POTUS ‘Bye, bye Australia – sorry. I’m off, I have bigger fish to fry
(Iran, Venezuela, Ukraine, UN, Greenland …)
Nostalgia is a great comforter. We hope the US will soon snap out of its current crazy breakdown; that what we’re witnessing is but a temporary aberration of the kind suffered by ‘mad’ George III, that the USA goes back to times when America was both an inspiration and a blood ally.
Unfortunately it looks like a return to the good old days is quickly becoming little more than wishful thinking. America has collapsed like a house of cards. Trumpian madness has brought down the world’s most powerful democracy in little over a year.
This year (July 4 ,2026 ) was meant to celebrate the 250th year of the founding of The United States, to commemorate the birth of a Federation and a Federal Government built upon three, independent and counter balancing institutions, Congress (The House of Representatives and Senate), the Executive (The President and Administration) and the Law (topped by The Supreme Court).
Within a year, Trump has castrated Congress, replaced independent expertise staff in Federal departments with sycophants and swamped The Supreme Court with equivocal and vexatious cases.
He has run rampant, testing the limits of his insatiable appetite for power, money and self-aggrandisement …. and, so far, no one has been able to stop him. Most of America’s powerful haven’t even tried.
At home,Trump defames and spitefully indicts his enemies while ICE terrorises both American citizens and immigrants alike.
Internationally,Trump has single handedly destroyed the Western Alliance, thrown Ukraine to the dogs, boosted the power of both China and Russia – and spent America’s treasure in ways, always, accommodating Israel under Netanyahu.King George III (the one who tried to stop America becoming independent) suffered from a ‘madness’ that, until recently, was attributed to a genetic condition called porphyria -‘the blue urine disease’. It’s ‘nicer’ to proffer a leader’s physical ailments as a possible explanation for their bad behaviour than question their sanity. After all, illness is beyond anyone’s conscious control; illness exonerates moral wrongdoing.America’s media focuses on Trump’s physical health (bruised hand, fatigue, poor diet, obesity, falling asleep in meetings) – and his narcissism. But they are shy of exploring the man’s mental condition in any depth (just as they were in Biden’s case until it became so obvious that expert commentary became redundant).
Recent research has debunked the theory that King George suffered from a genetic disease. It is now accepted that he suffered from what we now call manic-depression. Trump exhibits many of the symptoms of mania.
King George used to go on and on once he started talking or writing (one of his sentence’s ran to over 400 words). Trump’s rallies and meetings also ramble on, he is a ‘bigly’ talker.
Trump likes to occupy the stage (and tv camera) as frequently, and for as long , as he possibly can. His dialogue is vague. His pronouncements inconsistent. His ‘facts’ are made up to suit his arguments (ie. he lies), his reasoning questionable, his view of history limited – and warped. POTUS’ megalomania (his intense and delusional obsession with power, wealth and grandiosity) is obvious. He happily and far from humbly proclaims that his Presidency is the most successful in American history.
Trump exhibits little or no empathy for others. He cares little for the poor of the world. He sees foreign aid and domestic welfare in America as unnecessary expenses, wasted money. He sees the people of other nations as having no rights that trump his own ambitions. He only praises those who loyally serve him for as long as they successfully serve him. And he (in his own words spoken at Kirk’s memorial service) “hates” his enemies (excluding Putin, Xi and North Korea’s Little Rocket man (who he says “fell in love” with).You don’t need to be a psychiatrist or psychologist to reach the conclusion that this man is unhinged – the most powerful man in the world is unhinged and quixotic.
THE IMPLICATIONS OF AMERICA’S DEMISE FOR AUSTRALIA
What Australia should or can do to protect itself, to minimise the collateral damage Australia suffers as a result of this Trumpian led upheaval, depends on a few knowns and lots of unknowns. We can only guess what might happen in the future.
Artist: Norman Rockwell: ‘Will we ever view America this way again?”
