate.

On that account, he has judged the wisest cause of action is to suggest that Keating was prime minister a long time ago, that there has been a lot of water under the bridge since then, and that Keating is not well informed about the considerations involving Australia’s modern foreign policy.

The old dodderer, in short, doesn’t know what he is talking about, and is certainly not as well informed about modern statecraft, current international defence and foreign affairs strategies and tactics as Albanese, his deputy Richard Marles, or the Foreign Minister Penny Wong.

If this were a simple party spat, for example over the place of Malcolm Fraser or Malcolm Turnbull in the history of the Liberal Party, John Howard versus Peter Costello, or relative precedence to be accorded Bob Hawke alongside Keating, or credit as between Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, it would soon be over without causing significant damage, least of all to the place in history of former leaders a bit precious about their record.

With Keating, however, it’s not about his record. Or about his understanding of current events. It’s about his conviction that the present Labor policy is wrong. Wrong in principle, wrong in Labor principle. wrong for Australia, and capable of compromising its future. Based on false perceptions of Australia’s situation. Wrong for placing Australia’s future in the hands of the United States. Wrong for compromising an important, if not uncomplicated relationship with China. And wrong because of how it again positions Australia as some sort of American vassal in our dealings with our friends and neighbours in our region.

It’s not an argument about tactics. It’s about right or wrong for Australia

These are matters of convictions, emotions and passions. Right or wrong, they come from the heart of the Labor tradition, particularly, one might say ironically, from the mindset of the Labor left. That’s the faction that Albanese and Wong, and Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy once claimed to represent, before they made alliances of convenience with sections of the Labor right. Keating may have been a warrior of the old Labor right, but on issues such as Australian sovereignty, defence self-reliance, and the perfidy of allies, he’s always been fervently in the party mainstream.

If Albanese were mad enough to call a plebiscite of party members, or the true believers, on the issue of Australia’s deal on AUKUS, I believe he would be defeated decisively. That’s inspite of the fact that most of the old Labor left, including sections of the old party most disaffected by issues such as AUKUS, Israel, and refugee policy, have long since let their memberships slide and now vote for parties such as the Greens. It’s a process that began in 2001.

Kim Beazley’s pragmatic repudiation of what many true believers regarded as fundamental principles saw half the then paid-up membership let their subscriptions lapse within three years. None have come back. Many of the remnants believe that the impact of AUKUS and Israel could be as serious for the party’s capacity to inspire any future generations.

It is noteworthy that few of the leading figures and ministers of the Labor right are conspicuous for their public support or defence of AUKUS. Especially in party councils. Indeed, a fundamental part of the Government’s problem in relation to AUKUS is that it has never given the party, the parliament or the public a frank explanation of what the agreements are all about, and how they serve Australia’s interests.

As Gareth Evans, in a critique of AUKUS almost as damning as Paul Keating’s pointed out, there may have been some political advantage in Labor’s going along with Scott Morrison’s initial AUKUS deal when it was sprung on them without notice or detail just before the election. That has provided Labor with cover to promise an extensive review of details and operating principles after the election. But there was no such review, let alone a proper opportunity for discussion of how Australia’s interests would be protected.

In much the same manner, Labor had been corralled by its defence and intelligence bureaucrats into the view that war with China was inevitable, perhaps desirable.

There was never a serious open debate within the party or the caucus about this, even if some surmised that the argument had to be sotto voce because representatives of the Institute of Public Affairs in the Liberal Party, and of the United States in the intelligence establishment would accuse any dissidents of treason, or of being paid agents of China. Or coolly told we were naïve by the head of ASIO, a very politically focused publicity hound, (complete with tame journalists reporting his every breathless claim).

Labor’s terror of being wedged means it dances to Dutton’s music

The Labor government’s continuing panic about being wedged by the Coalition parties has persisted, to the point where Labor uses the political apparatus and outlook of the previous government for advice. Long before practical loss of sovereignty in a military operation becomes a reality, Albanese is allowing his thinking to be done by people itching for Australia to be in conflict with China. Nuclear powered subs are just the bait in this exercise of having Australia’s policy perfectly aligned with the most extreme defence views in the US; if it were not for subs, it would be some other weapon likely to compromise our independence of action.

The layperson in any debate must assume, to a degree, that those inside the inner circle have access to top secret information which explains their uncritical adoption of what they have been told. This information, supposedly, explains why we “know” that China has a secret military plan for war against the US, and, perhaps, separately, Australia. It explains how China’s developing a defence force to match that of the US, at least in part to protect its sea lines of communications, especially in the South China Sea, must be construed as demonstrating aggressive intent.

