by ROGER CROOK – THERE is no doubt we are back in a federal election cycle – it’s all very depressing.
The Prime Minister, however, is in his element, he has been in election mode since the day he won government.
- Australia is now in an invidious position with regard to China.
- Our reliance on its goods that we can’t exist without is complete.
-
That is just how their Mandarins planned it.
Electioneering is the stuff of life for Albanese, it is all he knows; it has filled his life, his every waking moment since leaving school.
“Fighting Tories” is what Albo does, and it’s becoming more apparent every day that it is all he capable of doing. The personal invective and the ad hominem slur is the pit in which he excels.
On the announcement of the Opposition’s nuclear power policy, his invective was in full view.
SUBSTANCE
The substance of the man is there for all to observe; statesman or street fighter, what does Australia need and what has it got?
The more I see of Albanese around world leaders, the more he reminds me of Dickens’ Uriah Heap; that of an insincere, obsequious, somewhat cloying dishonest individual.
I watched the Prime Minister of Australia during and after he had his first meeting with President Xi Jinping in China. He couldn’t stop grinning like an excited teenager in the presence of a pop star.
He was star struck when the Premier Qiang called him a “handsome boy”; he almost giggled with delight.
A couple of weeks later President Xi attended the APEC Summit in San Francisco, and there was Albo again, grinning with excitement, pushing diplomats aside so he could shake his new friends’ hand, trying to give the impression to all and sundry they were old friends; Xi looked surprised, and I squirmed.
This week with the visit of Chinese Premier Qiang to Australia; as the guns roared out in front of Parliament House, and as the Chinese crowds in the distance both cheered and booed, our Prime Minister couldn’t stopped grinning, the sheer excitement on his face as the Premier got out of his car surrounded by his security detail was there for all to see.
It would have fitted the moment perfectly if the military band had played Beethoven’s Ode to Joy. Opera Australia could have provided the words; what a sight that would have been.
There is now no legitimate reason for Australia to build a defence force to meet any challenge posed by China.
China is in a position that were it to cease supplying Australia with goods or cease buying goods from us, Australia would be unable to function.
We would be forced to comply with any demand made by China – without a shot being fired.
It should be remembered that whatever China gets from Australia, it can get from other countries just as easily.
The freight might be a bit more from Brazil for iron ore, and China does have a major stake in the high-grade iron ore deposits in West Africa, which it shares with Rio Tinto and the Guinea government.
Known as the “Pilbara killer”, this vast deposit has the potential to bring the Australian exports of iron back to the field in the not too distant future.
DEPENDENT
China is not dependent on Australia, but Australia is becoming, if not has become, dependent on China for the goods that are vital to our economy and to the nation.
China can well manage without us, but we cannot any longer manage without it.
In 2020 the prestigious consultancy group The Henry Jackson Society found that the Five Eyes countries were dependent on China for 831 separate categories of imports – of which 260 service elements of critical national infrastructure.
Australia was the most dependent out of the five nations, followed by New Zealand, the US, Canada, and the UK was last.
Australia was dependent on China for 595 categories of goods; 167 of these have applications in critical national infrastructure.
In 2020 Australia was dependent on China for 94.3 per cent of all laptops; 75 per cent of mobile phones, 83 per cent of semiconductors, diodes, and transistors; 68 per cent of all computers; 62.5 per cent of radio and TV transmitters; 75 per cent of lights and fittings – and so it goes on.
The rest of the list can be found here.
The Henry Jackson report highlights those goods of strategic importance that could not readily be supplied from another source if China denied supply.
China holds the whip hand. She can turn trade with Australia on and turn off on a whim, and without notice; she did it with the high-profile trade in wine, barley, cray fish and beef; there was nothing we could do about it.
SECURITY
She could do the same thing with those goods on which our national security depends and again, there would be nothing we could do about it.
One of Australia’s leading companies Wesfarmers is heavily dependent on sound relationships with China, any disruption would have a major effect not only on Wesfarmers Group, but on the thousands of both trade and retail customers of the Bunnings Group, including Bunnings, Tool Kit Depot and Beaumont Tiles.