WHAT HAPPENS TO TRUMP?
If Trump continues on the trajectory he’s currently on things can only get worse. America will become an authoritarian state ( what political scientists call a hybrid state of ‘competitive authoritarianism’).Trump is already well on his way toward achieving such an objective.
The institutions of America have not been effective in blunting, yet alone stopping, his grab for absolute power. This is bad news for Australia because Trump has little interest in our part of the world he appears indifferent to the fate of democracies within our region. Asia is China’s bailiwick. The Trump administration will not be spending much time or treasure protecting Australia. He’s more focused on buying Greenland.
Bitcoin trumps blood brotherhood under MAGA.
If Trump’s health fails (a medium to high probability) and if J D Vance becomes President (medium probability) we can only expect more of the same. There’s no solace to be found here. His focus will be on fighting for his (and the Republican Party’s) survival at home. Ditto in the unlikely event that Trump is impeached (low to medium probability).If the people of America reject Trump in the streets and midterm elections my guess is that Trump will not change his ways. His ego is such that he can’t admit defeat. To paraphrase Margaret Thatcher ‘this gentleman is not for turning’. He’ll go down taking as many as he can with him. By then Americans will hardly be likely to be concerned about what’s happening to Australia.
WHAT HAPPENS TO OUR FRIENDS AND ALLIES ?
The trans-Atlantic alliance is critically ill. Trump has all but abandoned Europe ,NATO and the United Kingdom. He has already abandoned Ukraine. Trump (intelligence aside) sells armaments to the Europeans who then donate them to Ukraine. He, in spite of all his posturing, has done little to stop Putin (the aggressor) while admonishing “no cards” Zelensky (the victim) for risking the start of World War Three. Above all else Trump desperately wants to be recognised by the senior member of the Big Bullies Club. He cares little about ordinary people, national sovereignty or democracy .
The famous White House 2025 meeting where Trump told Zelensky he “held no cards” and Vance criticised the Ukrainian war leader for not wearing a suit.
Europe now has no option but to fight for its own survival against an expansionist Russia which (although economically weak still has a big arsenal of nuclear weapons) without the helping hand of the US. The EU’s interest in our part of the world is already low. It will become even lower until its own security (both economic and military) is assured. We need to turn to our own region to build alliances with Japan, South Korea and Indonesia in particular if we are to impress China.
That’s a high degree of difficulty exercise. Necessity may be the mother of invention but Australia is going to find it hard to convince some of our neighbours that we have the military and/or economic muscle to be taken seriously, especially so because of our history as a colonial outpost of the British Empire.Self-help is our best defence-and that will involve hardship at home. Our political class of vote-brokers (which buys our votes with little hip-pocket sweeteners and sanctimonious promises) will have to change its ways. We need true, national leaders who are prepared to DO what needs to be done to secure our nation’s future even if it damages their electoral prospects. Voting for discontented-populists of either the Hanson or Teal kind will only turn our parliaments into even more divisive and ineffective Towers of Babel.
DEFENCE
As we stand Australia has little by way of a defence force to deter any potential enemy.
We rank eighth in the Asian Pacific region (just ahead of Singapore) in terms of firepower…..and there’s a huge difference between the military might of China and the rest (which includes us).
If we are serious about our future we have no option but to invest more, more wisely and more quickly in defence than we have over the past three decades. All recent governments have been negligent in this respect. It would be gross negligence for future governments not to treat this parlous situation as a national emergency.Relying on AUKUS would be foolhardy.There’s a high probability that the US wouldn’t (even if they could) supply nuclear submarines to Australia if the US decided they needed them for America’s defence (remember under Trump it’s America First). Such a probability only increases unless Australia guarantees the US the submarines sold to Australia would join America’s in times of war.
