No doubt about it, Labor is committed to twenty years in opposition. From Kevin Rudd today:
The most important thing about Australia having a national China strategy is to have one. At present, we do not. What we have instead is a government with a series of attitudes about China, rather than a coherent policy for dealing with China.
We seem to have a government more interested in fanning public hysteria over ‘‘reds under the beds’’, almost a new yellow peril, all suddenly requiring the Australian people to stand up against the Chinese hordes. It has taken what is a three-out-of-10 challenge to Australian national interests and values and turned it into a nine-out-of-10 existential threat.