Defence

Aussie Osborne – AUKUS 2026 Part 2

17/02/2026 by Australian Family Party

Yesterday, in Part 1 of Aussie Osborne – AUKUS 2026, we looked at connecting Adelaide’s new maritime defence precinct with the northern Adelaide plains via a new gateway bridge over the Port River. An industry sector this size we said was going to need a massive amount of defence procurement support, including manufacturing, commercial, retail, education, housing, health, and other professional services. In Part 2 of our proposal, we connect these support industries with long-haul freight infrastructure. One thing is for sure – there will be a lot more freight and a lot more heavy vehicles on our roads as a result of this announcement.

“Fatal crash closes freeway”

This has become an all too familiar news headline in Adelaide.

Whether it’s taking children to school, taking farm produce to markets or long-haul interstate freight, road safety is paramount.

My first project when I began working at the SA Highways Dept in 1969 was the new SE Freeway. To be fair to the government of the day, when it designed the freeway, it did not expect the level of residential development to take place that has occurred since. The Adelaide Hills has become one of the fastest growing urban areas in the State and commuter traffic on the SE Freeway has increased exponentially. Long-haul freight transport has become incompatible with that level of commuter traffic. Truck drivers dislike the current SE Freeway situation as much as commuters.

A solution is available. A solution that takes trucks and semi-trailers off the freeway, off Portrush Road, off Hampstead Road, off Grand Junction Road and will get freight to the shipyards and new northern precinct quicker, safer and cheaper.

First let’s put things into perspective. Long-haul freight transport on the SE Freeway is mainly coming from Melbourne – a 740km journey. A new north-bound road from Murray Bridge, connecting to the existing Sturt Highway at the new $200m Truro by-pass would deliver freight to the northern Adelaide development precinct by-passing the SE Freeway and Adelaide’s suburban roads completely.

While adding approximately 70 kms to the overall journey – less than 10% of the distance from Melbourne – this non-stop route would not increase the journey-time. Adelaide’s suburban road congestion and approximately 30 sets of traffic lights between the Tollgate and Port Adelaide reduces freight transport to a snail’s pace.

According to the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics (Report No 148), the cost of building new highways in Australia is approximately $5m per lane per kilometre. A new 90 km four-lane Murray Bridge–Truro highway would therefore cost around $2bn. The safety benefits of such a project however would be incalculable and the cost of building the road would be recouped through increased productivity, fewer accidents and less suburban road maintenance.

To summarise these two Aussie Osborne – AUKUS 2026 reports, the new Osborne nuclear submarine announcement has changed everything.

The new maritime defence project is a $100bn endeavour spread over the next 30+ years. Again, to put things into perspective, spending a small portion of that amount to ensure the project works properly makes good sense. A new gateway bridge and a new Murray Bridge to Truro connection should be included in the overall cost of the maritime defence project.

As stated in Part 1 of this proposal, SA has been blessed with two great infrastructure visionaries in (former Premier) Tom Playford and (former Commissioner of Highways) Keith Johinke. Perhaps we could name the above infrastructure projects after each of them.

Thank you for your support.

Aussie Osborne – AUKUS 2026

16/02/2026 by Australian Family Party

Without doubt, South Australia’s biggest ever public policy failure was the abandonment in 1970 of the MATS Plan (Metropolitan Adelaide Transport Study). The MATS Plan was a world-class road network for Adelaide’s future transport needs servicing a vibrant, emerging city. As a result of that ill-fated decision more than 50 years ago, SA has suffered incalculable cost, congestion and inefficiency due to its inadequate road system.

At that time, I was working for the SA Highways Department as a Laboratory Technician in the Department’s Materials, Research & Testing Laboratories at Northfield. Our then Commissioner Keith Johinke and all his staff were at the forefront of road transport planning and innovation. The excitement was palpable. Then came a change of government and the announcement that the MATS Plan was to be cancelled. It was an insane decision. All the land for the new road corridors had been acquired and the project was ready to go. So distressed was Commissioner Johinke by this announcement, he refused to sign the papers for the project’s cancellation, leaving it to an underling to carry out the Minister’s orders. The Department never recovered. Nor did Adelaide’s road transport system. I left the Department 5 years later to go into the private sector as did many others. In the 1980s the Department merged with a couple of other government departments and changed its name. A sad end to a once great institution.