It’s even more problematical that the UK can fulfil its side of the bargain ever, yet alone on time. Post Ukraine, The UK is turning its limited resources toward the procurement and stockpiling of huge numbers of cheaper, high-tech weapons rather than tying up resources in a limited number of high cost – long delivery time assets like nuclear submarines. Australia should be doing likewise.
Our one operational Collins Class submarine deterring China
In times future we are likely to look back on AUKUS as an expensive PR exercise designed to make China think twice about absorbing Taiwan and expanding its hegemony over the region. If they were the objectives of the Morrison-Biden-Boris Johnson trio their tactic has probably already failed.Nuclear powered, conventionally armed boats (which don’t carry nuclear weapons) are hardly as intimidating as nuclear powered subs that carry nuclear weapons. The US, China, Russia, UK, France and India all have nuclear armed subs.
It can be plausibly argued AUKUS provides Xi with an incentive to act sooner rather than later. Why would he wait until the mid 2030s when three Virginia Class non-nuclear armed boats are due for delivery in Australia? Why not strike while America is in chaos and Australia can only deploy one (or at best two) Collins Class diesels at any time? We are close to having no deterrence sub-force at all.Our defence capability isn’t all about military hardware – planes, ships, boats, armour, missiles and drones. It’s also about our capacity to fuel and refurbish those assets with ammunition. I have no idea what the three services have by way of stockpiled ordnance. But I do know that Australia stockpiles less than a month’s supply of petrol and diesel.
Most of our stockpiled oil is held in the US to meet our international obligation to hold a minimum of 90 days supply. That crude would take several weeks to reach our region and be refined (most likely in Singapore) because we have only two refineries left in Australia. We are immensely exposed to supply being cut off by Chinese naval assets.Without open shipping lanes our military and industrial base will be quickly starved of fuel and grind to a halt.
Our Airforce has priority access to aviation fuel reserves, but again those supplies are limited, dangerously so if we hope to sustain more than occasional sorties – that is if we wish to use our air power to maximum effect.
Building fuel reserves on shore would be an expensive business. A large refinery (capable of handling about 250,000 barrels a day) costs around AUD $8 to10 billion – a smaller one of about half that capacity around the AUD $5 billion mark – about the same cost as holding the Olympic Games in Brisbane in 2032. Then there are additional storage costs, pipeline, roads and transport costs. It’s expensive but doable ….and it’s a prerequisite for national security. But it would take a gutsy Australian Government to tell the nation to tighten our belt even further to do what needs to be done in the name of national security.
AUSTRALIAN LEADERSHIP
It’s not an exaggeration to say Australia is now facing dangers of a magnitude we’ve not seen since WWII.Externally, the collapse of the Western Alliance, the undermining of the UN and international legal system, the rise and rise of a chaotic Trumpian autocracy in America, the determination of an expansionist China and the desperation of a failing Russia add up to a bleak future for a middle power like Australia. We have never been more alone in a violence prone world .
The ever-increasing ravages of climate change on our continent only add to our problems…. as does our economic vulnerability to trade wars and overseas financial crises. The Lucky Country is eventually going to have confront reality, luck alone will not see us through this time.Internally, our political class’s focus on vote winning and placating (if not pleasing) diverse groups with different priorities and agendas, has produced a lot of heat, a lot of woke talk sanctimonious promises and many tokenistic gestures of but little real world impact. Neither virtuous talk nor social legislation will, or can, solve the big problems Australia is facing as a nation. Our high propensity to navel gaze (and its attendant preoccupations with individual entitlements and rights) has not only distracted us and our polity from addressing the ‘big problems’, it has accelerated the spread of divisiveness at a time when we should be united in common purpose.
At a time when we ought to be thinking about our collective future we are ever so sensitively and self-righteously absorbed in fighting over things that have divided us in the past. If we continue this way we will keep pushing strategic issues ever further down the road, unresolved, until they become overwhelming crises. We’ve been on that path far too long enough, and it shows. The Country is going backwards and ordinary Australians sense that things are more likely to get worse before they get better
Immigrants once flocked to London because (as Dick Whittington told them) London streets were paved with gold. Australia can no longer guarantee all those who come (came or are indigenous to) this country an affluent or secure lifestyle.
