Saturation news coverage of President Trump’s gala dinner at Windsor Castle has concealed the need for more critical coverage of the defence pact with PNG as an extension to the Golden Anniversary of independence for our former dependency.
SBS News (15 September 2025) has offered some scant details of the elevation of strategic relations with PNG into treaty status even before the proposed text of the Treaty is not available for scrutiny:
“The prime minister is visiting Port Moresby this week to sign the pact with counterpart James Marape and attend PNG’s celebrations for its 50th anniversary of independence.
The landmark agreement will ‘integrate’ forces on either side of the Torres Strait and could trigger mutual support in cases of conflict.
It will also enable PNG nationals to serve in Australia’s defence force with the same pay as other members and start a pathway to citizenship.
‘It’s an upgrade in our security relationship to a treaty level, to the sort of level that we have with the United States and our important allies,’ Albanese told the ABC on Monday.
More detail would be provided once the agreement was signed on Wednesday, Albanese said, following celebrations of the Pacific nation’s golden jubilee.
Albanese praised Marape for showing great leadership and moving forward with Australia, saying the relationship upgrade took place at his suggestion.
Albanese emphasised the two nations were expanding their partnership as equals and had the same vision for a stable and prosperous Pacific.
The treaty speaks to a shared ambition between the two nations, said Defence Minister Richard Marles, who will accompany the prime minister in Port Moresby along with Pacific Minister Pat Conroy.
PNG Defence Minister Billy Joseph said the deal was a ‘mutual defence treaty’ that would have the nations working together to defend each other’s territories.
‘We’re not talking about interoperability, we’re talking about totally integrated forces,’ he told the ABC.”
Regrettably, PNG has been brought into the orbit of the US Global Alliance and strengthened security ties with Britain on the golden anniversary of its independence. The SBS News report contains an important caveat:
“Details are yet to be revealed, including whether both nations would be compelled to consult each other if they faced a security threat, similar to NATO’s Article Four clause.
“It provides for mutual defence, which means that we will provide support for each other, provide for an integration of our interoperability of our assets and our respective defence forces,” Albanese said.
More detail would be provided once the agreement was signed on Wednesday, Albanese said, following celebrations of the Pacific nation’s golden jubilee.”
Having just returned from Greece and Italy, I was reminded in Kos on one of the Dodecanese Islands of the negative consequences of Italy’s historical commitments to the Treaty of London (1915) with the Great Powers of the Triple Entente. These commitments dragged Italy out of neutrality in the Great War. Incentives like new territorial acquisitions and financial support for Italy were enough to send Italians to the war fronts across Western Europe and former enclaves in the Ottoman Empire.
Article 14 of the Treaty of London offered Italy a loan of fifty million pounds sterling from the London financial market. The full details were not released to the Italian public under the secrecy provisions of Article 16 until the new Bolshevik Government decided to release the old treaties make by the Russian Czar with the other members of the Triple Entente.
The Treaty of London tolerated the Italian occupation of the Dodecanese Island in Greece and the incorporation of oil rich Libya into an emergent Italian Empire. More critical reporting is needed to cover our proposed strategic associations with PNG in the absence of a full text of the new strategic arrangements.
Kefalos Airport in Kos in the Dodecanese Islands now welcomes thousands of tourists each year. As our guide on a day tour of the Island of Kos in Greece, Constantinos Karanasios (Costa) noted that earlier generations of his family had been uprooted without compensation by the construct ofan Italian military airfield at Kefalos in 1931 which became a frontline base for Italian territorial expansion into Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa during the fascist era.
As a defeated nation during the post-1945 period, US military bases and nuclear weapons installations were imposed on Italy throughout the Cold War Period. The addition of new weapons of mass destruction to Italy included a land based nuclear missile sites at Gioia del Colle and adjacent US installations at the San Vito Base in the hinterland of Bari and Brindisi (Image: US Government):
These land-based missile sites are gradually being replaced by less detectable patrols by nuclear powered submarines carrying lethal payloads. The Jupiter Missiles at this site and a second installation in Türkiye were removed by President Kennedy in 1962 in exchange for a termination of the construction of the Soviet missile site in Cuba.
