I suppose what I meant is that no major party in Australia can afford to alienate city vote, that is why they do not.

Federal Treasurer was talking up greenhouse response the other day; need to reduce emissions by 2050 because of market demand.

whether a policy is driven by the left or not, politics and markets will go with that trend if enough people share the view.

The way things will go seems likely that as the population is convinced
that global warming is real and the schools are inserting onto the
scene every year a tranche of 18 year olds, brainwashed ready and keen to vote,
any party must go along with the legend or be damned to obscurity.
There is one hope, if they can convince the mob that they believe
in the almighty CO2 god, but can step up when the crunch comes with
an energy plan that will rescue us all from the disaster.

The alternative is if the iridescent greens try to ride through the
energy collapse we will be backyard cooks burning the furniture.

Chris Lewis- Yes as evil Thompson, Mooch, and Ferris said in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged- "You have to be practical". But it's probably true in a sense.

ttbn- With respect I'm generally a monarchist- perhaps this is one of my faults due to military service- respect for the rank not the person. Over many generations a family can rise through the ranks of society- disloyalty can bring it down much faster- the nation itself can be brought down if it's people don't work as a team. Be suspicious of those that create disunity within the nation.

O Sung Wu- Always good to hear from you- hope you're well- maybe we'll need to borrow some US personnel to bring our crews up to speed to drive the mothballed subs. I'd still hate to see the ASC infrastructure and expertise lost- after so much effort in it's creation- also some activities shouldn't generally be outsourced to other countries- mercenaries are never as loyal as those who are fighting for their homes- so we should try to bring our security inhouse- difficult with the pace of new technology- though I agree we need something now. Maybe their capabilities can be diversified to include maintenance of the sub and surface fleet.

This problem with the development of new weapons affects the whole engineering field (as I suspect Hasbeen will attest)- most engineering done in Australia is maintenance not design as I understand- but our space industry is providing interesting opportunities for Australia in the engineering sector and could see cross fertilization.

It's great Is Mise's Lithgow Small Arms Factory is still operational. Gun Smithing as you're aware is a art form encompassing a very broad range of expertise. Maybe we can get Thales (along with US and British Military contractors) to help with creating processes and systems in this area for the ASC.

Perhaps also the ASC could be moved a little further up the coast maybe 30 kms from the Adelaide metropolitan area to provide for more expansion

There's a bit of stigma attached to working in subs sadly.

It's good to hear from you too CANEM MALUM - You always speak with a great deal of courtesy and commonsense in my opinion. I believe it would be necessary to send our sailors off-shore to the US or GB in order for them to receive the most up to date training.

With nuclear powered vessels, there can be no mistakes whatsoever.