What a stuff up!
The Solomon Islands entering a security agreement with the Chinese Government has all the ring of the fiasco of the signing of the Darwin Port agreement with a Chinese company with very close ties to the Chinese Government.
The pattern for both agreements from an Australia point of view is remarkable similar, probably best called the ‘do nothing syndrome’.
DFAT in the Solomon Islands had people telling Canberra that something was up. It took a leaked document out the Solomon Islands’ Government to get the issue running, but it was too late. But the point is that Canberra DFAT had the information.
DFAT had the responsibility of looking at the Darwin Port lease to a Chinese Government. Just got the tick and flick without any real appraisal or apparent understanding of the issue.
In both cases someone was asleep at the wheel, well and truly.
What to do?
How about start talking about the DFAT Secretary and the Foreign Affairs Minister taking responsibility and stepping down?
The second part of this Chinese story is that they invest in dysfunctional states that are going to fail.
The latest example is Sri Lanka. A huge Chinese Government loan, a Chinese security port and now a failing public administration. What next? Perhaps the in between question to ask is where is Sri Lanka in relation to Australia and India and our respective trade routes?
Where is the Solomon Islands in relation to Australia and the United States and our respective trade routes?
In the middle of an election campaign for our Federal Parliament, this is the real issue along with energy costs.
Oops!
The construction industry is a major component of the Australian economy. There is a shortage of houses and the ability to construct housing over the past two years has been difficult, but it is about to hit a brick wall, or as some might say, become a train wreck.
Forty percent of Australian softwood timber supplies for certain aspects of the construction industry comes from Russia. These aspects have to do with forming works for slab construction.
Four years ago Australia was relatively self-sufficient in these timbers. Two things occurred. Loss of stock through bushfires in softwood plantations which will take 40 years to replace if they are replanted. Then there is the issue of energy costs. In the last two to three years energy costs have risen to such an extent that the plants processing timber for the construction industry have closed. Instead, the timber started to be purchased overseas as it was now cheaper.
Could native forest timbers be used in place of softwood? Yes, they could with some industry re-tooling which would fill some of the demands of the construction industry and keep jobs and industry working. But Western Australia and Queensland have closed native forestry. Victoria is close to doing the same and the NSW bureaucracy in the EPA are very keen to follow suit but there is no political will to do so within the current Government. A change of Government would likely see native forestry close in NSW.
If you look at the rhetoric and writing of the public servants in regard to energy production and native forest timber production, you eventually arrive at the two word slogan seen everywhere to cover everything that is complicated and needs careful analysis: ‘climate change’. The explanation for everything and possibly the destruction of everything. Historians may well write that it will be the name given to the greatest example of incompetent public administration seen since Philip sailed into Botany Bay.
