Indeed, why would China bring a massive armada to conquer Australia, famously known for being checks notes over 2/3 worthless desert and what? 1k km away from literally everything else that matters?
Also based answer. Stupid reporter: "China is building ships is that not provocation?"
Gee moron what is the US doing then? Never mind everyone else or is China the only ones not allowed to have a military? He should have pointed out all the US bases around the pacific including the occupied Japan/Korean.
Both those countries have regular protests against these bases and yet having them against the will of the natives is not provocation lol.
Anyway Australia is shitty US vassal so none of this is surprising.
Amazing how hearing someone simply state the obvious feels so shocking when you're up to your eyes in insane propaganda.
The two very different reasons someone says this -
A. They know China has nothing to gain via invasion, and do not want to invade. OR B. They are extremely racist and assume that they might of Australia will triumph.
OR B. They are extremely racist and assume that they might of Australia will triumph.
Actually, they are just smart
Australia would triumph by letting its insane local animals crush any invader
Much like a how a bunch of Emu's beat the Australian army: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emu_War
Keating is responsible for a lot of bad shit (he basically invented the Clinton/Blair playbook, though not to the same extent) but compared to everyone else in Australia he brings the fire.
We don't really, at least not since WW2. Menzies served over 18 years on and off. Howard 11, and Hawke over 8, and Fraser, Huges, Lyons, and Bruce 2 full terms each. That's 65 Years out of 122. And it understandably took a decade or two for things to settle down, mostly because there was a real chance Australia was going DemSoc (If you look at Huges you can see he was PM for 3 parties and went fash in real-time, that's the Squatters (rich, originally illegal landowners) and the Brits stepping up reaction lest we pull an Ireland.)
But there's a few reasons they can serve shorter terms.
One is that we're a Parliamentary system and the PM doesn't exist in law like a President, it's just a customary role so just because the PM goes doesn't mean the government does.
Another is that PMs can set the date of an election to anytime before the clock runs out, and if they're slipping in popularity they'll often try to do it early.
Yet another is that there's a strong culture of the "Klingon promotion." especially in the Labor Party. Keating himself knifed Hawke after Hawke reneged on a promise to stand down and let Keating have a shot. Do it too much, like Labor did, especially in both state and federal elections, and you'll alienate the voters by seeming incompetent. Labor is extremely factionalised in a way that most people break down into "Right and Left" factions, because they operate under a weak form of DemCent and only an insider can really navigate what Trade Union is supporting which sub-sub-faction this week.
Finally, in the Coalition, there's an unholy alliance between The Liberal Party who are "moderate" city Haute Bourgois, and "Hard Right" Urban Petit Bourgois (including emigres from Asian countries that went red), Evangelicals, and Trad Caths (though Labor also has some Tradcath those mostly left and formed a small fash party called the "Democratic Labor Party"), and The National Party, which are frothing rural reactionaries (think the Landowner faction in Vic3.)
The moderates keep getting popular, and then get knifed by the PB hardliners with National support because checks notes they'd like the Murray River to not die and kill the most productive farmland inside a decade and so support irrigation restrictions and climate change taxes.
To clarify, I meant the last few PM's
I live in Canada, similar system
Thanks for the explainer on the inner politics of the parties
The moderates keep getting popular, and then get knifed by the PB hardliners with National support because checks notes they’d like the Murray River to not die and kill the most productive farmland inside a decade and so support irrigation restrictions and climate change taxes
I saw a documentary on that
Sad stuff :(
I will say Albanese (our current guy) looks very stable, He's a left Labor guy but governing from the Right of the party in policy, so he's stable internally, and If he can face down the Murdoch Press and push the new advisory council for First Nations (another story) through a referendum he'll have the Liberals in the wilderness. The Libs are already reeling because the centre-right Intelligentsia split the party and formed a loose "Teal" coalition.
funniest part of the interview was realizing they plan to take on the centuries old fucking Chinese Armada with 6 submarines rotating in shifts of 3
Yes that is also another elephant in the room.
Lets assume China is a threat. Here comes the Australian fucking navy to hold off against the #1 economy and largerst/second-largest navy in the world with currently 3 super carriers, thousands of fighters, nukes, hypersonic missiles yadayada.
Of course the obsolete second hand US Navy subs are all that is going to take defend against them. Its the Russian shovels all over again. I could begin to see an argument if the sub deal was actualy a couple of US carriers, but this whole story is just embarrassing.
Also they are only going to receive the subs after 2030.
Also Australia is willing to hock off any asset of value to Chinese firms. What could China possibly gain from invading?
I'm clued into the local anti-AUKUS email chains. They recently had a post that proved that China has lower military spending per GDP and per capita than Australia, let alone the USA. Whatever the build-up is, it's tiny. Unfortunately, Australia is unlikely to change in this regard, protests or no.
Since when is a desert useless? Just because we can’t build on it or grow food on it doesn’t mean it isn’t part of an ecosystem.
It’s not valueless in an environmental sense, just less great in terms of an imperial project. A large part of Australia is uninhabitable, and beyond various mines in the middle of nowhere, there’s not a lot to offer an invading nation.
Which loops back around to they would never, ever, invade Australia.
They do not have a desert anymore because they turned it into grassland
Australia does have one of the biggest uranium mines in the world, but I'm more interested in their salt production that trumps anything else they've produced in recent years.