Let’s not make that same ‘future planning’ mistake regarding the needs of the new Osborne submarine project which has just been announced. An industry sector this size is going to need a massive amount of support industries, including manufacturing, commercial, retail, education, housing, health, and other professional services.

In 1955, another great South Australian visionary, Sir Tom Playford, oversaw the growth and development of SA identifying that one key element for successful growth – cheap land.

The support industries for SA’s new maritime sector will need two things – affordable land, and easy ‘MATS Plan’ style access to the shipyards. Do not underestimate the importance of transport access.

Adelaide’s north can provide the land, and a new world-class gateway bridge over the Port River can connect the naval precinct with the northern Adelaide plains. Such a bridge and road system – perhaps even a rail line down the middle – would provide essential access to housing, supply chains and tourism opportunities – not to mention a ten-minute drive from the Edinburgh military air base.

The cramped suburbs around Port Adelaide are already under unsustainable pressure. Grand Junction Road is at maximum capacity. More traffic congestion, air pollution, the destruction of bio-diversity (bulldozing tree-lined streets and low-density housing) or increasing pressure on electricity, water, sewage, or stormwater infrastructure, in other words more urban densification, would be a disaster.

One thing is certain, the new naval industry will need support systems. We don’t want to be spending countless billions of dollars retrofitting like Adelaide’s current South Road debacle.

The Federal Government has given South Australia a new multi-billion industry. The SA State Government now needs to respond by opening up Adelaide’s north to supply this industry. Over the next 30 years tens of thousands of direct and indirect jobs are there for the taking.

In 2013, I was elected to parliament on a platform of “every family, a job and a house”. If every family had a job and owned a house, I argued, the benefits to the state and the nation would be great indeed. Clearly, a lot of people agreed with me.

Adelaide as the new maritime defence industry capital of Australia has the opportunity to provide ‘every family with a job and a house’. Let’s not blow it.

Part 2 tomorrow.

Which is Witch in ’26?

05/01/2026 by Australian Family Party

In Act 1 of Shakespeare’s great play Macbeth, the three witches appear before Macbeth and his friend Banquo. The witches predict that Macbeth will be king, and that one of Banquo’s sons will also be king one day.

Banquo is not convinced and responds, “If you can look into the seeds of time and say which seed will grow and which will not, speak then to me”.

Echoing Banquo, as we start another year, let us ask ‘who can look into the seeds of time’? Who can predict the future?

None of Banquo’s sons became king.

As with the witches in Macbeth, today’s economic forecasters, weather forecasters and social/population forecasters get it wrong time after time.

We are inundated with pundits’ predictions of what to expect in the year ahead.

Australia’s political pundits are predicting that in 2026 Labor will win both the South Australian and the Victorian State elections, Andrew Hastie will become Liberal leader, that house prices will continue to rise, and that there will be not just one, but several interest rate rises in 2026.

It’s been said that politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and then applying the wrong remedies.

They are similar to the guy who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.

As one wag put it, ‘In politics, if it’s honesty you want, stick to horse racing’.

So many predictions turn out to be wrong.

At the start of 2025, for example, Bitcoin was sitting at US$94,000 per coin.

Leading international analysts Standard Chartered, Bernstein Research and VanEck all predicted a rise in value in 2025 to somewhere between US$120,000 and US$250,000!

It is currently sitting at US$87,000.

Instead of rising 100 per cent or more, it dropped 7 per cent.

Other predictions have also proven to be spectacularly wrong – think ‘the internet will be a passing fad’, ‘online shopping will never take off’, ‘interest rates won’t rise for the next two years (they went up 13 times in a row), ‘Perth will be the 21st century’s first ghost metropolis’, ‘global warming is so baking the Earth that even the rain that falls won’t fill our dams and river systems’, ‘2009 may be the Arctic’s first ice-free year’ (in 2009 Arctic ice was around 5 million square kms, the same as it is today).

As someone wryly observed, ‘Ice doesn’t lie, but climate scientists do’.

Upping the ante, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres stated, ‘The era of global warming has ended; the era of global boiling has arrived”.

You get the picture.

When it came to Covid, politicians, public sector bureaucrats, pharmaceutical company executives, the media – all in cahoots with one another – were all wrong on lockdowns, border closures, school closures, masking, and even the vaccines themselves.

