THE CROSSROADS

A sovereign Australia is a neutral nation.

We have got ourselves into an AUKUS dilemma and we need to get out of it. All three majors are for it. The Greens and Sovereign Australia are against it — and it should be said that our policy is not simply to cancel it. It is to shift the priority: build a nation that exports solar energy to Asia, and put the AUKUS industrial capacity to work building the cables, the pipe-laying vessels and the systems that link the nations of the Asia-Pacific together.

Australia can be the exporter of power, water, AI compute, gas and internet to Asia and the Pacific — produced in the desert. The Modern Movement Australia site sets out how that happens. It needs vision from government to take part in it. Without that, Australia and Australians miss out and it is private corporations that benefit.

We are at a crossroads: build infrastructure for this nation and for the whole region, or build weapons and war machines. That is where we sit.

And here is the irony. The infrastructure is the castle defence. It does a far better job of protecting this country than the weapons do, because it makes us self-sufficient and connected. Spend it all on weapons while neglecting the nation and we lose anyway — by blockade.

This matters enough that the Defence Department must review AUKUS before we go any further down the wrong path.

The subsea corridor network memo →

A note from the ballot. The other parties’ cards are out, and they tell you something. Labor’s puts me mid-field. One Nation’s puts me at the bottom — last of the sixteen. Which raises a fair question for a party campaigning on shaking up the system: what exactly did I say to offend you?

Anyway — I started campaigning today. Blues Brothers, anyone? Much love.