Opinion/analysis – Sasha Uzunov

You don’t have to be a Proxy for Putin or a Puppet for Peking (pardon me, I meant Beijing, allow the poetic licence) to legitimately ask why is Australia in the AUKUS, an alliance formed to counter China and to a lesser extent Russia in the Asia-Pacific region.

Ex Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating has come under fire and unfairly accused of being a Chinese apologist for simply questioning the value of AUKUS, the new alliance between the United States (the real boss in the relationship) and its two underlinings Australia and the United Kingdom and the acquisitions of very expensive nuclear submarines, leading to an unnecessary arms race in the region.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison imposed AUKUS upon the Australian people before his departure. His successor Anthony Albanese has enthusiastically picked it up. The new PM has cleverly played the “anti colonialism” card, in particular British colonialism and its impact on Indigenous Australians. He went as far as instructing, though he will deny it, of not having the new King of Australia Charles III on Australia’s currency and having a ban placed on Australia Day celebrations.

These, as it turns out, were clever distractions, red herrings to take the focus of him drawing even more closer to the US Industrial-Military Complex. The US government has also a long history of opposing Indigenous Australian activists, especially it they pose a threat to US influence in Australia. In the 1950s the US Consulate in Melbourne via ASIO was spying on indigenous activists William Onus, who was banned from entering the US, Doug Nicholls, Faith Bandler and others. 

There are sporting and cultural organisations in Australia, which influence public opinion and are also government tax funded such as the AFL (Australian Rules Football) , NRL (Rugby League), Tennis Australia and so on who hate Britain but paradoxically promote US nationalism.

So if there is a hatred of Britain amongst influential institutions why is Australia a part of AUKUS? That does more to undermine the credibility of AUKUS than any Chinese and Russian cyber hacker. It also exposes the pretend anti colonialism being used as a cover to promote US nationalism in Australia.

The powerful AFL, which was founded in 1896 as the Victorian Football League by British Australians and monarchists nowadays goes to the extreme of inviting US diplomats and politicians, erases its British heritage from its history and refuses to invite UK diplomats in its pretend pose of anti colonialism. It simply makes the AFL look silly and opportunistic. That on its own undermines AUKUS.

If Britain is so “bad” that the AFL has changed its history, erased its Britishness, why on earth is Australia in AUKUS?