Put the Bunnings Group together with retail traders K Mart, Target and Officeworks and the Wesfarmers reliance on China is substantial.
In 2022 China supplied over 40 per cent of all nuts and bolts and up to 100 per cent in some categories. Seventy per cent of almost everything worn by women and girls, fifty per cent of household heaters and sixty per cent of the furniture market worth $1.2b all came from China.
The scorn Labor have heaped on the previous Coalition government has been unrelenting and full of smirks about how clever they have been in restoring relations with China.
While the restoration of trade in wine and barley and – if it ever happens with cray fish and beef – are important to sections of the Australian community, the defence of the nation does not depend on them.
It is time that all Australians realised, it’s time they were told, that Australia is now in an invidious position with regard to China; our reliance on the Middle Kingdom for goods that we cannot manage without is complete, and that is just how their Mandarins planned it.
There is no need to worry about defending ourselves militarily against the threat of China, all they need to do, whenever they wish, and without firing a shot, is to deny Australia the supply of those goods vital to the needs of the country.
How long would they have to wait before we did their bidding? A week? A month? A couple of months?
There is nothing America could do to help us even if they wanted to; they could not supply us at short notice with the goods we get from China, neither could the rest of the world; we would be helpless.
What might China want from us? If tensions rose in the South China Sea or around the Gulf, she may ask for port facilities in Darwin; the port it now leases from a Labor Government.
NUCLEAR
What would we do if China told us they are not be happy with our access to nuclear submarines and our relationship with America. That would put the proverbial cat among the pigeons; what could we do? Say no, go away? Hardly.
Would America do anything to help us? Why would they? Strategically we are important, we are a base for them in this part of the world with easy access to the South China Sea and the Pacific Ocean, but a reason to go to war?
The seduction of Australia by China hasn’t happened by accident, it has been part of a strategic plan developed by China to challenge and then overcome the dominance of America in world trade.
Albanese has now launched a new “Made in Australia” initiative aimed at restoring our manufacturing base.
Our future does not lie in quantum computers or in the manufacture of solar panels. It lies in making or securing the supply of those goods vital to our national sovereignty from sources that we can trust with our life.
To regain our former skills in manufacturing we need electricity and gas at prices that are competitive or better than those of our competitors.
So far with its rush to renewables this government has failed Australia.PC
Ruinous Cost Of Free Energy
https://ipa.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/IPA-Research-Report-The-Ruinous-Cost-of-Free-Energy-FINAL-July-2024.pdf
THE RUINOUS COST OF FREE ENERGY:
Why a system built on renewables is the most expensive of all options.
Published by Institute of Public Affairs, Melbourne. Printed in Melbourne, Australia, 2024.
A must read, go to IPA website
China is world market leader in solar panels but demand is slowing and they are looking to capture the emerging new zero emissions nuclear technology based generator market.
Qatar recently invested in UK Rolls-Royce Small Modular Reactor manufacturing, Albanese Labor in February ordered SMRs from Rolls Royce for the new build AUKUS nuclear submarines. Minister for Trade Farrell recently in Singapore at a meeting of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity signed an agreement that includes a co-operative work programme supporting take-up of nuclear small modular reactors (for electricity generators) for participating countries. The IPEF backed by 14 countries including;
Australia, the US, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, India, Indonesia, Fiji and The Philippines.
Australia cannot manufacture solar panels even for the home market and compete with China on unit price.
Check UN Lima Protocol Agreement signed in 1975 by the Whitlam Government and the UN Agenda 21 signed by Labor late 1980s, manufacturing industry has been in decline ever since.
SMR Nuclear Technology Pty Ltd (SMR-NT) is an independent Australian-owned specialist consulting company.
SMR-NT was established to advise on and facilitate the siting, development and operation of safe nuclear power generation technologies, principally by Small Modular Reactors (SMRs).
SMR-NT’s directors have over 100 years of combined experience in power generation, including nearly 50 years of nuclear power generating experience.