*Instead of a serious discussion about Australia's national security and
China, we've had a grubby descent into public policy madness*
/ Analysis by Laura Tingle, ABC News, Australia /
<https://tinyurl.com/2p8r66mk>

"If there was ever a time we needed to be having a serious conversation
about defence and national security, it would probably be about now.

Our relationship with our biggest trading partner is in the toilet. That
major trading partner is on the rise, and our traditional allies — though
apparently it is very rude to say this — are in decline.

Instead of pausing, taking stock and developing a slightly more detached
strategic view of what Australia's interests may be in this, we have
retreated into traditional alliances that will deliver something
unspecified to us in about 40 years' time.
There is a strong likelihood of a war in Europe, in which both our
biggest trading partner and the United States have significant interests.
But there is more.

Last year, the head of the domestic spy agency ASIO, Mike Burgess,
announced the agency had dumped terms like "right wing" and "Islamic
extremism" as "no longer fit for purpose" and replaced them with broad
terms of "ideologically motivated violent extremism" and "religiously
motivated violent extremism".
Last week, in his latest annual threat assessment, he warned "angry and
alienated Australians" could turn to violence after being exposed to "an
echo chamber" of extremist messaging, misinformation and conspiracy
theories during the coronavirus pandemic.

He also noted ASIO had "recently detected and disrupted a foreign
interference plot in the lead-up to an election in Australia".
So, in addition to the very uncertain global outlook, for the first time
in decades, according to one of our most senior national security
officials, there is a real risk of war of sorts in Australia: we have the
angry and alienated, and we have the political system under siege from
outsiders.

*Smearing, misleading, undermining*

Anyone who saw last week's protests in Canberra would understand that
there really are a lot of "angry and alienated" Australians, even if, as
Burgess says, there are probably only a small number who might
contemplate violence.

Their anger in this election campaign is being fed and stoked not just by
foreign players but by a larger number of domestic disrupters than we
have seen in politics in a long time.
Chief among them is Clive Palmer, who is already spending a poultice on
advertising various messages and his United Australia Party, having taken
up the "freedom" cause of protesters against mandates and vaccines. And
he has very deep pockets, as we saw in the last election.

Instead of a serious conversation, however, this week we have seen a
federal government reduce itself to the most partisan, misleading and
disreputable of attacks on its opponents on policy. We have also seen it
attack, undermine and try to smear with allegations of impropriety those
prepared to challenge their message.

Let's just consider how this descent into public policy madness has
unfolded.
Burgess' observations that there had been an attempt at foreign
interference in the run up to the federal election fed into the
government's growing push to shift the political debate to national
security at a time when it was being humiliated by defections of its own
backbench in the House of Representatives; when damaging leaks revealed
the Prime Minister's own closest colleagues, including the deputy PM,
thought him a liar and a hypocrite; and when it has been singularly
unsuccessful in demonstrating any capacity to deal with the crisis in
aged care.

Suddenly, a window of opportunity seemed to have opened. Defence Minister
Peter Dutton told parliament that:
"We now see evidence that the Chinese Communist party, the Chinese
government, has also made a decision about who they're going to back in
the next federal election, and that is open and that is obvious, and they
have picked this bloke [Labor Leader Anthony Albanese] as that candidate".

When Labor objected that this was suggesting treasonous or seditious
conduct by Albanese, Dutton observed his reflection was made just on
"what has been publicly reported and commented on by the director general
of ASIO".

*Where is this grubby campaign headed?*

It has only gone further downhill this week, with the Prime Minister
referring to Albanese as the "Manchurian candidate", prompting Burgess to
take the unusual step of appearing on 7.30 on Wednesday to note "the
foreign interference is against all members of parliament, so it doesn't
go after one particular party or the other". He also said that the
politicisation of such matters was "not helpful for us".

Government backbenchers were then sent out to throw a menacing shot
across Burgess' bows, and play down the significance of his 7.30 remarks
which had undermined the government's political attack.

MP Dave Sharma told ABC News:

"I don't want to live in an Australia where we can't debate certain
things because the spy chiefs tell us not to ... I think they also need
to be careful not to interfere in what is properly the domain of
political debate and elected representatives."

Senator James Paterson came out to say Burgess' remarks had been "over-
interpreted".
But it was Paterson's remarks about one of Australia's longest serving
senior public servants and diplomats, Dennis Richardson, that really
showed where things are going in this grubbiest of campaigns.
Paterson suggested impropriety on the part of Richardson — a former head
of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Defence and ASIO as well
as an ambassador to Washington — who served under both sides of politics,
over the contentious 2018 decision about whether Chinese telco Huawei
should be involved in the Australian 5G rollout.
Paterson noted on Thursday that it had been publicly reported that in
2011, Richardson, when he was secretary of DFAT, went on leave "to
negotiate on behalf of the Canberra Raiders a lucrative sponsorship
agreement from Huawei for the Canberra Raiders" (an assertion which
Richardson completely rejects).

Richardson told 7.30 he had been on the bureaucrat secretaries committee
on national security, which recommended against Huawei's involvement in
4G, and was not in government in 2018 when the 5G decision was being made.
He did note, however, that someone who had lobbied on Huawei's behalf was
former foreign affairs minister Alexander Downer, who was on the Huawei
board.

*Speaking of China and propriety...*

What had sparked the assault on Richardson?
Well, he had gone in even harder than Burgess to criticise the
government's politicisation of the national security debate, by "seeking
to create the perception of a difference [between the major parties] when
none in practice exists". This only served the interests of China,
Richardson said.

When it comes to China, both sides of politics have waxed and waned, made
good decisions and bad over the last couple of decades.
But when it comes to China and propriety, we could mention the
unfortunate dumping of Scott Morrison's closest political ally Stuart
Robert from the ministry in 2016 — after a scandal over a "private" trip
to Beijing to oversee a mining deal, after an inquiry found the minister
had "acted inconsistently" with the statement of ministerial standards.

Or we could mention that Robert, along with the then opposition leader
Tony Abbott and others had got into trouble over $250,000 of Rolex
watches they had been given by a Chinese billionaire in 2013.
Of course, that would be political and grubby, wouldn't it? And a
distraction from the alarmingly serious discussion we should be having
right now."

~~~
Well, a cynic could conclude that the LNP and its allies are just living
up to the best of far right expectations regardless of what does that
mean for the country.

--
--
Ördög - 👹️ - The newsgroup Devil at your service.

Want to see the most spiteful nasties of Australian politics?
Here I show you:

Just look no farther than the Liberal Party of Australia and
its dumb coalition partner:

This is their fundamental ideology (if one can call it that):
Capitalist neo-liberal/libertarian lies and alternate reality,
Lack of compassion for the already downtrodden,
Sociopathic greed & envy,
Endemic nepotistic and plutocratic corruption,
Vicious hunger for power and "born to rule mentality",
Xtian fundamentalism
Never ending misogyny & homophobia
Undeniable Anglo-Celtic racism and supremacy,
Unbridled hate for the underclasses,
Unrelenting vengeance seeking against political opponents...