The rules of the crying game for politicians
Some shrug it off as confirmation of her humanity, others see it as emblematic of a disastrous Labour government unable to manage anything, including itself, while many secretly suspect she did it for the party room sympathy vote.
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West Australian
an hour ago
- West Australian
Nat Barr confronts senior Labor politician over PM's pointed jabs at US following multiple meeting failures with Trump
Sunrise's Nat Barr has confronted Minister for Social Services Tanya Plibersek over Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's perceived anti-Trump speech to honour wartime Labor leader John Curtin. Albanese spoke in Sydney to mark 80 years since Curtin's death, saying he would pursue Australia's national interest, even when they differ from those of the United States. Curtin was known for his resistance to pressure from the British and Americans, who wanted him to deploy troops to Burma, now Myanmar, after the fall of Singapore in World War II. The speech was widely reported as a snub to Donald Trump, with whom Albanese has consistently failed to meet following the US president's re-election in November. Meanwhile Albanese has met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping three times, with another meeting planned during a forthcoming trip to Beijing, which has raised eyebrows among political observers. Barr spoke with Plibersek and Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce on Monday, questioning the implications behind Albanese's speech. Barr asked Plibersek: 'Tanya, that was an interesting speech. It did feel like we were heading in another direction. When you have basically a conga line of defence experts lining up saying we need to be spending more on defence in this country.' Plibersek: '(Prime Minister Anthony Albanese) made the perfectly valid point that Australia, the Labor government, will always put Australian interests first.' Joyce: 'When they get a meeting with the president!' Plibersek: 'Why is that remarkable Barnaby?' Joyce: 'It is remarkable because we have been devoid of a relationship at the highest level. 'The prime minister and the president are not talking to one another in a face-to-face meeting. 'If you're going to put Australia first, you better get our defence relationship up to speed because the number one job is the protection of the Australian people. 'I didn't give that crazy speech that the Prime Minister gave at the John Curtin Institute where he said we might go our own way. With who's army? We are way behind, we have six submarines and at times, none of them work. 'We have frigates we sometimes can't find crews for. We have a defence force that is smaller in comparative power. In comparative terms, we have never been smaller against a major superpower. 'In comparative terms, not total terms.' Joyce took aim at Albanese saying Australia is moving closer to China, and further from the United States. 'This is very dangerous,' Joyce said. 'You need to understand the United States is the cornerstone of our defence relationship. It is not going well. 'This is the fourth meeting he has had with the leader of China but that is a totalitarian regime. 'Trump has not had a meeting with the prime minister yet. I'm truly concerned about that, especially while adding a review on AUKUS.' Barr asked: 'Shouldn't we make friends with China?' Joyce: 'We should but not at the expense of the US. You need to understand that we live in the realm of the western Pacific, if things go pear-shaped, we are in trouble, real trouble. 'If we have a defence policy that doesn't include the United States, we need to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on defence. We are way, way behind where we need to be.' Barr asked: 'Is the prime pinister looking for a new best friend in China?' Plibersek: 'Your question started with the assumption that there is a fraying with the United States, and nothing could be further than the truth. 'The prime minister has spoken to the president on the phone, the defence minister met his counterpart recently, the foreign affairs minister has just been in the United States recently. 'Trade ministers ... All sorts of high-level dialogue (is) constantly going on with the United States and that is as it should be. 'The United States is absolutely our foundational defence and security partner. 'The relationship is terrific. 'We also would have a good trading relationship with China, under the previous Morrison government trading relationship had smashed our agricultural sector. We have restored $20 billion of trade with China. 'It is good for our farmers and good for Barnaby and his constituents. 'I would have thought he would be welcoming the restoration of trade with the stabilisation of the relationship. 'The prime minister has constantly said we cooperate with China where we can, we disagree where we must, and that has worked out very well for Australia in recent years.' Joyce appeared to call for Australia's Ambassador to the US Kevin Rudd to go, echoing concerns that Rudd's past derogatory comments about Trump mean he can't effectively manage Australia's relationship with the US. '(The meeting failures are) not a sign of a good relationship,' Joyce said. 'If we can't extract the meeting between the prime minister and the president of the United States, we are in the background. 'I like Kevin Rudd, he's a nice guy. But he is not the ambassador for the United States. 'He needs to be moved to somewhere like the United Kingdom or France, and we have got to really work on this relationship because it is tenuous and that is dangerous, or (more) dangerous for Australia than it is for the US.' Barr asked Plibersek if Albanese's relationship with Trump is where the government wanted it to be. Plibersek replied: 'He's had multiple calls with the president.' Barr: 'One was a congratulations. I don't know whether that would count.' Plibersek: 'We were disappointed when the president needed to return quickly to Washington because the Middle East blew up. Anybody would understand the president of the United States would want to be back in Washington.' Joyce interjected: 'He talked to the prime minister of India, he just didn't talk to us.' Plibersek and Joyce also sparred over criticism of Australia's military positioning from former Australian army and navy commanders. 'The former chiefs of the army and navy say we are in worse form than we were 20 or 30 years ago. That's who you need to listen to,' Barr said. Plibersek replied: '(The Coalition) could have started this project a decade ago, under the Coalition government.'