At the moment our political class – the people we elect to govern in our interest – lacks the motivation, talent and stomach to lead. It is risk averse, preferring to play the role of the vote -broker whose priorities are to secure seats in Parliament and the success of their Party. Our leaders spend most of their effort finding what to say and do (ie. market itself) to win votes. They’re reluctant to level with the public about the hard and necessary decisions that must be made in Australia’s interest for fear that such ‘frankness’ (ie. serious debate) would only scare ordinary Australians – and cost them votes. Since 2000 that approach to politics has cost the Country dearly. Our political class has proved weak. It has fallen short of statesmanship by a long margin.
>In spite of Labor’s dominant position it, as a government, seems too timid to lead; it strives to be everyone’s friend, not to upset anyone and be nice to all both at home and abroad. Such a tactic has a short lifespan. It becomes less and less effective over time. Eventually those that persist in the practice fade into the background or, even worse, become taken for granted. Leadership requires a modicum of spunk and not too much tea and sympathy.
The Coalition has sunk. Those Liberals still treading water hoping to be saved are in for a rude shock. No one is coming to their rescue. They’ve sent out so many conflicting messages as to where they are that nobody can find them. The Nationals seem to have even lost interest in trying.What about the Greens and Teals? Well, what’s there to say? The Greens seem more intent on heating up the racial environment these days than cooling down the planet and protecting the natural environment. The TEALs speak virtuous words and espouse noble causes with conviction and passion but (lacking the balance of power) achieve little except by way of moral persuasion.That leaves One Nation as the party de jour, the Party on the rise. One Nation now ranks No2 in the ‘how I’d vote polls’; a remarkable and frightening statistic.Voters are so pissed off with the big parties they’re threatening, out of desperation, to try One Nation (just as voters are moving to Farage’s Reform Party in the UK and already have moved to Trump in the US).
The truth is One Nation is simply not equipped to run the Country. There can be no doubt about that. It is a whinge party, a side party, not a serious party capable of governing.
Hanson’s solution. MABA (Make Australia Bigoted Again)
Pauline Hanson is authentic in the sense she says what she believes,that’s her strength and the basis of her appeal. But beyond that One Nation only has nostalgia to offer to those who want to believe that it’s desirable, and possible, for Australia to retreat to the good old days, the happy days, of the 1960s and 1970s. The Fonz (from the American sitcom Happy Days) is as well equipped to be US President as Hanson is to be PM of Australia. The addition of Barnaby Joyce to her team is not grounds to revise this assessment.
Besides, Hanson does not want to be the head of government. She, Barnaby and Bernardi would much prefer to be in coalition with the Liberals or the old Coalition (if it resurrects itself).So where does the above analysis leave Australia? In more than a bit of a hole actually.There are scant few politicians in our Federal parliament who you could confidently say have the potential to develop into strong leaders – people of vision and talent whose vocation is to serve the nation first, even if doing that involves them risking their own careers to do so. You may disagree and call me a Cassandra. I hope you are right.
Some argue that dire circumstances call forth great leaders. Churchill, for example, was not a successful or outstanding leader until he led Britain as PM during WWII. He blossomed at the ripe old age of 65. It’s difficult to imagine any of his contemporaries could have led and motivated his Country better than he did.
Our own John Curtin, another brilliant mind and orator, started off as a pacifist (for which he was jailed) and ended up a reluctant PM who did a marvellous job in leading Australia through it darkest hours during The World War.
Abraham Lincoln had served only one term in Congress before becoming President. Ghandi, George Washington, FDR and Mandela are other examples of great leaders who virtually popped out of nowhere to lead their nations.
