This is ridiculous.
The White House has again called on Australia to increase its defence spending, and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has again refused to budge.
Karoline Leavitt, Donald Trump’s press secretary, said the recent move by NATO member states to raise defence spending to 3.5 per cent of their GDP should be a model for Australia.
“If our allies in Europe and our NATO allies can do it – I think our allies and our friends in the Asia-Pacific region can do it as well,” she told reporters today at a press conference.
Albanese today said Australia would not be swayed further.
Defence Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles announced in April last year that the federal government would invest an extra $50.3 billion into defence up to 2034.
The announcement took Australia’s defence spend from 2 per cent of GDP to 2.3 per cent.
While most NATO members did agree on Wednesday to raise their spending to 5 per cent of GDP, Spain broke ranks to reject the US request.
We are talking about an additional $30bn. Cut where you need to and get on with it. Here’s a good place to start.
So, we can find $30bn over the next three years to support fake diagnoses of ADHD, etc (which is not to say that the rump of NDIS spending is not worthwhile), but we can’t pull our weight in defence spending?
There is no more vulnerable country to an autocratic Chinese takeover, nor a more dependent ally to prevent it, anywhere in the world.
Disabling a population is no way to defend it, and, I might add, China hardly recognises mental health as a thing.
The best way I can think of to undermine Australian psychology and disable the entire nation is a Chinese takeover. Though the boom in slave labour will help offset it.
God help us with these Labor China patsies in total control of the country. The Australian.
Xi Jinping’s top diplomat in Australia has warned Anthony Albanese that increasing military spending will impose a “heavy fiscal burden” on his budget and undermine economic development, in an attack on Donald Trump’s push for Canberra to ramp up defence spending and help counter Chinese aggression.
Ahead of the Prime Minister’s expected visit to Beijing next month and Penny Wong travelling to Washington this week for a Quad foreign ministers meeting, Chinese ambassador to Australia Xiao Qian rejected domestic fears about China’s massive armed forces build-up and threat to regional security.
Does nobody recall the PLAN pleasure cruise running bombing drills off every major Australian city earlier this year?
Sack Rudd, get a meeting with Trump, and commit to freedom.
Not doing so is breeding a bolder Beijing.
