il Duce' as Minister of Defence?  Yea, gods, no.  He'd want defence to invade Indonesia the first chance he got.  He'd install his sycophants and Defence would be a disaster for at least a decade.  Tsk, tsk. 

Good. Dutton would join the Papuans, Philipinos, Timorese, Melanesian Islands, Balinese and Indigenous Indos against the Indonesian Moslems when the time soon comes.

Hail Australia's Himmler!

No longer hypothetical. Let's see what the future brings.

Belgarion wrote on Mar 30^th, 2021 at 11:45am:



I think Dutton will sort them out.    I am far from a Liberal Supporter but in this case the right choice has been made.     In his previous portfolio, Dutton had a huge amount of power, and could basically do want he liked.  I see defence as a lessening of that power, but an increase in status.    He will need to get in on the ground running and be prepared to shirtfront the bosses of the services - it won't be easy and he had better be prepared to stand his ground.  I just hope the Defence Secretary is of similar attitude with the mandarins that head the public service side of defence.     There needs to be an absolute clean out of both sides.

The Morrison government’s decision to establish a missile manufacturing industry is one of our nation’s most important strategic decisions in decades.

Of course, we have to be watchful of the distance between announcement and delivery. But the government is proceeding with real urgency. That is fantastic, for nothing has been more lacking in defence over the past 15 years than urgency.

Peter Dutton has a chance to be a significant defence minister after a long trail of spectacularly unimpressive defence minister performances. Since Kevin Rudd’s election in 2007 we have had as defence minister Joel Fitzgibbon, John Faulkner, Stephen Smith, David Johnston, Kevin Andrews, Marise Payne, Christopher Pyne, Linda Reynolds and now Dutton.

Poor fellow, my country. That’s nine defence ministers in 14 years. That’s nuts.

Some of those ministers were capable but were in the job for only five minutes. Defence policy was at its worst under Rudd and Julia Gillard. Defence spending fell to its all-time historic low, not a single Australian ship was commissioned and nothing was done towards getting new submarines.

Tony Abbott’s biggest single mistake was appointing Johnston as defence minister, just as Morrison’s biggest mistake was appointing Reynolds. Both of them good people, neither was remotely up to the job. Their political failures became policy failures. Importantly, neither had any capacity to draw a national debate, or a defence program, back to order if it went awry.

To appoint such ineffective people to such a critically important position reflects poorly on the prime ministers who made those appointments.

Still, the past is a foreign country and, as Lenin had it, the only question that counts is: what is to be done?

Should Morrison win re-election it would be a good thing for the nation if Dutton settled in to defence for at least another full parliamentary term. Defence could certainly do with a strong minister who stayed in place for several years.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/what-peter-dutton-needs-to-do-as-defence-minister/news-story/2eaa685542b0e382a800cabe5f7ff731

Vic wrote on Mar 30^th, 2021 at 1:24pm:

You are right.




“My message is we are getting back to business. That business is more important than ever, and that business is to keep Australia safe and secure.”

Mr Dutton said he had told the Chief of the Defence Force Angus Campbell and the secretary of his department, Greg Moriarty, in their first meeting following his late-March appointment, to provide all available support to the troops and get major procurement programs back on track.

“There are priorities that we will focus on which will make it very clear to our troops that the government has their back,” he said.





Dutton is right to say they represent the best of our nation. They do not exist as an arm of exemplary social policy. They are not required to be the wokest force on the planet.  They are required to master the application of deadly force to protect the peace.  The combination of their character, their courage, their training and their equipment needs to deter those who would do us harm. This is the clearest statement of purpose a defence minister has made in a long time.


Just so.

Vietnam proved that Conscription is a non-event for Australian society, unless Australia is facing an existential crisis.  Conscripts did quite well in that war but the people back home didn't like the idea of their sons being sent off to possibly die in a foreign war that was really no concern of Australia.  They were unable to vote to for their their fates.  This of course led to the voting age being reduced to 18, rather than 21.  Conscription is such a thorny subject no major Australian Political Party would touch it with a six foot pole.  Il Duce' Dutton is a lunatic but even he would be prevented from trying it by Scotty from Marketing.