The 'softer' reaction of the PM to the menacing Chinese warship, compared with that of the defence minister's, has been jumped on by the media and opposition, who will both exploit the PM's weakness mercilessly, particularly after his wet 'no maritime rules broken' and chuntering on about Aukus, which is of absolutely no use against China at the present time.

Bazz, we used to have our own merchant marine fleet, but was killed off by excessive demands by a militant seaman's union. And cannot go down that path again with taxpayers dollars!

Fillipino seamen get paid good money by Fillipino standards and as long as they are happy? Why do we need to worry?

The only really important concern now is the cost to us of running the operation, which would be considerably less with MSR thorium as the fuel source! Something clearly not on the minds of the jellybacks in Parliament! I mean if we paid considerably less for the fuel, we'd be better placed to pay local rates to foreign seamen! Understanding, every thing that leaves the country or comes in has a transport component included in the final price to the consumer/user!
Alan B.

Ignoring the aggressive presence of a CCP warship spying on militarily installations in WA doesn't mean that it didn’t happen, and will not happen again. What a fool's paradise Australians are living in.

ttbn. We do the same with our intell gathering ships/subs! Moreover, a warship has guns, or missiles or torpedoes!

This small intell gathering ship is 490 nautical miles off of our shoreline and we know they are there! So we can jam the airways/feed false info to our hearts content until they bugger off!

As for their threat to us? we could respond by making all Chinese land or housing purchases illegal and retrospectively! That'll show them we are not a land of jellyback investors like Clive trying to get rich/wax fat off of Chinese cheap money or labour!
Alan B.

Any information the Chinese could gather from a ship is certainly pretty harmless compared to what they are gathering by satellite, just as we are on them the same way.

They may get more by shadowing an exercise fleet, but with todays tech they will get little they don't already know about shore instillation with a ship.

I can't imagine what they hope to gain with this ship, unless it is election manipulation, at which they may be having some slight success.

Hey ttbn,

I hate to bring up the irony here:

"A Labor victory could see them entering the port of Darwin, which they have leased for 99 years. The greatest threat to Australia hasn't been an election issue for either of our piss-poor political parties."

Usually when you lease something, you own the right to also go there.
Isn't that how it works?
As far as sailing off WA's coast, they were in international waters, no laws were broken.

If you don't like what they are doing then maybe they wouldn't be doing it,
If they didn't see the hypocrisy of the Wests actions when it talk about it's regional security.

Do you understand, respect is a 2-way street?
You need to give it - if you want to get it?

If you don't like their actions against us, then please vote for a leader
- That doesn't follow the US in spitting on THEIR regional security.
- That means DON'T SUPPORT OVERTHROWING COUNTRIES OR ARMING UKRAINE
AND DON'T SUPPORT STIRRING CHINA UP OR ARMING TAIWAN

Simples.

You know what?
I can almost bet that if we just asked Russia for nuclear tech for power generation,
And nuclear weapons as a strategic defense deterrent,
So that we can de-couple from the US lead sphere of interest,
To become a voice of reason in the world and remain neutral,
- They would probably just give it to us.