We start with a clarification from the previous episode that Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy has retained responsibility for capability delivery, even though those words have been removed from his title.
And then a lot more about the unreliability of the US as an ally – a reality so obvious that everyone can see it, except for Australian politicians. The update of the list now includes the US coming to some sort of deal with the Houthis – ignoring everyone else – as well as having direct talks with Hamas and Iran.
Israel wasn’t even included on Trump’s itinerary for his Middle East trip, possibly because they don’t have any gold and marble palaces stuffed full of grovelling courtiers.
Then let’s at least have a laugh about Qatar’s bribe of a luxury 747. No one in their right mind would accept it on cost grounds alone. Let’s see what happens when the US demands Australia increase Defence spending to 3% of GDP.
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The dropping of “Capability Delivery” is to cover for when he fails to deliver any enhanced/additional capability.
“Don’t blame me, it’s not my job”
Sorry – perhaps I wasn’t clear enough. The words “capability delivery” have been removed from his Ministerial title, but he remains responsible for that function. It was just some sort of administrative thing – maybe leaving the words in place made his business card too big or something like that.
I was well aware of that Kym but the fact of the matter is that although he remains “responsible” the removal from it from his title is coverage for an upcoming failure
Australia has been trying to land an FTA with the EU since 2018. Clearly, the imperative for sorting this has only increased since ‘Independence Day’ in April.
Von der Leyen has raised the objective of a security and defence agreement with Australia. However, any analysis from the Australian media pack has been superficial.
The two objectives sit together, but with Farrell running Trade and Marles running Defence, what hope do we have of exploiting this rare alignment of opportunity and threat? To think that Ed Husic was squeezed out of the cabinet, and yet these two plodders remain in key portfolios.
Totally agree. I’ve read the EU-ROK defence cooperation agreement. It’s in English, it’s simple to understand and it’s on the internet. Australia could and should sign after about 1 hour of study. It’s about cooperation and information sharing.
I think the biggest hurdle in the proposed EU Defence and Security agreement is that the U.S. wouldn’t be too thrilled and neither would China. It would also be painted, by opponents to it , as perpetuating the Anglosphere , despite the fact that South Korea and Japan have both signed, Politics again will dictate what will happen regardless of what’s in Australia’s best interests. Personally I believe that any agreements that benefit Australia must be given serious consideration, even if those agreements don’t sit well with the U.S. ( who haven’t actually been forthcoming with any technology transfer ) I’m not suggesting ditching the U.S. , not really an option since Defence has so ingrained U.S. equipment into the ADF we are totally dependent on their suppliers, but having other options is never a bad thing.