Too much huffing from the AUKUS caucus

The Advertiser

6 hours ago

There is a lot of hyperventilating at present over the Prime Minister's "failure" to score a face-to-face sit-down with Donald Trump.
Much of it turns on a surprisingly credulous absorption of official talking points about the supposed necessity of the colossally expensive multi-decade AUKUS nuclear submarine pact.
Trump's late cancellation of a scheduled bilateral meeting, then, is depicted as a blow to the $368 billion AUKUS deal and, axiomatically, therefore, to Australia.
But is it?
Words like "snub" and "debacle" have flown about on Sky After Dark and in pro-Coalition newspapers.
Docile commentators seemed convinced that Anthony Albanese has been humiliated and claim he should have pushed harder and earlier for a Trump meeting.
This naively overstates Australia's powers of persuasion in the current unique circumstances, understates Trump's singular attachment to an "America first" mindset, and underplays the gravitational pull of global events to which a mercurial America, sadly, is unnervingly central.
If the previously unthinkable happens in coming days and Trump directly intervenes in Iran militarily, all the bleating over a cancelled bilateral in Canada will look even sillier than it does now.
A common refrain, too, is that the Australian PM should have been prepared to fly to Washington, DC months ago for an Oval Office assignation (to which he was not invited?) rather than rely on talks on the sidelines of an international summit.
The trouble with this is, well, everything.
First, there's the epic US lid-doffing coursing under such arguments. Like the teenage pop fan who spends the entire concert filming their idol because without "likes" on social media you weren't really there, these gushing American supplicants betray a flimsy sense of Australia - one that requires validation through repeated external (read: American) recognition. Their reasoning goes like this: No meeting, no respect, we must not deserve respect.
The more obvious explanation - that of a flawed, ego-maniacal president ignorant of history, dismissive of alliances and being skilfully played by Bibi Netanyahu - scores only the vaguest of references in some of these accounts.
This toadying informs a second flawed assumption. That the AUKUS deal secretly hatched by the instinctively secretive Morrison government and too hastily embraced by a quaking Labor in opposition, is, ipso facto, vital to Australia's national interest. This, despite serious criticism from credible defence and security experts, and senior political figures on both sides of politics. That many journalists either explicitly or implicitly infer only benefits from AUKUS without acknowledging these substantive criticisms is convenient for the government and generally for its pro-America defence champions. Mature, objective journalism, however, it is not.
MORE FROM KENNY:
Those who say Albo should have been prepared to risk becoming a punching bag for Trump in the bear pit of the Oval Office seem to ignore the reality that such an outcome would be at least as bad for Australia as for the PM personally. A collapse in bilateral civility before the world's media could end up affecting trade, the ANZUS alliance, and Australian access to top-shelf education, medical science and digital technologies, let alone access to lucrative US markets.
Besides, the idea of Albanese being personally intimidated is so much conservative wishful thinking.
Through three decades in Parliament, and time before that as the sole left-aligned party organiser in the ruthless right-controlled NSW branch of the ALP, the one thing you can be certain of is that Albanese can assuage difficult people and can handle himself in an argument, should it come to that.
There is a lot of hyperventilating at present over the Prime Minister's "failure" to score a face-to-face sit-down with Donald Trump.
Much of it turns on a surprisingly credulous absorption of official talking points about the supposed necessity of the colossally expensive multi-decade AUKUS nuclear submarine pact.
Trump's late cancellation of a scheduled bilateral meeting, then, is depicted as a blow to the $368 billion AUKUS deal and, axiomatically, therefore, to Australia.
But is it?
Words like "snub" and "debacle" have flown about on Sky After Dark and in pro-Coalition newspapers.
Docile commentators seemed convinced that Anthony Albanese has been humiliated and claim he should have pushed harder and earlier for a Trump meeting.
This naively overstates Australia's powers of persuasion in the current unique circumstances, understates Trump's singular attachment to an "America first" mindset, and underplays the gravitational pull of global events to which a mercurial America, sadly, is unnervingly central.