While we here at the Australian Family Party are not going to get into making predictions about what may or may not happen in 2026, we can clearly see what has been unfolding globally.

As discussed in previous posts here, here and here, Australia – and South Australia in particular, given its similar climate and topography to Israel – would benefit enormously from a much closer relationship with Israel.

Israel is a nuclear and intelligence superpower with the will and ability to project power across vast distances. The Bondi massacre would not have happened had we availed ourselves of that intelligence.

Similarly, if we want to have a strong enough economy that can build a strong enough military to be able to withstand looming regional threats, then we are going to need to abandon the obsession with useless forms of energy generation, such as wind and solar.

At the Australian Family Party:

We like …
South Australia, Australia, Farming, Mining, Small Business, Free Markets, Free Speech, Property Rights, Home Ownership, School Choice, Income Splitting, Traditional Family Values, Pro-life Policies, Low Immigration, Australia’s Defence Forces, Israel.

And we dislike …
Big Government, Big Business, Big Unions, Rent Seekers, Wind Turbines, Solar Farms, Green Hydrogen, Net Zero, The Voice, Toxic Algae, Ambulance Ramping, Urban Growth Boundaries, $50bn State Govt Debt, Digital ID, High Immigration, High Crime Rates, Transgender Ideology, The UN, The WEF and The WHO.

Standing Guard
If Parliament House were a night club, they’d have a bouncer on the door only admitting those who would add value. Undesirables would be turned away!

Walk …. Get Fit …. Go Letterboxing ….
As we often say, it’s one thing to have an opinion – it’s a very different thing to support a cause.

And our primary aim now is the South Australian State election.

It’s summer, so what better time to get fit, go for a walk …. and do some letterboxing.

Can you help?

If you would like to do some letterboxing, please let us know here (choosing ‘Admin’ as the recipient).

Happy New Year everyone and thank you again for your support.

Bounce Back Better

01/12/2025 by Australian Family Party

In a much-quoted exchange, a pollster once asked an Australian voter the following question: “Going into this election, and thinking about the average voter, what would you say is the biggest problem facing Australia today – ignorance or apathy?”

The voter replied, “I don’t know, and I don’t care”.

As we approach the South Australian State election, our key messages are crystal clear:

1. Competence & Care
Are you competent? And do you care?
Whether it’s your doctor, your mechanic or your child’s teacher, all you want to know about them is: ‘Are they competent? And do they care?’
At the Australian Family Party, we stress the importance of appointing capable people.

2. Understanding the Times
In uncertain times, the choices we make shape our future.
At the Australian Family Party, we are focused on electing strong principled leaders — people who understand the times and know what needs to be done

3. Climate Change
If we wish to have a strong enough economy that can build a strong military to be able to defend ourselves against looming regional threats, then we are going to need to abandon our obsession with useless forms of energy generation, such as wind, solar and green hydrogen.
There is no climate emergency, there is no cause for panic.

4. Israel
In today’s uncertain world, the choices we make as a State and as a nation will determine our future. At the Australian Family Party, our support of Israel is what sets us apart.
Protecting our nation, strengthening our economy, and supporting our families is the foundation of a strong society. Australia – South Australia in particular, given its climate and topography – would benefit enormously from a closer relationship with Israel.

5. Let’s Make South Australia Great Again
Many South Australians can probably remember the time when more than a dozen of Australia’s top 100 listed companies had their head offices in Adelaide – News Ltd, Fauldings, Southcorp, Elders, Normandy Mining, Adelaide Bank, Adelaide Brighton, Standard Chartered Finance to name just a few. Today there’s just one – Santos (and even Santos is on borrowed time).

At the time of Federation, South Australia led the constitutional debates and had an influential hand in shaping the new Commonwealth of Australia.

For decades after, Adelaide was Australia’s Number 3 city – bigger and more prosperous than either Brisbane or Perth.

South Australia prospered when it supported people who made things, grew things, and built things.

Over recent years, some bad ideas have found their way into the South Australian Parliament resulting in some awful legislation being passed. These include: the ‘Urban Growth Boundary’ which gave us severe housing affordability problems; ‘Transforming Health’ which led to chronic hospital ramping; ‘Renewable Energy’ which resulted in SA having the most expensive power bills in the nation; ‘Anti-Life’ legislation that has given us those grotesque abortion-up-to-birth, assisted suicide and prostitution laws.

