There is something uniquely dispiriting about the Albanese government’s performance on the international stage.
It is normal that different Australian governments may have different ideological beliefs to some of our friends and allies – that is, after all, the nature of democratic nation states – but a mature government with a strong sense of national identity and culture should know how to present itself to the world without necessarily wearing its partisan heart on its sleeve.
Not so the current crop of myopic undergraduate university socialists inhabiting the Canberra government benches, who, at every opportunity, embarrass this nation in front of the entire world.
At no point do members of the Albanese government ever put the national, or even international, interest ahead of their own tawdry ideological posturing.
We’ve had the disgraceful behaviour of Foreign Minister Penny Wong pandering to anti-Israel tropes at the United Nations and elsewhere; we’ve had the insufferable Chris Bowen schilling for the climate cult at one Cop after another, and even working to bring that sorry circus to these shores; we’ve got Defence Minister Richard Marles standing in the very back row at Nato; and by far the worst of a rotten bunch, we’ve got a Prime Minister incapable of pursuing a meaningful relationship with the leader of the free world.
Indeed, we have now reached the absurd situation where Anthony Albanese has repeatedly been shunned by the US President and even appears to be seeking to avoid any further such possible humiliations.
We are at a pivotal moment in world affairs, yet Australia is more isolated, irrelevant and insignificant than we have ever been on the world stage.
The last few days have seen a major re-fashioning of the world order thanks to the extraordinary leadership and calculations of the Trump administration.
The Middle East now has the possibility of a new era of relative peace and prosperity, built around an Abraham Alliance of Israel, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. The world is suddenly a much safer and sunnier place.
Once a key strategic member of the Anglo alliance, we are now at best an afterthought, a slightly larger New Zealand tucked away at the bottom of the earth, equally irrelevant.
The days of a Bob Hawke, John Howard, Tony Abbott or Julia Gillard being quoted and noted on the international stage are a thing of the past.
There is literally nothing that Anthony Albanese or Penny Wong have contributed to modern political thinking or action, no strategic wisdom, no pertinent insights, no quirky or amusing phrases, no pleas of any significance, no levity, no reassurances, no help or favours.
Nothing.
The Chinese laugh at us and mock our ‘handsome boy’ Prime Minister as they circle our island plotting the best ways to ensnare us should that be their desire.
The Indonesians, as Rebecca Weisser points out in her must-read column this week, have found more amenable buddies.
The Poms and the Canadians, despite being run by left-wing governments as much at odds with the US as our own government, have still managed – through skill, perseverance and determination – to foster favourable relations with Donald Trump. But Australia?
Once upon a time we were known as America’s deputy sheriff. Sure, the left hated the phrase, but nowadays it is unthinkable that we could play any serious role in the world.
We are diminished, and worse, we are ignored.
Following the US bombing raid over the weekend and destruction of the Iranian nuclear weapons plants, the Australian federal government was even more silent than Mr Trump’s famed B-2 stealth bombers.
It took over 24 hours before Mr Albanese and Ms Wong deigned to appear to make fatuous and tightly scripted comments about the international consensus that Iran must not have nuclear weapons.
But their faces said it all.
As they walked off the stage, these two immature student undergraduates looked for all the world as if they’d just each swallowed a mug of castor oil at a student hazing night.
Australia deserves leadership that reflects the talent, entrepreneurship, optimism and innovation that made this nation great.
Hiding from Donald Trump is demeaning to us all.
