@aimone - I have a different view on the role Australia should play - but Australians seem tone-deaf, or perhaps colour-blind. I think, we, as a nation, have to re-think and remember our true geographical place in this world. We should take on the fact that we have Pacific neighbours, before we get to America and we also have neighbours in the Indian Ocean, who are physically much closer than our British and European forebears, but somehow our politicians don't see that. Wherever I look among my circle of acquaintances, yes there is the usual selection of Aussies and Brits (now elderly) as well as some Europeans from my country and surrounds, also Italians here in country W.A. but almost everyone seems to have an Asian connection.
My best friend's family is now part-Indian - a child from a 'German' marriage married an Indian lady, they have two beautiful daughters. Another one, also from Europe, married a handsome Chinaman - they went into business together, made a good fist of it - now they have grandchildren, who are 1/2 Australian, 1/4 European and 1/4 Chinese. Almost everyone I meet from the next generation (my daughters' friends) has a similar story - and I could go on, One of my daughters married a New Zealander who had been married before to a Maori girl - so there is a step-sister of Maori heritage in the family, one daughter went to England to make her life there, she married an Englishman, so I have an English granddaughter. So what I am saying: why do we still take our 'cue' from Colonial times, when England doesn't even give a dam (yes the Royals are due to visit ) - and has trouble identifying its own place in the world - now it is dawning on them, that Brexit was a mistake' and it seems we are still attached to the ''Empire across the ocean, the US. of A" - many miles from here.
Looking at the passions about Trump boiling over on this thread, it bothers me that we have to look right across the ocean to get our 'political allegiances', and a weapons deal which will not really substantiate until another 15 or 20 years from now, which is costing us huge amounts of money - (and maybe might cost us some trade deals with China, too - although that seems to be corrected).
As this thread proves - we - Australians - have a nation-wide identity crisis. Taurisk
) - and has trouble identifying its own place in the world - now it is dawning on them, that Brexit was a mistake' and it seems we are still attached to the ''Empire across the ocean, the US. of A" - many miles from here.
