There’s a growing sense across Australia that the Albanese government has made a serious misstep – one that not only ignores the national mood but risks entangling us in yet another American-made disaster.
This week, as President Trump launched strikes on Iranian infrastructure in what he dubbed a “warning shot,” the Australian government was quick to voice its support. Prime Minister Albanese framed the move as a necessary step in defending global security, a claim that feels both hollow and historically deaf.
The problem isn’t just that Australia is backing military action in a volatile region. It’s that we’re doing so in lockstep with a president who has spent has second term sabotaging international norms, alienating allies, sneering at NATO, undermining the UN, threatening allies over trade deals, calling ANZUS into question, and treating diplomacy like a reality show audition.
Yet here we are, Australia, once again nodding along like a loyal sidekick, seemingly blind to the fact that the protagonist has long gone rogue.
Many of us voted for the Albanese government on a promise of measured, independent leadership. What we’re getting is something else entirely: a government unwilling – or unable – to chart its own course, even when the moral, strategic, and democratic case for doing so is overwhelming.
Australians are not naive about global threats. We understand the dangers of Iranian regional aggression. But what we also understand, painfully well, is the cost of being dragged into foreign wars under the banner of alliance loyalty. From Vietnam to Iraq, our blind allegiance has come at a price – paid in blood, in treasure, and in credibility.
To support Trump’s bombing of Iran now is to sign off on a military escalation with no clear objective, no diplomatic strategy, and no credible international backing. It’s a move that reeks of political theatre, not serious statecraft.
And while the Prime Minister might feel the need to maintain the illusion of solidarity with the U.S., Australians are not buying it. The average voter can see through the rhetoric. They see Trump’s recklessness. They see a U.S. president who has insulted us, threatened our trade agreements, and treated our partnership as transactional at best. And now they see our government backing him – as if nothing has changed.
Well, everything has changed. The alliance that once stood for shared democratic values is now tethered to a man whose values are increasingly antithetical to our own. And for the first time in a long time, Australians are asking the question: how far do we follow a friend who no longer acts like one?
It’s not anti-American to say we need a foreign policy that puts Australian interests first. It’s common sense. And it’s time the Albanese government started listening – before they lose not just their voters’ trust, but the nation’s moral compass as well.
Also by Roswell:
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You know things are bad when Canguro’s favourite warmonger questions the alliance.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-06-24/hastie-demands-answer-about-us-militarys-growing-presence/105451834
I suspect that there are things happening behind the scenes that we are not privy to.
The long hesitation by Albo, and now Hastie’s commentary, says to me that there are national security issues that it is not ok to share, but also some areas that need to be explained. My reading of it, my guess, is that Albo is more inclusive than most and Hastie is calling for things that will enable Albo to share more about our relationship with the US.
Such high level deals as we have with the USA on defence are not really going to be disclosed to us plebs in any great detail. This is why I think Hastie’s comments are helpful to the Labor government.
Most of understand what’s going on Roswell,but it appears Albanese is between a rock and a hard place, and is reverting to type.silence and secrecy.Unless he lifts his game markedly, he’s going to blow whatever support he thought he had out of the water.34% of first preference votes is going to seem a distant dream, before you can say Richard Marles.
There is an excellent article in today’s Pearls&Irritations by Jack Waterford that is very relevant.
Has corporal Hastie rejoined the military yet?He should, and take lance private Paterson with him.The ADF need all the help they can get..even dickheads like them would fit right in.
It’s all very well for Hastie & Pezzullo to blow-off about transparency, under their LNP govt / APS there was much more obfuscation, opacity and mainstream media LNP pumping than now.
But for AUKUS, Albo didn’t do all the vesting in American military facilities on Oz shores. And now he is certainly between a rock and a hard place, with AUKUS being a sheet anchor – damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.
With the advent of the T-Rump POTUS, Ukraine being a reluctant proxy (for US & Europe), and the complete hateful madman Netanyahu pulling T-Rumps strings (and both the Dems & GOP terrified by political Zionist Jewish power and wealth in USA), the entire caboodle is now lethally teetering in the ‘West’ and globally probably like never before.
Albo has to be extremely strategic and cautious, or Oz can be brought to suffer by various means from various directions. I don’t expect him to let ANY cats out of the bag lest they run amok. I suspect not only the G7 but maybe the G20 have a plan, because they all seem to be singing from the same song sheet.
It’s an awful pain of trust / mistrust for us, as we’re egged by our sensation driven mainstream media. But for certain the last ones I would want Albo to afford transparency to is the LNP, Hastie / Paterson and Pezzullo. I guess Albo’s got little choice but to cop the slings and arrows for a while yet.
Ever since PM Harold Holt’s cringeworthy facile comment “…all the way with LBJ…”every successive Australian Cabinet has slavishly endorsed each and every missive from USA under the guise of adhering to the tenets of the ANZUS Treaty. I am of the generation that remembers US airmen billeted in our house at a time when there is no doubt that US military might saved Australia from invasion by the Japanese Empire (now long gone). Australians were grateful for their deliverance however, our debt was well and truly paid by our Diggers in their successful campaigns that assisted the US grand strategy. We have respectfully moved on since then with the intention of observing a peaceful foreign policy – not one that assists the creation of global hegemony by a false sense of entitlement. Andrew Hastie is correct to request transparency in matters of sovereign territory commitment. The Australian electorate is entitled to know just what has been committed on our behalf.