Academic research is available on Cold War strategic policies in Italy. This research on Cold War US strategic installations in Italy is readily accessible through Google and includes:
- “The Impact of the NATO/U.S. Military Bases in the Northeast of Italy” from Professor Giovanni Favero of the University of Ca’Foscari, Venice.
- The PhD thesis by Holly Wilson from La Trobe University in 2018 entitled “Beyond the Gates: Local Interactions with U.S. Military Bases in Italy, 1951-1999.”
The following map of US military installations across Italy during the Cold War. The map was included in Holly Wilson’s thesis:
Australians too should demand more information about the consequences of our new strategic ties with Britain and the US during this AUKUS age knowing the consequences of having American bases in Italy were usually off-limits to media coverage of NATO operations.
Australian leaders are so keen to advance the Morrison Government’s AUKUS commitments and the extension of our strategic outreach to PNG and will Pacific Countries under the proposed new treaty options.
Dr. Binoy Kampmark has offered this interpretation of the proposed treaty obligations between Australia and PNG to promote more discussion on this issue.
Tom Mcllroy and Bethanie Harriman also offer coverage of the potential implications of the proposed Treaty arrangements between Australia and PNG which extend the protocols of the US Global Alliance to our Pacific neighbours currently under threat from the security problems posed by climate change which are ignored by the Trump administration (The Guardian 17 September 2025).
Meanwhile, the Trump administration continues to betray Palestinians vetoing the Security Council resolution in favour of a cease fire in Gaza despite support from fourteen of the fifteen members of the UN Security Council:
“The United States vetoed a draft resolution in the Security Council on Thursday put forward by its ten non-permanent members demanding an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire in Gaza – and the immediate release of all hostages. Against the backdrop of rising famine, it also demanded the lifting of Israeli restrictions on aid, calling on the occupying power to ensure safe and unhindered distribution to all in need.”
The White House predictably offered a different take on the day’s events with a chronicle of proceedings at Windsor Castle (18 September 2025):
First Lady Melania Trump participated in a series of events today alongside members of the Royal Family and Lady Starmer as part of the State Visit to the United Kingdom. The day’s program highlighted creativity, community, and the well-being of children—central themes of the First Lady’s BE BEST initiative.
In Windsor, The First Lady joined Her Majesty Queen Camilla for a tour of Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House and the Royal Library at Windsor Castle. Together, they viewed historic works from the Royal Collection before meeting schoolchildren who were creating and illustrating their own miniature books. The First Lady enjoyed conversing with the children as they worked on their art projects. Each child received a gift bag that included White House honey with a commemorative tag and a challenge coin from the First Lady.
At Frogmore House & Gardens, The First Lady met with Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales and U.K. Chief Scout Dwayne Fields for an outdoor program with the Squirrel Scouts. The children took part in leaf stamping and bug house activities before receiving their “Go Wild” Badges at a ceremony attended by the First Lady and the Princess. The First Lady and the children worked together creatively and joyfully. Each Scout was presented with a gift bag including White House honey, a challenge coin, and a red, white, and blue Scouting America neckerchief. Before departing, the Scouts shared a touching note for the First Lady, thanking her for the visit and wishing her a safe flight back to the United States.
In the afternoon, The First Lady traveled to Chequers Court for a private lunch with Lady Starmer. Following lunch, they observed a display by the “Red Devils,” an elite unit of the British Army Parachute Regiment.
The First Lady later attended President Trump’s Joint Press Conference with Prime Minister Starmer before departing the United Kingdom.”
The Royal Family Channel also helped to sanitize day’s conflicting stories to cheers from Trump’s own support base back home with the full support of the Labour Government of Sir Keir Starmer while British taxpayers pay the bills for such archaic regal extravaganzas.
Denis Bright (pictured) is a financial member of the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA). Denis is committed to consensus-building on the critical issues raised in each article. Your comments on this and related articles can be recorded on theaimn.net site.
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Late, breaking news Denis,China has given PNG a stern talking to over our yet to be consummated wedding vows ,despite the urgings of the groom.(Guardian).Jilted at the altar?Who knew?
Bleeding the British, spending on childish old pompery, Scumskull Trump the dead star snorer at a galah dinner, utter obsolescent pretentious bullshit. Migrants and refugees are insulted, intimidated, pensioners freeze and thin by austerity, bludging insider knowit predators.., and Starmer is there for the Labour faithful…as in Venice, it’s Far Canal.