In addition, a conga-line of rent-seekers, bootleggers and carpetbaggers looking to exploit the public purse. These crony-capitalists, who base their business models on schmoozing politicians and convincing them that their particular goods or services are essential – and that the government should either pay for them or limit competition to providing them – have essentially created another layer of taxation.

This is important as South Australians already pay enormous amounts of tax in the form of GST, stamp duties, registrations, and numerous other levies and taxes hidden in water and power costs.

When state governments privatised SA’s water and power utilities, for example, they did deals with the purchasers permitting them to increase power and water charges in exchange for a higher purchase price of the utility – just taxation by another name. Consumers simply ended up paying more for their power and water. On top of that, utilities such as SA Water, then pay ‘dividends’ to the SA state government every year – ever more taxation under a different guise. SA Water has paid over $3bn in ‘dividends’ to the SA State Government over the past ten years. That $3bn should have been used to provide much-needed water infrastructure.

Yet in spite of all the revenue and dividends collected from SA taxpayers over the past ten years – up from $12bn in 2015 to $17bn in 2025 – the State Government’s reliance on subsidies from the other States to meet its spending commitments has also risen from $7bn in 2015 to $12bn in 2025, taking the SA State Government’s total spend from $19bn in 2015 to $29bn in 2025!

Why the other States continue to put up with South Australia’s flagrant spending habits is beyond me.

Likes and Dislikes

As you would have gathered, at the Australian Family Party:

We like …
South Australia, Australia, Farming, Mining, Small Business, Free Markets, Free Speech, Property Rights, Home Ownership, School Choice, Income Splitting, Traditional Family Values, Pro-life, Low Immigration, Australia’s Defence Forces, Israel.

Standing Guard
The key role of an independent or minor party member of parliament is that of a gatekeeper – ‘standing guard at the gate’ to prevent bad laws getting into the Parliament – someone who will ‘sound the alarm’ when dodgy legislation is presented to the parliament.

If Parliament House were a night club, they’d have a bouncer on the door only admitting those who would add value! Undesirables would be turned away.

As a former Senator, I know how to stand up to destructive policies and how to stop laws that drive up costs, disrupt society and make life harder for everyday Australians.

Walk …. Get Fit …. Go Letterboxing ….!

As we often say, it’s one thing to have an opinion – it’s a very different thing to support a cause.

With summer approaching, what better time to get fit, go for a walk …. and do some letterboxing!

Can you do some letterboxing in your area? As few or as many letterboxes as you like would be just fine.

Note: Political material is not junk mail. It is defined and protected by legislation as political communication.

If you would like to do some letterboxing, please let us know here (choosing ‘Admin’ as the recipient).

Thank you for your support.

Australian Idol

20/10/2025 by Australian Family Party

When John D. Rockefeller died in 1937, he was reputedly the richest man in the world.

At his funeral were many of his employees as well as a large contingent from the press.

Spotting Rockefeller’s chief accountant in the crowd, a young journalist from The Washington Post approached the accountant after the funeral.

“Weren’t you Mr Rockefeller’s accountant?” enquired the journalist.

“Yes, I was,” replied the accountant.

“Tell me,” whispered the journalist, “How much did he leave?”

“All of it,” whispered the accountant.

Rockefeller built Standard Oil, amassing (in today’s money) a $400bn fortune. He treated wealth as ‘life’s purpose’, crushing anyone who got in his way. In later life he admitted that his early greed was ‘demonic’.

Napoleon conquered all of Europe for political glory, crowning himself ‘Emperor of the French, King of Italy, Protector of the Rhine, King of Spain and King of Holland’.

For sporting glory, Lance Armstrong admitted to doping in seven consecutive Tour de France wins.

Examples of the pursuit of beauty and body-building image are too numerous to list.

Those who seek personal glory and those who seek financial opportunity are often frequent bedfellows. As are a good many cosy relationships between businesspeople and governments.

The French have a saying, ‘Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose’ – the more things change, the more they remain the same.

The Bible, for example, recounts the incidence of a riot in Ephesus in 55AD.

The Apostle Paul had been preaching the gospel, and a number of people were converted to Christianity causing a drop in trade for the local idol-makers.

