ruby said:

SCIENCE said:

perhaps the era of free passes is coming to an end

Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim is the master of the art of exactly landing a savage point, while apparently saying something relatively benign. In Kuala Lumpur on Thursday, when he and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese were asked about the Pope’s plea for peace in the world, the Malaysian PM became one of the first world leaders to venture into the territory of US President Donald Trump’s mental faculties, while managing to stay on the safe side of doing so.

Worth reading the whole article, love Laura Tingle’s work -
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-04-18/fallout-iran-war-spreads-focus-donald-trump-mind/106576096

Fair point and we suppose there are still a lot of free passes.

Sunday night have left many with the impression of a deranged autocrat mad with power,

“impression” yes sure for values of impression that should be absolute conviction

“And of course, our national security interests are very much linked with the United States as well.”

well… whose fault is that, can it be fixed

Australia is rewiring all its trade relationships to counter the breakdown in world trade arrangements that started in earnest with Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs last year. But it seems paralysed to act to diversify its defence ties and strategy in the same way. This week Defence Minister Richard Marles released the government’s new defence strategy. Its tone has just a touch of the “ex-parrot” about it as it notes the rules-based order is not dead, but “in transition”. The grand AUKUS plans are seemingly non-negotiable, even as more signs emerge of delays in the project, and the commitment to such massive pieces of equipment — when the nature of warfare is morphing before our eyes — should be raising more questions.

oh so it can be fixed but will they

note that we actually agree with the transition thought, because there are other countries who do uphold the international rules based law and order who we could align more with