Labor governments should distance themselves from old protocols which predate the UN charter .
The British Government splashed out to welcome an unpopular US leader
Let’s have more investment in social housing and infrastructure over preparations for war and encouraging nearby developing countries to join in the arms race and to have nuclear powered submarines with nuclear weapons lurking in deep ocean trenches.
Thanks Harry Lime for your welcome comment. I try to write from an independent but mainstream perspective.
The Chineses Government has a right to be concerned. China is Australia’s major trading partner but Chinese investment here is being contained by security concerns to the great disadvantage of the Australian economy (Check KPMG Update 2025: https://kpmg.com/au/en/media/media-releases/2025/03/chinese-in Australia-shifts-from-acquisitions-to-greenfield.html).
Our strategic relationships with the US Global Alliance are far from transparent and may contain secret protocols well beyond the transparent text of the ANZUS Treaty of 1952.
US military industrial complexes also reward lobbyist and political agencies in compliant states even after Eisenhower’s warnings about the political clout of of these companies before his retirement after Kennedy’s narrow victory in 1960 against Richard Nixon.
Having stopped in Singapore on my recent overseas trip, I was reminded of the value of trading and investment ties with the Island state which include strong trading and investment links with China.
These links are balanced by security ties with Taiwan for the training of Singaporean troops.
Paul Kelly writes eloquently about the value of the US Global Alliance to Australians (The Australian’s Inquirer 6-7 September 2025) but this is just one critical interpretation which I am prepared to challenge in my articles.
The information base to support my challenge is always limited by secrecy caveats which are significant as the Treaty of London 1915 in attempting to steer Italy’s path towards fascism in the 1920s.
Will new copayments for aged care services be enough to cover the costs of AUKUS Commitments to send our new nuclear powered submarines on loan from the US and Britain to cover the deep ocean trenches near PNG?: ABC News 12 September 2025-https://www.health.gov.au/news/upcoming-changes-to-residential-aged-care-funding
Secret treaties by great powers did not stop with the Treaty of London in 1915. Australia offered $400 million to PNG to reopen the Manus Island Detention Centre to house our illegal arrivals in 2013. Commander Donald Trump will soon have his intel experts working on reopening the Lombrum Naval Defence Base on Manus for visits from British and US nuclear powered submarines with their nuclear payloads as planned under AUKUS arrangements. The naval base was upgraded under the Morrison Government in 2019. Just how deep can those subs dive in the darkness of those ocean trenches to our Near North to escape detection from the mainstream media? Such matters are seldom reported in the Murdoch press.
Expect a boost in the federal government’s popularity readings after Albo’s address to the General Assembly in support of Palestine and against those old secret agendas like the Treaty of London 1915 which brought more conflict and suffering to humanity after Britain offered financial rewards to the Italian Government to join in the bloodbath across Europe.
Italy suffered 650,000 fatalities from war and disease on the Western Front and in the occupation of strategic parts of the Turkish Empire in Greece. Today’s leaders in Israel are still picking up the spoils of the old conflict in Gaza and on the West Bank with the added protection of their own nuclear weapons for second strike options.
Our Northern Neighbours are better off non-aligned and without those nuclear powered submarines and nuclear weapons on rotation in Pacific Ports of developing countries like Fiji and PNG.
Our intel services and defence chiefs usually get their way forward: The Pukpuk Treaty with PNG has been approved (ABC News 2 October 2025: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10-02/papua-new-guinea-australia-pukpuk-treaty-signed/105843900).
History seems to repeat itself as with the consequences for Italy of the Treaty of London 1915 with incentives for Italy to join Britain in the Great War after a few months of neutrality. Italy gained nothing from the arrangements and Greece suffered with the occupation of the Docdecanese Islands in the so-called post-1918 peace settlement.
Let’s keep up the Australian resistance to these latter day treaties through AIM Network as mainstream politics does through a very unrepresentative phase in these Trump times to our local treaty processes. Tony Blair is scheduled to become administrator of Gaza with parallels to the break-up of the Ottoman Empire in 1918 after millions of deaths in the Great War.