Let’s hope we’ll witness this phenomenon in Australia in the near future. But hoping that some sort of unexplainable, automatic, natural process will produce the leaders we need in tough times is a very passive (que sera ,sera) way of tackling what is patently a serious problem.
Our nation needs to tackle the leadership problem far more consciously and determinately than we have so far this century. We, the people, need to insist our political class adopts higher standards and that our parties field candidates with a vocation to serve the nation rather than their electorate, their party or their own ambitions.
On the international front our leaders performed in a similar lacklustre way. As a nation we’ve shown a penchant for developing leaders who are happy to play the polite-courtier role when in the halls of international power. Our leaders have been happy to merely be in the entourage of the real movers and shakers of this world. Menzies was besotted with the Queen. Howard was characterised as America’s deputy sheriff. Morrison played toady to Trump during his White House visits. We should be embarrassed Chinese Premier Li reported that Albanese, in China, was referred to as “the handsome boy coming from Australia”.
Trying to be close to friend and foe at the same time wins the support of neither.
Those days of knee bending should end. It’s even time we realised it’s bye bye American Pie time…that the US levee is dry.
We need strong leaders, leaders who are strong enough to both confront the problems we have at home and strong enough to stand outside the shadow of the big-stick wielders of this world.
ALL OF US – INCLUDING EVEN THE BEST OF LEADERS-HAVE FLAWS
In seeking better political leadership we need to avoid the mistake of seeking perfection. No leader, no matter how successful or talented, is perfect.
All of us, including our heroes and heroines have flaws. All leaders (be they Chinese, Russian, American or African) strive hard to present as positive a façade as they possibly can because they know how susceptible people are to the romantic, Hollywood version of how great leaders should present themselves. Sure it’s theatre, but political theatre is now nearly as influential as religion, ethics or ideology in shaping what people believe political leadership is all about and what they can expect from it.More than a few of the exceptional leaders we talked about above were alcoholics. Some had far from happy family lives. More than a sprinkling had long term mistresses. Some were racist. Some were well educated, others not. One owned slaves (another’s wife did).
Those ‘faults’ did not prevent them doing great things.> The effort they put into their jobs often cost them their health. Lincoln paid with his life.
So let’s not be overly idealistic about an ambition to attract great, potential leaders into our Parliaments. Reforming our political class is a herculean task. Making pragmatic steps in the right direction is enough for a start. Even modest steps will pay handsome long term dividends for all Australians.
That brings us to the question of where such a reform movement is going to come from? Who’ll start it ?
Well, one thing is for sure, our political class is not going to voluntarily reform itself. It’s quite happy with the way things are because it’s the only game it knows how to play, a game they’ve spent years learning to play – and because it’s a system that (until the recent collapse) works for them.
The responsibility for taking the initiative lies with us, the voters of Australia.
We need to assert ourselves by reminding our political class they are there to serve us, not the other way ‘round. Ordinary Australians are not mere pawns to be manipulated in their power games. We are going to have to use our votes to force change, become more informed and involved in matters politic and join local party branches to regain control of the selection of the candidates fielded at election time. Yes, it’s a big ask. But if we citizens don’t do it who will? Contrary to scripture the meek do not inherit the earth.
Am I (again) exaggerating the problem? I’m happy for you to be the judge.
Over the past two decades we’ve had Rudd, Gillard, Rudd, Abbott, Turnbull, Morrison and two Albanese Governments. Which of these governments (if any) would you say has done a good job, overall, in handling the many issues that crossed their desks?If you say ‘none’ I’m certainly not exaggerating in what I’ve written in this essay. If you say ‘one’ then you’d be right to conclude I’m exaggerating – but only a little. If you said ‘two’ or ‘three’ then I’d be exaggerating quite a bit. A higher score than three would brand me a Chicken (the-sky-is-falling) Little.If you don’t think we have a problem you certainly won’t be putting in any effort to solve it. And therein lies the rub.But remember……we get the politicians we vote for.