If the previously unthinkable happens in coming days and Trump directly intervenes in Iran militarily, all the bleating over a cancelled bilateral in Canada will look even sillier than it does now.
A common refrain, too, is that the Australian PM should have been prepared to fly to Washington, DC months ago for an Oval Office assignation (to which he was not invited?) rather than rely on talks on the sidelines of an international summit.
The trouble with this is, well, everything.
First, there's the epic US lid-doffing coursing under such arguments. Like the teenage pop fan who spends the entire concert filming their idol because without "likes" on social media you weren't really there, these gushing American supplicants betray a flimsy sense of Australia - one that requires validation through repeated external (read: American) recognition. Their reasoning goes like this: No meeting, no respect, we must not deserve respect.
The more obvious explanation - that of a flawed, ego-maniacal president ignorant of history, dismissive of alliances and being skilfully played by Bibi Netanyahu - scores only the vaguest of references in some of these accounts.
This toadying informs a second flawed assumption. That the AUKUS deal secretly hatched by the instinctively secretive Morrison government and too hastily embraced by a quaking Labor in opposition, is, ipso facto, vital to Australia's national interest. This, despite serious criticism from credible defence and security experts, and senior political figures on both sides of politics. That many journalists either explicitly or implicitly infer only benefits from AUKUS without acknowledging these substantive criticisms is convenient for the government and generally for its pro-America defence champions. Mature, objective journalism, however, it is not.
MORE FROM KENNY:
Those who say Albo should have been prepared to risk becoming a punching bag for Trump in the bear pit of the Oval Office seem to ignore the reality that such an outcome would be at least as bad for Australia as for the PM personally. A collapse in bilateral civility before the world's media could end up affecting trade, the ANZUS alliance, and Australian access to top-shelf education, medical science and digital technologies, let alone access to lucrative US markets.
Besides, the idea of Albanese being personally intimidated is so much conservative wishful thinking.
Through three decades in Parliament, and time before that as the sole left-aligned party organiser in the ruthless right-controlled NSW branch of the ALP, the one thing you can be certain of is that Albanese can assuage difficult people and can handle himself in an argument, should it come to that.
There is a lot of hyperventilating at present over the Prime Minister's "failure" to score a face-to-face sit-down with Donald Trump.
Much of it turns on a surprisingly credulous absorption of official talking points about the supposed necessity of the colossally expensive multi-decade AUKUS nuclear submarine pact.
Trump's late cancellation of a scheduled bilateral meeting, then, is depicted as a blow to the $368 billion AUKUS deal and, axiomatically, therefore, to Australia.
But is it?
Words like "snub" and "debacle" have flown about on Sky After Dark and in pro-Coalition newspapers.
Docile commentators seemed convinced that Anthony Albanese has been humiliated and claim he should have pushed harder and earlier for a Trump meeting.
This naively overstates Australia's powers of persuasion in the current unique circumstances, understates Trump's singular attachment to an "America first" mindset, and underplays the gravitational pull of global events to which a mercurial America, sadly, is unnervingly central.
If the previously unthinkable happens in coming days and Trump directly intervenes in Iran militarily, all the bleating over a cancelled bilateral in Canada will look even sillier than it does now.
A common refrain, too, is that the Australian PM should have been prepared to fly to Washington, DC months ago for an Oval Office assignation (to which he was not invited?) rather than rely on talks on the sidelines of an international summit.
The trouble with this is, well, everything.
First, there's the epic US lid-doffing coursing under such arguments. Like the teenage pop fan who spends the entire concert filming their idol because without "likes" on social media you weren't really there, these gushing American supplicants betray a flimsy sense of Australia - one that requires validation through repeated external (read: American) recognition. Their reasoning goes like this: No meeting, no respect, we must not deserve respect.
The more obvious explanation - that of a flawed, ego-maniacal president ignorant of history, dismissive of alliances and being skilfully played by Bibi Netanyahu - scores only the vaguest of references in some of these accounts.