“About that time there arose a great disturbance … A silversmith named Demetrius, who made silver shrines of Artemis, brought in a lot of business for the craftsmen there. He called them together, along with the workers in related trades, and said: “You know, my friends, that we receive a good income from this business. And you see and hear how this fellow Paul has convinced and led astray large numbers of people here in Ephesus and in practically the whole province of Asia. He says that gods made by human hands are no gods at all. There is a danger that not only our trade will lose its good name, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis will be discredited; and the goddess herself, who is worshiped throughout the province of Asia and the world, will be robbed of her divine majesty.” (Acts 19:23–27)

Classic rent-seeking.

In recent times, Climate Change and its handmaiden Renewable Energy have become man-made idols and, like Rockefeller and Demitrius, anyone or anything standing in their way is crushed.

A good example of Renewable Energy being like ‘gods made by human hands which are no gods at all’, is so-called ‘green hydrogen’.

In 1975 – 50 years ago – during the 94th Congress, the US House of Representatives held the first of two investigative hearings on the subject of hydrogen – ‘its production, utilization, and potential effects on our energy economy of the future’.

The hearing was chaired by Congressman Mike McCormack, who claimed hydrogen ‘had the potential of playing the same kind of role in our energy system as electricity does today’.

In 2003 – 22 years ago – economist Jeremy Rifkin, published The Hydrogen Economy: The Creation of the Worldwide Energy Web and the Redistribution of Power on Earth.

In that book, Rifkin claimed that ‘Globalization represents the end stage of the fossil-fuel era. Turning toward hydrogen is a promissory note for a safer world’.

Then-President George W. Bush bought into the vision. In his 2003 State of the Union Address, he said, ‘With a new national commitment, our scientists and engineers will overcome the obstacles associated with taking hydrogen-fuelled automobiles from the laboratory to the showroom so that the first car driven by a child born today (2003) could be powered by hydrogen, and pollution-free’.

According to the US Bureau of Statistics, there were 4,089,000 children born in the United States in 2003.

Now aged 22, not one of them has bought a hydrogen-fuelled automobile.

A few months after his speech, the Bush Administration announced a collaborative effort with the European Union for ‘the development of a hydrogen economy’, including the technologies ‘needed for mass production of safe and affordable hydrogen-powered fuel cell vehicles’.

Hydrogen is indeed abundant, but it is not a source of energy. Like petrol or electricity, it must be manufactured. Which, in energy terms, is very expensive (it takes three units of electrical energy to produce two units of hydrogen energy). In other words, it requires a lot of electricity to make a small amount of hydrogen that is hard to handle, difficult to store, and expensive to use.

And yet, despite all that has been known for the past 30+ years, in 2019, South Australia’s politicians pumped hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money into green hydrogen schemes.

In its Renewable Hydrogen Action Plan, the Office of Hydrogen Power announced ‘500,000 tonnes of green hydrogen would be produced annually by 2030’.

It has just been shut down.

If we want a strong enough economy that can build a strong military that can defend us against looming regional threats, then our politicians need to abandon their obsession with man-made idols such as climate change and renewable energy.

Swedish Statesman Axel Oxenstierna summed up the situation this way, “Behold my son, with how little wisdom the world is governed.”

That was 1640 – nearly 400 years ago.

Plus ça change …

A Few Good Men

20/09/2025 by Australian Family Party

In that classic scene from the movie A Few Good Men, Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee, played by Tom Cruise is defending two Marines accused of murdering a fellow Marine based at Guantanamo Bay.

Kaffee believes the Marines were following a ‘Code Red’ – an illegal order for extrajudicial punishment – issued by Colonel Nathan Jessep, the base commander, played by Jack Nicholson.

Kaffee gets under the skin of Jessep who is a formidable, authoritative figure who sees himself as above reproach.

During a tense exchange, Kaffee asks Colonel Jessep, “Did you order a Code Red?”

The Court Martial Judge quickly interjects with, “You don’t have to answer that question.”

Jessep arrogantly responds, “I’ll answer his question”.

“You want answers?” Jessep sneers.

“I think I’m entitled”, replies Kaffee.

“You want answers?” Jessep shouts.

“I want the truth!” Kaffee shouts back.

