Can the Assange question tip toward a more independent foreign policy for Australia?

planet is now so fantastically hot that lakes and rivers and seas will shortly start to evaporate? If you don’t and you shouldn’t because it’s baloney then you should not use a phrase like global boiling Indeed one professor of climate physics rebuked Guterres mildly of course for starting to depart from the underlying scientific evidence Indeed Earth is not boiling, and we shouldn t say that it is

There are other reasons to be sceptical of the boiling hysteria Yes the weather is hot in parts of Europe but there have been heatwaves throughout history long before the dawn of industry What s more the Greek government says that most of the 667 fires it has experienced over the sweaty past fortnight were started by human hand So those ferocious flames gleefully described by our green elites as Mother Nature’s punishment of mankind were mainly the handiwork of arsonists Then there s the fact that cold weather kills far more people than hot weather Will the chilly winter months in which numerous old people will perish be described by Guterres and his apostles as a global freezing, a New Ice Age? Of course not There are no propaganda points, no opportunities for modernity-bashing in fearmongering over cold weather

Let s be clear: global boiling is not a factual or scientific phrase Rather it represents yet another ramping up of the green politics of fear It s the latest addition to the already fat dictionary of eco-dread Economic inflation isn t the only problem we face today – there’s threat inflation, too The catastrophism of climate change in particular is puffed up on pretty much a weekly basis This is why we’ve gone from climate change to climate crisis to climate emergency And it s why we re now going from global warming to global boiling Language is used to terrorise the masses, to snap us out of our supposed apathetic coolness on the issue of climate change and force us to agree with the cranky elites that the end really is nigh and it’s our fault

As the Washington Post said in its coverage of the global boiling edict apocalyptic superlatives can be useful in underlining the importance of [this] issue This is a familiar tactic of eco-propagandists

A few years ago, Extinction Rebellion protested outside the offices of the New York Times to put pressure on it to dump the passive phrase ‘climate change’ in preference for the panic-inducing ‘climate emergency Linguistic experts have cheered the media s embrace of catastrophic language because apparently fretful terminology can help to convey to the public an increasingly urgent threat They’re trying to manipulate us They are using the grammar of Armageddon to cajole us into compliance with the green narrative and its demands for sacrifice in everyday life As I argue in my new book

A Heretic s Manifesto they want to coerce us into the realm of doom by making us think less about climate change and more about climate chaos, climate disaster, even climate apocalypse’

It is imperative that we resist this linguistic authoritarianism ‘Global boiling’ isn’t only a ridiculous phrase – it is also an insult to truth reason and us That such a fact-lite post-scientific hysterical phrase has been used by the UN the activist set and the media elites is a reminder that they see the rest of us, the little people, as malleable creatures to be marched this way and that by scary words and warnings of a boiling anger we should feel for

The US has assumed for many decades that it can tell Australia what to do Is the Assange question a moment when the balance will tip once again toward a more independent foreign polic y? Only time will tell among its support base on the Assange question In fact this disquiet may be found across political parties in Australia and is shared widely by the Australian population

After all, Julian Assange is an Australian citizen being pursued by the “long-arm jurisdiction” of the US In this respect the current leadership in Canberra seems to be feeling the pressure

Second there is the question of the nuclear submarine deal, which was the initial official reason for the AUKUS pact The deal has turned out to mean that Australia pays hundreds of billions of dollars for a US submarine base in Australia While the politicians in Canberra are still holding the line and saying they support AUKUS and the submarine deal the sheer amount of money - torn out of basic services such as medicine and education - is increasingly unpopular among the Australian public One suspects that some within the Labor Party are increasingly uneasy about the deal

AT a press conference on Saturday, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong said that “we have made clear our view that Mr Assange s case has dragged for too long and our desire that it be brought to a conclusion As reported in The Guardian, she went on to say that there were limits to what could be achieved in talks between governments until Mr Assange’s processes have concluded ” In a diplomatic setting these are surprisingly sharp and direct words even more so when we bear in mind that this was a joint press conference with the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken along with the defense ministers from Australia and the US The meeting between the four government ministers is known as Australia-US Ministerial Consultations (Ausmin) and takes place regularly The meeting on Saturday was mostly focused on military matters including a military base for US and UK submarines - in Australia and paid for by Australia In this context the verbiage concerning close ties and cooperation between the two countries was undone by the direct comment by Penny Wong concerning Julian Assange

This was not the first time the Assange question has been raised In fact, the Labor government in Canberra made its position clear not long after it commenced in May 2022 Since June 17 2022 the website of the Australian Government s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has carried a statement saying that Assange s case should be brought to a close and that we will continue to express this view to the governments of the United Kingdom and United States ” It is now on public record that the Australian side has pressed this point on numerous occasions

To return to Penny Wong’s statement at the press conference on Saturday she reiterated the well-known position that Assange s case has gone on for too long and that it should be brought to a close Of more interest is her observation that until the Assange question is resolved there are limits to what can be achieved in talks between the two governments

Clearly, a rift is emerging between Australia and the US on the Assange question How should we understand this rift? There are a number of aspects and they are not mutually exclusive First there is increasing disquiet within the Labor Party and

Third, the fact that the Assange question was raised during a meeting that was supposedly focused on military matters leads me to suggest that raising the question may be a diversion tactic Such a tactic is an old trick of political parties in Western countries: In the face of an unpopular decision, politicians will say look over there to divert attention In this case, the Labor government may be trying to divert attention from an unpopular AUKUS pact by raising the Assange question It may be a way of saying to the public: “We are ‘progressive ’ look at what we are doing for Julian Assange

Fourth to go a step further let us focus on Penny Wong s statement that there are distinct limits as to what can be achieved in Australia-US talks until the Assange question is resolved One suspects that Labor government leaders may see the AUKUS pact as leverage to gain the release of Assange Stall the talks refuse to agree until Assange is released If so this is a significant move

Finally the larger picture is that the Labor government in Canberra is caught in some serious contradictions On the one hand, the Australian Labor Party has a history of trying to chart a more independent foreign policy that is in Australia’s interest; on the other hand, the US has assumed for many decades that it can tell Australia what to do Is the Assange question a moment when the balance will tip once again toward a more independent foreign policy? Only time will tell

The author is a Marxist scholar from Australia overseas talent professor in the School of Philosophy at Renmin University of China and on the editorial board of the Australian Marxist Review