7NEWS
2 hours ago
- 7NEWS
Nat Barr confronts senior Labor politician over PM's pointed jabs at US following multiple meeting failures with Trump
Sunrise's Nat Barr has confronted Minister for Social Services Tanya Plibersek over Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's perceived anti-Trump speech to honour wartime Labor leader John Curtin. Albanese spoke in Sydney to mark 80 years since Curtin's death, saying he would pursue Australia's national interest, even when they differ from those of the United States. Curtin was known for his resistance to pressure from the British and Americans, who wanted him to deploy troops to Burma, now Myanmar, after the fall of Singapore in World War II. The speech was widely reported as a snub to Donald Trump, with whom Albanese has consistently failed to meet following the US president's re-election in November. Meanwhile Albanese has met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping three times, with another meeting planned during a forthcoming trip to Beijing, which has raised eyebrows among political observers. Barr spoke with Plibersek and Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce on Monday, questioning the implications behind Albanese's speech. Barr asked Plibersek: 'Tanya, that was an interesting speech. It did feel like we were heading in another direction. When you have basically a conga line of defence experts lining up saying we need to be spending more on defence in this country.' Plibersek: '(Prime Minister Anthony Albanese) made the perfectly valid point that Australia, the Labor government, will always put Australian interests first.' Joyce: 'When they get a meeting with the president!' Plibersek: 'Why is that remarkable Barnaby?' Joyce: 'It is remarkable because we have been devoid of a relationship at the highest level. 'The prime minister and the president are not talking to one another in a face-to-face meeting. 'If you're going to put Australia first, you better get our defence relationship up to speed because the number one job is the protection of the Australian people. 'I didn't give that crazy speech that the Prime Minister gave at the John Curtin Institute where he said we might go our own way. With who's army? We are way behind, we have six submarines and at times, none of them work. 'We have frigates we sometimes can't find crews for. We have a defence force that is smaller in comparative power. In comparative terms, we have never been smaller against a major superpower. 'In comparative terms, not total terms.' Moving towards China Joyce took aim at Albanese saying Australia is moving closer to China, and further from the United States. 'This is very dangerous,' Joyce said. 'You need to understand the United States is the cornerstone of our defence relationship. It is not going well. 'This is the fourth meeting he has had with the leader of China but that is a totalitarian regime. 'Trump has not had a meeting with the prime minister yet. I'm truly concerned about that, especially while adding a review on AUKUS.' Barr asked: 'Shouldn't we make friends with China?' Joyce: 'We should but not at the expense of the US. You need to understand that we live in the realm of the western Pacific, if things go pear-shaped, we are in trouble, real trouble. 'If we have a defence policy that doesn't include the United States, we need to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on defence. We are way, way behind where we need to be.' Barr asked: 'Is the prime pinister looking for a new best friend in China?' Plibersek: 'Your question started with the assumption that there is a fraying with the United States, and nothing could be further than the truth. 'The prime minister has spoken to the president on the phone, the defence minister met his counterpart recently, the foreign affairs minister has just been in the United States recently. 'Trade ministers ... All sorts of high-level dialogue (is) constantly going on with the United States and that is as it should be. 'The United States is absolutely our foundational defence and security partner. 'The relationship is terrific. 'We also would have a good trading relationship with China, under the previous Morrison government trading relationship had smashed our agricultural sector. We have restored $20 billion of trade with China. 'It is good for our farmers and good for Barnaby and his constituents. 'I would have thought he would be welcoming the restoration of trade with the stabilisation of the relationship. 