Last night we saw hasbeen Paul Keating embarrassing himself and the Labor party ranting on about China and how our security heads were “nutters” who should be “got rid of”.

Thankfully, the Coalition has the sense not to dig up relics of the past in the form of failed prime ministers. OK, Keating did do some good with the economy, and he was always good for a laugh in parliament. But he appears to be on the edge of senility now, with his thousand yard stare and general look of confusion.

At least the Labor-loving media spared us unnecessary exposure to the real duds, Gillard and Rudd, although the brief interview with the world's worst treasurer, Wayne Swann was certainly sick-making.

Anyway, Keating's ignorant remarks about China gets him a serve in this morning's Spectator under the title. ‘If Captain Whacky is setting China policy, we need to know’.

The author commends the no-nonsense China policy of Malcolm Turnbull, but points out that Penny Wong, already imagining herself as Australia's first ‘Asian’ Foreign Minister (being Asian comes before being Australian, apparently), wants to redefine the relationship, saying that Labor will not “pre-emptively frame China only as a threat”, despite the fact China is definitely a threat to Australia.

Let's hope that Captain Whacky, aka Paul Keating, a person who has admiringly described Communist China as a 'great nation’, has no influence anymore, and that he was just invited to the campaign as a courtesy as the other hasbeens and duds were.

We also need to hear from Labor just what their policy on China is within the next three weeks, preferably before too many early voters get to the booths. Speaking of which Anthony Albanese has expressed concern about the length of the period for early voting, saying that it is too long - even though it does favour Labor.

The spy agencies tend to attract right leaning spooks, who are still fighting the Cold War, way out there trumpeting "All the way with LBJ", "There's Reds under the beds!" etc etc. These spooks see it all in black and white, America good, China bad. Keating is right, if you let the spooks run foreign policy then "The nutters are in charge,".

//Thankfully, the Coalition has the sense not to dig up relics of the past in the form of failed prime ministers.// John Howard the greatest failure of them all. Even lost his seat at a general election, how bad can you get.

Dear Paul,"

Taken from the web:

Bill Shorten says he does not share former Labor PM
Paul Keating's views that Australia's spy chiefs are
"nutters"who should be sacked to help improve
relations with China.

The extraordinary rebuke of senior intelligence figures
was made on the sidelines of Labor's federal election
campaign launch, but immediately drew comparisons with
US President Donald Trump who's regularly clashed with
America's spy chiefs.

Mr Keating accused security agencies, including ASIO and
ASIS or running Australia's foreign policy and called
for Bill Shorten to "clean them out" if he won the
election. "The nutters are charge." Mr Keating told
the ABC after Labor's launch on Sunday.

"They've lost their strategic bearings these organisations."

Mr Keating who's been appointed to the International
Advisory Council for the China Development Bank warned
Australia was putting at risk its relationship at risk
with its largest trading partner.

"You know China, whatever you think, China is a great
state. It's always been a great state and now has the
second-largest economy, soon the largest economy in the
world. If we have a foreign policy that does not take
that into account - we are fools."

Mr Shorten said he did not share Mr Keating's views.

"Paul Keating is an elder statesman of Australian politics.
He's never been shy of saying what he thinks."

"We've worked very well with the National Security agencies
they know that and we know that - of course we will
continue that.

National security tops the list of voters’ concerns, according to Essential Research, as ‘Labor's Security Agency Plans Stir Fears’.

Labor's open borders policy of the Rudd era is unlikely to have been forgotten, for starters. And Keating's outburst is timely reminder for voters on Labor's bad attitude to security and defence. The Deputy Leader tried to water down the very revealing comments by Keating, but her weasel words were not convincing. She seemed more interested in defending the silly man than she and her party are interested in defending Australia. Plibersek says she understands how Keating's faux pas would alarm people, but that's not very reassuring. He said it, and that's that. And who knows what Plibersek understands, really?

Labor has nobody to blame but themselves for the electorate's mistrust of them on border protection and security. Keating's indiscreet - or ga ga - performance is a reminder, just before an election, of their really bad record

According to The Australian's recent Newspoll
this election has nothing to do with border
security, despite the attempted fear-mongering
by the conservative Liberal Party and National
COALition.

Spending on services tops the election priority
list followed closely by climate change.

Hi Foxy,

Australia is in somewhat of a bind over our relationships with China/America. Its obvious America is itching for an economic war with China at the very least, as both their economic and political influence in our region gives way to the ever increasing power of China. The Americans don't like it, it hurts them, and they want to do something about it!

The problem is Australia's interest in the region are not necessarily the same as Americas interest, I do not believe they ever were, but like some dutiful puppy we went along with the Yanks, and gave all they demanded of us, including fighting illegal proxy wars in Korea and Vietnam. Australia's foreign policy was run from Washington. That can no longer be the case, we must put our own interests first, and if that means upsetting our "good friend" Uncle Sam so be it. With the inmates running the asylum as they are in the US these days, the more we distance ourselves from The Donald the better.