Yes, Tas. And clear sighted thinking They will all start tearing out their hair when it's too late to stop!

But hey, that's what you get when you elect incompetence and complacency. Or put another way, warm and comfortable frogs in water that's slowly brought to the boil. As we sleepwalk toward occupation and virtual slavery?

And our probable future if we do not replace the incompetent and complacent fools on the hill! No names, no pack drill! But I know you know who I mean!

And should replace all the coal enthusiasts on both sides of the chamber with folks that just don't rule stuff in and other stuff out, given they're owned by the coal companies, coal mining unions and fossil fuel generally?

Simply put, signing a deal for off the shelf nuclear subs was the only rational option on the table! And given our potential adversaries are all nuclear powered and nuclear armed we should also be so equipped! And should do so without delay!

After all, it's far easier to ask for forgiveness than permission!

We should just crack on and arm ourselves with the weapons we may have to face? And with that prevent others from using theirs for fear of reprisal with the same! And if they remain in our arsenal and unused? The only reason to have them!

The only real choice for us that any nuclear-armed potential adversary would actually respect!

Without which we do remain a viable target!

Anybody with half a brain (even sky news) knows that makes perfect sense! As does shutting China out of advantageous to her, trade deals! Where we can do so! Let the CCP bluster and bellow, it's how it plays the international trade game and some of its own (hardball medicine) shoved down its neck for a change!

Besides, we can get far better trade deals elsewhere! So, a belligerent CCP needs to be told, GFY UYM!
Alan B.

Yep the MAD theory, mutually assured destruction, worked to prevent any major wars for 70 years, & is the only way to be safe in future.

Sorry Alan, you are dead wrong about coal. It will still be in high demand when every wind generator in existence, & those likely to be built in the next 20 years are wrecks lying on the ground with court cases abounding on who is going to clean up the mess.

Hasbeen. Not the slightest interest in wind turbines. First of all, they need to turn for thirty years just to offset the carbon created in their construction. Second of all, given wind is so intermittent, they can only be relied on for 15% of the day for optimised power (220-240) output. And solar, without expensive battery backup, just doesn't work at night when one needs lights!

There's a number of remote communities where the same nuclear technology that powers the subs, (SMRs) could be installed in place of increasingly expensive diesel! And power for 6cents PKWH one hell of a lot better than diesel or the main grid power that's at least treble that!

There's a lot of coal enthusiasts, who like you are stuck in the 18th century? Who will bury the head and refuse to look at reality! And that reality is, no new coal mine will be financed by the private sector, nor the workforce insured by the private sector! Moreover, we face a future where coal exports will return less than the cost of mining!

Or that miners can mine stuff other than coal (Lithium nickel, graphene, copper, thorium, uranium) in the new de-carbed future. And should sanity prevail, all raw mineral exports will be replaced by value-added or manufactured production. Along with far more self-reliance around energy in particular, recycling and manufacturing in general!
Alan B.

It really is amusing how inept and counter productive the Chinese Communist (actually Fascist) Party's heavy handed and belligerent attitude has become. It just goes to show that totalitarian regimes almost always seem to create a political system divorced from reality.

Australia has friends and allies, but China has no friends at all. Their leaders have become so used to bullying and threatening their own people into submission that they think it will work everywhere. They have picked fights with all their neighbours thinking that their new modern military hardware will intimidate everyone into doing whatever China wants. But that is backfiring.

So far, they have managed to get the Japanese to tear up their pacifist constitution and start rearming. Their threat to nuke Japan if Japan interferes with the Chinese conquest of Taiwan could conceivably get Tokyo thinking about acquiring nuclear weapons for their own defence. Good one, China. Their direct threats to Australia has got Australia out of it's defence slumberland and at least beginning to belatedly take it's defences seriously.

It is not just Australia, the US, and Britain, that China has to deal with. Japan and India are taking part in naval exercises and acting like allies, making the Chinese realise that, like the USA and Russia before it, even a superpower can bite of more than it can chew. Dutch, German, and French naval vessels also sailing serenely through the South China Sea giving the CCP the finger to it's illegal maritime claims is not doing much for emperor Ji Jinping's "face".

Goering once said of Hitler, "His answer to everything is war, and his answer to war is to always attack." The CCP's answer to everything is to threaten and bully, and like Hitler before them, they are about to discover that such behaviour can produce very negative consequences that they did not have the wit to foresee.

The biggest enemy we have is those leaving school brainwashed on co2
and the vast numbers of the public, industry, and commerce generally
who are convinced that we need to switch to wind and solar.
They can see no alternative and do not realise that no matter how many
wind turbines you install most nights there are no strong winds.

The problem is serious but I am convinced they will only be convinced
when the existing coal stations are shut down.
I suggested to a friend that he stick his head outside EVERY night
and just see how much wind is actually there !
Inevitably they fall back on batteries to carry us through the night.
They never accept that the batteries might not get recharged next day.
In any case a new dedicated wind and solar system is needed to recharge them.
By the time they wake up it will be too late.
The least of our worries will be submarines.

Bazz now the shock of the announcement of our nuclear sub acquisition is settling a bit, we should lease one of which ever type we plan to get immediately, not only to start training crew, but more importantly to start training the population we are a nuclear "power".

The sooner they get used to that, the sooner we can start building a few nuclear power stations, or importing, then perhaps building here, the self contained modular nuke power generators currently developed by Rolls Royce in the UK.

I was reading a report on the doddering power system in the UK. One of the responsible ministers assured everyone, that with their commitment to expanding the renewable energy generation fleet, they had the problem under control. Could anyone actually believe that more of what has caused the problem, as in Texas, will solve the problem, rather than making it worse?