Having this Trump lackey Hegseth, a non elected foreigner trying to dictate to Australia how much we should commit to military spending is an obscenity. What America is demanding from Australia is payment for so called American "protection". Like the school yard bully, demanding the little kids lunch money! Albo should tell this Trump lackey to stick it where the sun don't shine!

How can a nation defend itself against itself because that's the state Australia's got itself into !
Or, should I say that's what Australia's been guided to by Labor Governments since Whitlam !

BP

Yes. Hegseth's "good" advice should be heeded, but Albanese has stupidly said it won't be. And yes, America 'ain't what it used to be'; and unlike WW11, when it saved Australia's arse and the rest of the world's, we could very well go under if there is a serious conflict in our region.

Trump has made it clear that he is an America-first man, as he should be. He was elected by Americans to be that - not to piss about with a stupid country like Australia whose politicians are so chock-a-block up Communist China that we wouldn't notice much difference if we became a satellite of China, with Albanese or someone like him a puppet ruler; and a lot more Chinese living here a la Tibet. The Commos have been claiming for years that they really discovered Australia. They just haven't said that it belongs to China - yet.

Australia is now described by the commentariat as a left wing country. Given the behaviour of Albanese, we wouldn't need to do much adjusting.

Not unreasonably, the US wants us to become more self-reliant within the US alliance.

I don't understand the objections to that from the US-haters who are actually saying we should distance ourselves from the US. Looks like schizophrenia to me.

Putting aside the ‘per GDP method’ to help their understanding, the current government spends 6.5% of the overall budget on defence.

In comparison, when the world was a safer and more stable place than it is now, the Hawke government spent 10% of the budget on defence.

Now, thanks to government induced inflation, the 6.5% doesn't buy what it once would have.

Communist China is the biggest military spender. Yet this goes unremarked in the hubbub of criticism against the idea of Australia lifting its spending to a realistic level because of that fact.

Another lie from the American sycophant ttbn.

"Communist China is the biggest military spender"

The United States is the biggest spender, and also the biggest arms dealer, America led the way with nearly $916 billion in military spending, followed by China at $296 billion and Russia at $109 billion.

The war mongering Americans outspend China $3 to $1 and Russia $9 to $1. Wake up ttbn, pull your head out, and take a look at the real world situation.

The aggressive Chinese Communists are livid over talk of Australia taking back its own property, the Port of Darwin.

Albanese talked about it before the election - only, I suspect, because the stupid Opposition sold the Communists a 99 year lease. But his yap was just political. He won't talk about now that he is more than safely back in power. He has neither the intestinal fortitude nor the intelligence and common sense to fix the Opposition's ridiculous blunder. And, he is frightened of Xi, the man who obviously holds ‘handsome boy’ in utter contempt. For an Asian, Xi doesn't do ‘inscrutable’ very well. Contempt is written all over his face whenever Albanese clings to his arm.

I loathe Communism, but I get China's chagrin. They entered into the astoundingly stupid agreement with the astoundingly stupid Australian government at the time in good faith. The deal should never have happened, but it is Australia, not China who is looking untrustworthy. Both members of the uniparty are on the nose, and not to be trusted by Australians or the governments and people of other countries.