Perhaps it would be wiser to consider other countries as neither friends nor enemies and recognise that nations have neither friends nor enemies. Countries have common interests and divergent interests. Hopefully a common interest is to avoid war and avoid destroying the environment. A divergent interest is the presence of Christianity in Australia and Islam in Indonesia. It would help if the inhabitants of both countries were to free themselves from religion.

Can Australia’s neighbours become good friends?

If Australians can behave in a more cultured & less exploitative manner when visiting Indonesia/Thailand/Philppines etc. then I'm certain our neighbours will be more than willing to become good friends.

If our past was British, what are we now? A bunch of mongrels like the rest of the West, thanks to enforced multiculturalism.

What is a 'reliable neighbour'? New Zealand is mentioned; but how is NZ reliable? What good are they to us? They spend next to nothing on defence, and their idiot prime minister is always sneering at us and whining because we don't want Kiwi criminals here.

Papua New Guinea is a mendicant state, as are the Pacific islands, currently trying to rip us off even more, with fake rising sea level yarns. It won't be long before they will be in the China camp, despite their successful long term bludging on Australia. Most of them struggle to govern themselves. And Fiji is in the hands of a military coup-leading thug.

We need an even stronger alliance with America, military understandings with Indonesia, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines. Plus much more spending on defence

Impossible to say! We do have near northern neighbours who clearly se us as their rivals or future colonial conquests. And need to be handled with extreme care almost like porcupines making love if you catch my drift.

China is a different story and threatens our (culturally incompatible) near northern neighbours more than it does us? And because it sees the whole world as its sovereign territory/future empire.

Albeit, so do some Muslim philosophies. And some of them are between us and China.

Our best course is to befriend all we can and avoid those who don't want civil friendship.

We need to become an island of sanity in a world gone mad. And chart our own course and set this nation up to survive inevitable climate change. And much regional aggression!

We need to become self-sufficient in all we need and one of a very few countries where that's still possible from rubber to apples and everything in between. And possible with the right leadership. Just none of that which is in the current political contest!

God help my poor bugger country.
Alan B.

Don`t worry about it all too much Alan, like me, you probably won`t be around when the brown stuff really hits the fan.
Just relax in the knowledge that we are members of the luckiest generation that ever has, and ever will, lived to have enjoyed this, once, wonderful planet.

ateday,
For many the brown stuff has been hitting the fan for years now !