We were warned. Repeatedly. F- around and find out. That is the mantra of Maga America and its self-described Golden Age.
Australia remains sovereign, but American money comes with American strings.
Or it doesn’t come at all.
Our frugal friends have reportedly cut a $600 million economic cord to half a dozen Australian universities … and counting.
There could not be a clearer case of Go Woke, Go Broke. Feeling particularly cruel, I might describe it as textbook.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has been begged to initiate an emergency meeting with the US President, although that carries the risk of making the situation worse.
Can you imagine the phone call?
He’ll go in asking Trump for cash and come out with Australia listed on Ebay.
I notice that no one has gone knocking at Ambassador Rudd’s door for help after his previous failure to do anything other than watch the trade situation deteriorate.
This ‘wait and see’ approach is popular with creatures hatched from the Canberra nest and it hasn’t worked out so well.
What a shock.
Business people like Donald Trump are proactive. Politicians are impossible to shift, like shower scum before a rental inspection.
To translate the situation, America has said to Australia, ‘You are expensive and bad at your job.’ Australia has replied, ‘You paid us this week, therefore you will pay us next week.’ Anyone with a job in the real world knows how this story ends.
According to the ABC, Australia is America’s largest research partner – but that was under a Democrat regime that liked to invest in foreign countries as a type of ‘soft power’. Having universities across the West champion identical nonsense gave the Democrats an artificial consensus that far too many gullible press outlets mistook as a grassroots cultural movement instead of a cultural product.
The funding cut was ‘flagged’ when an outreach questionnaire was sent to Australian universities in a similar spirit to that memo asking American public servants to justify their existence.
Included in the list:
‘Does the project encourage partners to adopt policies and take action to respect their national sovereignty and culture, strengthen patriotic values, and reduce dependence on external institutions?’
Probably not.
‘Does your organisation encourage free speech and encourage open debate and free sharing of information?’
Yikes.
‘Does your organisation have a clear policy prohibiting any collaboration, funding, or support for entities that advocate or implement policies contrary to US Government interests, national security, and sovereignty?’
Oh oh.
‘Does this project demonstrate clear cost-effectiveness and take active measures to mitigate waste, fraud, and abuse?’
This is rage bait for the average academic.
‘Can you confirm that your organisation has not received any funding from the PRC (including Confucius Institutes and/or partnered with Chinese state or non-state actors), Russia, Cuba, or Iran?’
‘Can you confirm that this is no DEI project or DEI elements of the project?’
‘Can you confirm this is not a climate or environmental justice project or include such elements?’
‘Does this project support US energy independence or reduce global reliance on hostile countries for energy resources?’
‘Does this project take appropriate measures to protect women and to defend against gender ideology as defined in the below Executive Order?’
Our chancellors are being picked up and having their noses rubbed in puddles of misdeeds.
Naturally, America’s desire to make sure its money isn’t spent on research projects that work against their national interest has been labelled as ‘verging on foreign interference’.
Which definition of ‘foreign interference’ are we using?
Is it not ‘foreign interference’ for a nation to spend $600 million in another country’s education sector?
Surely withdrawing that money is the opposite of foreign interference?
It is more likely that Australian universities support foreign interference so long as it adheres to their preferred politics.
And how is the general public taking the news?
Remember, these are the people accosted by out-and-proud communists polluting the pavement alongside universities. People who duck-and-weave around aggressive pro-Palestinian activists who cannot name the river or the sea on their placards. Feminists who want women to lose to men in every sport. Anarchists who beg the state to control what people can say. Anti-capitalists living off their capitalist parents. Individuals with three useless degrees who want strangers to pay off their student debt…
As you can imagine, ordinary people are still laughing. Some are grabbing popcorn.
There is not a lot of sympathy for the smug academic class because they have behaved so poorly for so long.
They spent decades branding the working class as idiots, rednecks, and evil capitalists and then lied about their ancestors. Why should anyone have empathy for universities in their current state? They are sanatoriums for the Woke mind virus.
America has been clear:
‘The use of Federal resources to advance Marxist equity, transgenderism, and green new deal social engineering policies is a waste of taxpayer dollars that does not improve the day-to-day lives of those we serve.’ – Memo to one Australian university project, as reported by The Guardian.
It would be less destructive to pile all the money Australia spends on the academic class onto a barge, tow it into the centre of Sydney Harbour, and set it on fire as part of the New Year’s Eve celebrations.
The only problem I can foresee with the defunding of academia is that Jim Chalmers will take a red pen to his freshly printed Budget and re-assign it to universities because there is no chance that the over-paid leadership will take a pay cut to fill the hole.
Education Minister Jason Clare has come up with one of his only sensible comments, observing that America can fund ‘whatever research it wants to fund’.
He followed it with a Rudd-esque comment: ‘But we will continue to make the case to the US that collaborative research benefits both the US and Australia’s interests.’
Look we could offer some advice on how to convince America to fund Australian universities, but why should anyone help them?
Flat White is written by Alexandra Marshall. If you would like to support her work, shout her a coffee over at donor-box.