‘A Morrison glove puppet’: Labor must nuke AUKUS and its bleak future

Peter Riedlinger writes: AUKUS is a dead end for Australia (“‘Maximum AUKUS’: Labor gets its war on, as social democracy slips beneath the waves”). Subs nuclear or otherwise will not be of any use to a smoking-radiated wilderness. 

David O’Neil writes: The fact that the new “defence” treaty was devised by the three greatest liars and narcissists in Western democracy’s history seems to have been brushed aside by those in charge of the so-called Labor Party. I refer of course to Boris Johnson, Scott Morrison and Mike Pompeo. How Prime Minister Anthony Albanese fell for this is beyond anyone with half a brain.

Colin Ross writes: Nuclear submarines may be able to roam the oceans undetected, at depth and for months on end, but their Achilles heel is the method of communicating with the operations command. This requires very large, land-based aerial arrays that can easily be disabled with swarms of drones. The greater the depth of the submarine the bigger the array. There is an extremely low-frequency array in eastern Russia that is many kilometres long.

Appalling as it is to think about, we should be learning the lessons of the war in Ukraine and developing our defence strategy accordingly. Unfortunately we have been conned by the British and United States military-industrial complex.

Dr Deb Campbell writes: The financial burden of AUKUS is enough to make us all reconsider this legacy of Morrison — from which Albanese and Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong should be running at top speed. Former Labor PM Paul Keating and former senator and submariner Rex Patrick have made that clear — and they are right.

But the loss of our independence is of far greater concern to me. As someone who has never supported ANZUS and what it has meant (Vietnam, Iraq and the abandonment of the people of Afghanistan) and could mean for us (war with China), AUKUS is anathema.

Doug Hamment writes: This militarisation by a Labor government goes against what I now mistakenly thought was a social democratic party that attended to the well-being of the Australian population. This government to me is most disappointing and is leading us to be a debt-ridden minion of the US. It has forgotten what the Labor Party stands for.

It appears Albanese has morphed into a Morrison/Donald Trump glove puppet. Forget about the care and welfare and education of the citizens, let’s return to big business and maybe we will have to privatise the remaining government institutions so we can pay for all this military hardware that benefits only US military-industrial corporations. This leads me to a difficult decision when it comes time to vote in the next federal election.

Philip Edwards writes: I can’t tell you how disappointed I am in this federal government (“Labor’s hypocritical response to the climate crisis is a sad joke on us all”). It seems to me it is not in control; the real power in Australia is in the hands of the fossil-fuel companies and other big corporations. And they are leading us to a black and bleak future. 

I am 80 so it will not affect me much, but I have five children and 10 grandchildren and I am frightened for them. No previous generation has had to fear for their descendants like this. How did humanity shoot itself in the foot (actually in the heart) like this?

Marc Percival writes: Glad to see you acknowledge Albanese’s strategic capacity (“Is patience in the face of the climate crisis a virtue? Albanese will find out”). You would also understand the boutique nature of your readership.

Damn right Albanese doesn’t want to frighten the horses! If that happens there could be a spud in the Lodge after the next election screeching at the Chinese. In a period of world history that has Murdoch, Putin, Trump, Xi, Modi and Erdoğan scrambling minds, and Europe going hard right, I think we need to let Albanese have as much command of the remote control as he wants. He saw Kevin Rudd immolated by his ego, the lemmings voting Tony Abbott in, and a significant reform package was rejected for a populist fake fewer than five years ago.

Considering we need another three terms to get this country out of the sewer, I’m all for supporting daddy when he wants to avoid the kiddies climbing the walls after an overdose of ideological sugar.

I’d love to see gas and oil stop tomorrow but the new SUV sales in this country and the bigotry about the Voice tell me we are still climate brain-dead. We seem to need to be tricked into doing the right thing and I’m happy to see a left-wing pragmatist at the helm.

Shaun Hately writes: In deciding whether Albanese was right or wrong to help his son get an internship at PwC (“Was Anthony Albanese wrong to seek a PwC internship for his son?”), I think we need to consider the young man and his rights and needs, rather than his father’s position. I am no supporter of Albanese, nor of his politics, but I will not criticise a father for doing what is best for his child. And the son does not deserve to be denied opportunities because of who his father is.

It is true his father’s position gives him some advantages in life, but he didn’t ask for those, and many young people who get internships at companies like this have gotten them through some form of patronage. Unless society is prepared to stop that for all of them, it seems rather unfair and hypocritical to say this case should be an exception.

I just hope the young man takes advantage of the opportunities he has had and uses them to make a difference in the world.

Gary Paul writes: I am 70, still working 20-plus hours a week in a commercial kitchen, and my old man got me my first full-time job through one of his mates. I got paid $22.50 for a five-and-a-half-day week. I did the same for my kids. I don’t see anything wrong with what Albanese did for his son, and if my memory serves me correctly, former PM Tony Abbott’s daughter was given a chairman’s scholarship for a $60,000 design degree at a prestigious Sydney institute where a donor to her father was chair of the board of governors.

Di Brown writes: How naive were we? How willing to think that Labor would be different? I was so hopeful that it would be ethical and energetic and really move us back to being a society that supported those who are less advantaged and who needed help to get along. Instead we seem to have more of the same albeit differently packaged. The hypocrisy on climate and on social support and the weak disagreements at the Labor Party conference have really disappointed me. 

I wouldn’t care about whether or not Albanese’s son got a two-week internship if the government would get its act together and actually do something, especially no more pandering to the fossil-fuel companies and being timid about social equity.

I space my Crikey read now so I don’t get too depressed and angry each day. Your articles are brilliant and thought-provoking but make me fear for our young ones’ futures. I won’t be around to reap the consequences of decisions made today but my children and grandchildren will. I’d like the government to be bold and unafraid of the bloody tabloid media and just do what’s right.