The most important ‘now what?’ is defence.

Donald Trump has said of South Korea, “We spend billions and billions to protect them from North Korea. They are not giving us anything.”

Europe's 2% of GDP on defence won't be enough for Trump, according to SAA.

As for Australia, America is protecting us with a growing number of troops, planes, ships and soon, a couple of nuclear submarines. And, we expect them to sell us Virginia Class subs when they can't build enough for themselves.

Our defence expenditure is the lowest since WW11. Grand statements from Albanese is what we are getting.

"Defence expenditure will need to increase—dramatically, and potentially up to five per cent of GDP.  It is increasingly clear that Australia cannot have both an ADF and nuclear-powered submarines, while managing the challenge of an increasingly precarious strategic environment, without doubling its Defence budget". (Stategic Analysis Australia)

Regarding Kevin Rudd?

Kevin Rudd was the chief executive of the Asia Society
thinktank in New York until 2023 when he was appointed
as US ambassador. He made his comments about Trump before
his appointment as Australia's ambassador to the US.

Rudd has deleted the comments he made previously because they
did not reflect the view of the Australian government.

"Out of respect for the office of the President of the US
and following the election of President Trump Ambassador
Rudd has now removed these past comments from his personal
website and social media channels".

"Ambassador Rudd wanted to eliminate the possibility of
such comments being misconstrued as reflecting his position
as Ambassador and, by extension the views of the Australian
government. They do not".

Both the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister have full
confidence and backed Rudd's ability to work with a
Republican administration. Ambassador Rudd is experienced
and will represent Australia well.

Talking about Australia's Defence?

" The 2024-25 budget sees Defence funding increase to -
$764.6 billion over the decade to support a more
capable and self-reliant Defence Force that can safeguard
Australia's security into the future".

There's more at:

http://minister.defence.gov.au/media-releases/2024-05-14/generational-investment-australias-defence

Also we should note that:

1) Australia has a defence and security alliance
with the US, long term links with New Zealand and defence and
security ties with India, Indonesia, Japan, the Republic of
Korea, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Phillipines, Singapore and
Thailand.

2) US and Australian forces have fought together in every
significant conflict since WWI. The Australian New Zealand
and US (ANZUS) ) Security Treaty concluded in 1951 is Australia's
pre-emminent Security Treaty alliance and enjoys broad
bi-partisan support.

3) AUKUS - is a tri-lateral Security partnership between
Australia, UK and US to "protect a free and open Indo-
Pacific that is secure and stable". (2021)

Hi Foxy,

What Albo and Penny think is irrelevant. It is the president elect who needs to be convinced that a fellow that has called him the village idiot and the worst US president, along with according him a host of other insults, is a suitable choice for ambassador. Maybe you could run a fact check showing that Kev never ever said a bad word about Trump and is an excellent choice for ambassador?

mikk wrote: "You really are a goose mhaze.20 million people in 3 years? You'll believe anything wont you. Even something as stupid as saying that 18,000+ people crossed the us border every day for years. Get your hand off it mate."

Well for a start its almost four years. Biden opened the border within days of taking over in January 2021. Care to redo your calculations?
Next, I wasn't saying it was 20 million. That's just the high end figure. No one knows because so many crossed without being detected. But we do know that there were periods where over 200,000 (and sometimes 1/4 of a million) were detected each month. And its guessed that the undetected were at least as numerous.

So somehwere between 10 and 20 million stands scrutiny. We'll know more once they start going home.