US election shows Australia needs an independent foreign policy

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Lead Editorial

6 November 2024
Vol. 26 No. 45

The mainstream Australian media coverage of this week’s US presidential election is wall-to-wall, with hundreds of Australian journalists in America covering every minute, excruciating detail. It reflects the reality that Australia has so totally given up its sovereignty to the US war machine that the most consequential decisions are made in Washington. As former Ambassador John Lander noted in August, “Australia is already the 51st state of the United States”; by that measure, Rupert Murdoch’s Sky News Australia is 51st State Media, pumping out a relentless stream of US neoconservative bile to fix Australian perceptions of the world in Anglo-American global primacy.

Will the outcome of the election matter? If Kamala Harris wins, we can expect more of the same policies that have destroyed Ukraine, facilitated the genocide in Gaza, and built up a massive US military presence in Australia. If Donald Trump wins, and if—only if—he actually delivers on his rhetoric about Ukraine, he may negotiate a quick end to that war and the world can inch back from the nuclear brink; but it’s a big “if”, because it depends on who Trump employs to advise his presidency. Former CIA Director and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is hovering around Trump’s campaign, talked about as a possible Secretary of Defence, which would be a disaster: the man who plotted to murder Julian Assange and talked Trump out of releasing all the JFK files in his first presidency is as much a deep state fiend as has ever existed, and his overwhelming obsession is with starting a war against China. Tragically for the desperate Palestinians in Gaza, a Trump presidency means a continuation of the genocide.

Australia’s powerlessness in the face of a foreign election that is so consequential for our own country underscores the Australian Citizens Party’s policy principle that our nation desperately needs an independent foreign policy. As the late former prime minister Malcolm Fraser insisted in his 2014 book Dangerous Allies, outside of a few brief flashes of independent action, Australia has never been truly sovereign, but has always been subservient to the United Kingdom, and then the United States (in alliance with the UK). It’s time Australia asserted its sovereignty, to take an independent role in the world.

The ACP will present its policy of an independent foreign policy to the upcoming 17 November National Conference, “Return government to the people”, which will launch the policy platform. The first policy on the platform, “Return to an independent foreign policy”, states:

“End Australia’s foreign policy subservience to the USA and UK by asserting an independent foreign policy in Australia’s national interest. A truly independent Australia would oppose disastrous regime-change wars and the dangerous Anglo-American strategic escalation against China and Russia, and independently oppose the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, including through an arms embargo on Israel, without waiting for US permission; withdraw from the Five Eyes spying and foreign interference network; and prioritise developing good relations and economic cooperation with the nations in our region. This would include joining our regional neighbours and most of the rest of the world in participating in the Belt and Road Initiative to raise global living standards through infrastructure investments (which Australia initially welcomed before bowing to pressure from the USA); embracing the multi-polar world order that is now a reality; collaborating with the expanding BRICS partnership; and working with like-minded countries to support the ‘two-state solution’ and promote peace between Israel and Palestine and their neighbours.”

Asserting independence doesn’t mean becoming an enemy of the United States; it means being honest about what’s right for the world, refusing to be an accomplice in criminal wars any longer, and leading the US to embrace cooperative economic development as the basis for international relations.

The 17 November conference will be a milestone event for this fight: make sure you participate, in person or online.

In this week's issue: 

• US election shows Australia needs an independent foreign policy
• How a People’s Bank can solve Australia’s housing crisis
• Goodbye Australian sovereignty, hello AUKUS division
• BRICS threatens bankers’ financial ‘revolution’
• JP Morgan CEO: ‘World War III has already begun’ 
• Israeli citizens call for international sanctions on Israel
• Observations on China Trump/Harris should heed
• Posing the important questions 
• Fight with brave Aussies—Boyle and Duggan
• When Ariel Sharon ordered Israeli terrorism in Lebanon

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