This toadying informs a second flawed assumption. That the AUKUS deal secretly hatched by the instinctively secretive Morrison government and too hastily embraced by a quaking Labor in opposition, is, ipso facto, vital to Australia's national interest. This, despite serious criticism from credible defence and security experts, and senior political figures on both sides of politics. That many journalists either explicitly or implicitly infer only benefits from AUKUS without acknowledging these substantive criticisms is convenient for the government and generally for its pro-America defence champions. Mature, objective journalism, however, it is not.
MORE FROM KENNY:
Those who say Albo should have been prepared to risk becoming a punching bag for Trump in the bear pit of the Oval Office seem to ignore the reality that such an outcome would be at least as bad for Australia as for the PM personally. A collapse in bilateral civility before the world's media could end up affecting trade, the ANZUS alliance, and Australian access to top-shelf education, medical science and digital technologies, let alone access to lucrative US markets.
Besides, the idea of Albanese being personally intimidated is so much conservative wishful thinking.
Through three decades in Parliament, and time before that as the sole left-aligned party organiser in the ruthless right-controlled NSW branch of the ALP, the one thing you can be certain of is that Albanese can assuage difficult people and can handle himself in an argument, should it come to that.
There is a lot of hyperventilating at present over the Prime Minister's "failure" to score a face-to-face sit-down with Donald Trump.
Much of it turns on a surprisingly credulous absorption of official talking points about the supposed necessity of the colossally expensive multi-decade AUKUS nuclear submarine pact.
Trump's late cancellation of a scheduled bilateral meeting, then, is depicted as a blow to the $368 billion AUKUS deal and, axiomatically, therefore, to Australia.
But is it?
Words like "snub" and "debacle" have flown about on Sky After Dark and in pro-Coalition newspapers.
Docile commentators seemed convinced that Anthony Albanese has been humiliated and claim he should have pushed harder and earlier for a Trump meeting.
This naively overstates Australia's powers of persuasion in the current unique circumstances, understates Trump's singular attachment to an "America first" mindset, and underplays the gravitational pull of global events to which a mercurial America, sadly, is unnervingly central.
If the previously unthinkable happens in coming days and Trump directly intervenes in Iran militarily, all the bleating over a cancelled bilateral in Canada will look even sillier than it does now.
A common refrain, too, is that the Australian PM should have been prepared to fly to Washington, DC months ago for an Oval Office assignation (to which he was not invited?) rather than rely on talks on the sidelines of an international summit.
The trouble with this is, well, everything.
First, there's the epic US lid-doffing coursing under such arguments. Like the teenage pop fan who spends the entire concert filming their idol because without "likes" on social media you weren't really there, these gushing American supplicants betray a flimsy sense of Australia - one that requires validation through repeated external (read: American) recognition. Their reasoning goes like this: No meeting, no respect, we must not deserve respect.
The more obvious explanation - that of a flawed, ego-maniacal president ignorant of history, dismissive of alliances and being skilfully played by Bibi Netanyahu - scores only the vaguest of references in some of these accounts.
This toadying informs a second flawed assumption. That the AUKUS deal secretly hatched by the instinctively secretive Morrison government and too hastily embraced by a quaking Labor in opposition, is, ipso facto, vital to Australia's national interest. This, despite serious criticism from credible defence and security experts, and senior political figures on both sides of politics. That many journalists either explicitly or implicitly infer only benefits from AUKUS without acknowledging these substantive criticisms is convenient for the government and generally for its pro-America defence champions. Mature, objective journalism, however, it is not.
MORE FROM KENNY:
Those who say Albo should have been prepared to risk becoming a punching bag for Trump in the bear pit of the Oval Office seem to ignore the reality that such an outcome would be at least as bad for Australia as for the PM personally. A collapse in bilateral civility before the world's media could end up affecting trade, the ANZUS alliance, and Australian access to top-shelf education, medical science and digital technologies, let alone access to lucrative US markets.
Besides, the idea of Albanese being personally intimidated is so much conservative wishful thinking.
Through three decades in Parliament, and time before that as the sole left-aligned party organiser in the ruthless right-controlled NSW branch of the ALP, the one thing you can be certain of is that Albanese can assuage difficult people and can handle himself in an argument, should it come to that.