This information, we must assume, secretly gets around many of the obvious difficulties of how Australia’s own national interests are best served by being willing to involve ourselves in an American trade war which does not adversely affect us. It does not explain how Australia is served by an idea of knocking the stuffing out of the Chinese economy and capacity to invest in defence before it gets too big. It assumes that US hegemony over the western Pacific is a good thing of itself, and that it can be maintained in the face of Chinese growth.

We must also assume that secret understandings, too secret for us to know, explain how the delivery of the submarines is guaranteed, even while the US is well behind on deadlines for its own submarine rearmament. And while Britain, another partner, is even further behind on its commitments, even with our money upfront. And we must assume that provisions in a treaty permitting either the US or Britain to withdraw unilaterally from it, while Australia cannot do so without extreme penalties, serve Australia’s interests and promote our sovereignty.

No doubt there are answers to most of these questions. But what has not happened is a proper public discussion in Australia about what it’s all about, and why. The Government is very secretive and is trying to become even more so. It is possible that the Coalition parties are in on at least some of the secrets (which is more than Morrison allowed Labor to be, until the very last moment). But politicians representing more than a third of Australians, including some who might be asked to support a minority government after the next election, are excluded from the councils and briefings, on the grounds that their very agnosticism proves them to be a security risk.

One can look to Australia’s interests without being anti-American

Hostility to the deal is not a matter of reflex anti-Americanism, or unpatriotic want of belief in the Western alliance, as some AUKUS enthusiasts have suggested. First, recent experience has shown that US military adventures seldom turn out well. Australia has blindly followed the US into Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and support for Ukraine, at the cost of significant military treasure. Australia may have cemented a reputation as a very reliable — indeed uncritical — ally of the US, even when other American allies have taken a leave pass. This may have made them more grateful to us, but has done nothing to ensure that the US will come to our aid if Australia is attacked. Indeed, when China imposed significant trade sanctions on Australia (but not the US) as a result of selective indignation about our uncritical support of a US position, America jumped in to seize our markets.

One, if only one, of the many objections to AUKUS is that it was, from the start, a tactic in a political operation designed to wedge Labor, not a strategy for the best defence of Australia in its current circumstances. What little has been achieved since in putting some clothes on the Morrison skeleton, including the commitment to more than $400 billion in defence expenditure, is the achievement of Albanese and Marles, and to a much more limited extent, Wong. Not Morrison, or Peter Dutton.

The problem is that Albanese may have committed himself too far. So far that he lost freedom of action, or the capacity to act in Australia’s best interests. Suppose, for example, that he embarked on a program of selling and explaining what he is doing. That might be something which only invited further questions about his judgment and his leadership, without providing answers. It might well provoke further criticism by former Labor ministers and advisers — people used to being behind the curtain — about Albanese and others being taken for mugs. It might invite questions about the contribution of Marles to the Government’s fortunes.

More, it raises the risk, already serious, that the next election will be a khaki election, with Albanese unfortunately positioned. Focus group work suggests that Dutton and the Coalition are rated well above Albanese and Marles as a safe pair of hands in any defence of foreign affairs difficulties. Dutton, it is well established, sets no lower limit on what he is prepared to do to press his advantage. The defence establishment, so assiduous in screwing extra dollars from Jim Chalmers, would be delighted to see the last of Labor. Curiously, it may well be that Labor would be going to the election with policies and commitments leaning more heavily to the right than Dutton is.

And that would be true even without the strain on Labor supporters coming from Labor’s far too uncritical support of Israel after the terrible events of October 7 last year. The disproportion of the Israeli reaction, with a Palestinian death toll 40 times that of Israel, has shattered Israel’s standing in most of the rest of the world. Indeed, it has revulsed many Jews, and, in particular, destroyed political Zionism outside Israel. Albanese and the Government have insisted that they have been even-handed, but most observers have seen them as being too slow to defend the interests of Palestinian civilians, and far too slow to criticise Israel. Dutton has, again, set out to cause maximum damage to Labor among its Muslim constituencies over this issue, with the result that Labor will be setting into electoral battle being seen by millions of Australians as a party that was guided by American interests, not Australian ones, during the conflict.

Albanese has the power to set the election date, most likely now in the second quarter of 2025. That’s not a lot of time to get his house in order, whether on the cost of living, interest rates, or nagging questions such as AUKUS and Israel. There’s even less time for creating perceptions that this has been a Government worth fighting for, worth savouring, the more urgent a necessity because of the alternative. Labor’s generals, and admirals, have been outmanoeuvred.

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