Excellent article, Murray Hunter! And good to see one more authoritative voice joining the growing number of well-informed dissenters seriously concerned at Australia's subservience to US foreign policy dictates.

Yes, we might think we're playing with the big boys, but in reality we're being used and manipulated and as pointed out by Keating our unquestioning sycophancy is a national shame. We're nothing more to the US than a convenient military base from which to spy on and provoke China.

And yes, Hunter is correct, our complete lack of influence with the US is indeed clearly exemplified in our pathetic inability to save one of our own citizens from spending the rest of his life in a high-security US prison.

Allowing the US to conduct its war games in our waters and on our soil will never make us safer. And attempting to project our military 'might' into the Chinese region is a complete absurdity.

The best way to feel safe within our region is for Australia to engage in respectful diplomacy and establish fair and mutual trade relationships with all our neighbours. And to firmly remind the US that its attempts to control the Indo-Pacific are dangerous and unwelcome!

Assange is not an American citizen, nor was he residing in the USA when he committed the "crime" of exposing the wall-to-wall lies and manipulations which are an integral component of US actions all over the world.
So why should he as Australian citizen be extradited to the USA?

It seems to me that it is a disgrace that the Australian government has not
unequivocally stood up for him from day one. And hasn't he been punished enough already

Australian Foreign Policy under Albanese is largely repetitive of the fatally flawed policies of the Morrison government. It ignores the legitimate wishes and concerns of the Australian people about AUKUS, Quad, NATO aggression and indoctrination or how ASEAN is avoiding to choose between China and the US hegemon. We are sick and tired of arrogance of power in Canberra and its close links with the military industrial complex which profits from proxy wars in Ukraine and elsewhere. The current foreign policy system is unjust, too Anglo-American empire focused and unsustainable.

As a trading nation Australia needs China, our biggest customer. I agree with Murray Hunter and his summation of the situation, and the disputed South China Sea. The Albanese government is attempting to smooth relations with China, after the Coalition governments disastrous attempts, I'm sure at American insistence, to shirt front China. Just as in the past, Australia will be dragged into any America/China conflict as a "token toady" like we have been in so many American wars post WWII. I very much believe Australia should abandon all American military treaties we have been roped into, and plot an independent non-aligned course in world affairs.