Jessep then blurts out his famous line, “YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH!”

Kaffee once again demands to know, “DID YOU ORDER A CODE RED!”

Jessep erupts with, “Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns.

“Who’s gonna do that? You?

“I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom … and my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives.

“You don’t want the truth because deep down you want me on that wall, you need me on that wall.

“We use words like honour, code, loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something.

“You use them as a punchline.

“I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide and then questions the manner in which I provide it.

“I would rather you just said thank you and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon and stand a post”.

When this movie was released in 1992, Tom Cruise’s character Daniel Kaffee was, as you’d expect, the good guy, and Jack Nicholson, the baddie.

But the Utopian post-World War II, post-Soviet Union, ‘End of History’ world that gave rise to movies like A Few Good Men didn’t last.

The world never was, nor is it now, how we’d like or wish it to be. The cruel truth is that our desire for a just, kind, or ideal world inevitably clashes with the harsh, indifferent, and unpredictable nature of reality.

In 2022, in a military news outlet called Task & Purpose, retired US Marine 3-star General Gregory Newbold expounded on this theme in an attempt to remind the civilian population of what the military is and what it does.

“Many citizens – especially our most senior politicians and military leaders – seem to have developed a form of dementia when it comes to warfare. The result is confusion or denial about the essential ingredients of a competent military force. The condition is exacerbated and enabled when the most senior military leaders who ought to know better defer to the idealistic judgements of those whose credentials are either non-existent or formed entirely by ideology.

Newbold is referring to the Lt Kaffees of the world.

He continues: “The military has two main purposes – to deter our enemies from engaging us in warfare and if that fails, to defeat them in combat. Deterrence is only possible if the opposing force believes it will be defeated. Respect is not good enough; fear and certainty are required.

“The military cannot be a mirror-image of the society it serves. Values that are admirable in civilian society – sensitivity, individuality, compassion, tolerance for the less-capable – are often antithetical to the traits that deter a potential enemy and win wars that must be fought.

“There is only one over-riding standard for military capability – lethality – the ability to kill. And the officeholders who dilute this core truth with civil society’s often appropriate priorities undermine the military’s chances of success. Reduced chances of success mean more casualties which makes defeat more likely.

“Wars must be waged only with stone-cold pragmatism, not idealism. War is a means to an end, and the end is defeat of the enemy and the establishment of a peace, but not just any peace but a peace in your favour.

In an ominous warning of troubling times ahead, The Australian’s Paul Kelly reported recently:

“This week the dictators came together in Beijing – Xi Jinping, flanked by Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un – in a display of authoritarian power rarely matched since World War II.

“The vast military display featured nuclear-capable missiles, undersea vehicles, the latest drones, fighter jets, anti-ship missiles and long-range bombers reinforced by thousands of troops goose-stepping in almost perfect co-ordination.

“China intends to dominate in industrial, military and ideological domains.

“Xi’s message is that China’s military dominance of the Asian region will be irresistible.

“The world has just witnessed the most powerful symbolic display of China’s military aspirations with their intimidating logic for Australia.

“And what did our government have to say?

“Nothing – or nothing of any note.

“We cannot even find the language to address the events transforming the world that pose the most serious challenge for our country and people.”

I have never been anti-China.

As reported in my previous comments on China in Beijing to Damascus – A Road to Peace, China has a fascinating Judeo-Christian history.

I have also met Xi Jinping, albeit briefly, in 2014. We talked about housing and how Chinese investors viewed Australia’s property market very favourably.

But a lot that has happened since then disturbs me greatly.

We need options. Our total reliance on the United States is untenable. Its growing internal divisions could seriously impact its external commitments.

One alternative defence bloc could be a Japan–South Korea–Philippines alliance; however, these are all conventional military powers. They would be no match for a nuclear superpower such as China.

India is a friend and is a rising geo-political player. It is also a nuclear power.

But India looks after India, and being an avowed Hindu country, is also culturally very different from Australia.

As Kelly reports, in Beijing, leaders from China, Russia, Iran and North Korea met and did not hide their contempt for the West.

Which brings us once again to Israel.

Israel is currently fighting a war defending Western Civilization.

It is a military superpower.

We should develop a closer relationship.

The Israel-Gaza conflict will soon be over, but China’s military expansion will not.

Can we handle the truth?