'The prime minister has constantly said we cooperate with China where we can, we disagree where we must, and that has worked out very well for Australia in recent years.' Ambassador under fire Joyce appeared to call for Australia's Ambassador to the US Kevin Rudd to go, echoing concerns that Rudd's past derogatory comments about Trump mean he can't effectively manage Australia's relationship with the US. '(The meeting failures are) not a sign of a good relationship,' Joyce said. 'If we can't extract the meeting between the prime minister and the president of the United States, we are in the background. 'I like Kevin Rudd, he's a nice guy. But he is not the ambassador for the United States. 'He needs to be moved to somewhere like the United Kingdom or France, and we have got to really work on this relationship because it is tenuous and that is dangerous, or (more) dangerous for Australia than it is for the US.' Relationship woes Barr asked Plibersek if Albanese's relationship with Trump is where the government wanted it to be. Plibersek replied: 'He's had multiple calls with the president.' Barr: 'One was a congratulations. I don't know whether that would count.' Plibersek: 'We were disappointed when the president needed to return quickly to Washington because the Middle East blew up. Anybody would understand the president of the United States would want to be back in Washington.' Joyce interjected: 'He talked to the prime minister of India, he just didn't talk to us.' Going backwards Plibersek and Joyce also sparred over criticism of Australia's military positioning from former Australian army and navy commanders. 'The former chiefs of the army and navy say we are in worse form than we were 20 or 30 years ago. That's who you need to listen to,' Barr said. Plibersek replied: '(The Coalition) could have started this project a decade ago, under the Coalition government.'
The Advertiser
2 hours ago
- The Advertiser
Major questions facing Australia and the West
How did you feel when Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, removed aid from the poorest people on the planet? It is a pretty searching question, right? Both for Americans and for those like Britain and Australia who are proudly America-adjacent. The words, however, are not mine. Rather, they belong to an erstwhile Conservative British prime minister, Sir John Major, who delivered a searing 2025 Sir Edward Heath Lecture last week. Ted Heath, too, had been a Conservative PM. Sir John used the occasion to pose what might be the "major" question for this terrifying historical crux. How so? I'd wager that the answer to Sir Major's ostensibly narrow question provides an answer to a much wider set of tests going to how resolutely liberal democracy stands against the resurgent competition - populist authoritarianism, military aggression, nativism and "barbarism". That is to say, what you think about axing USAID operates as a surrogate marker for a deeper public shift in which the citizens of nominal democracies seem prepared to give up on the civilisation project imperfectly pursued since WWII, quietly surrendering values like diplomacy and rules and the concept of universal human dignity. In his address, Sir Major quantified what sitting prime ministers in his country and ours, steadfastly avoid - the fast-widening gap between what we say we stand for in the West, and what we will stay silent on to ensure smooth relations and serve political self-interest, even in instances of racism and the denial of human rights. Individually as voters, and officially through our governments, our response to Sir Major's question goes a long way towards explaining the rise and burgeoning confidence of lawless bullies like Donald Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Vladimir Putin. In this, the age of impunity, Sir Major invites us to consider whether we are different from Trump's Americans or merely distant. For example, if you were unmoved by the epic callousness of his administration's new assault on the least fortunate - its "One Big Beautiful Bill" of tax breaks for billionaires while cutting welfare, you had probably been fine with the earlier closing of USAID. Unperturbed, still, as USAID's shuttering brought credible predictions of countless preventable deaths (climbing into the millions) - many of them children - in the world's most wretched, war-ravaged regions. Musk's cheery chainsaw massacre of USAID - the leading global provider of foreign development assistance, including clean water, healthcare, and vaccination against lethal diseases - thrusts him and the toxic administration he served onto the moral trajectory of history's more lethal. The West's response? Silence. Worse, fawning praise, undignified crawling, pre-emptive capitulations, gushing obedience. Yes, we will spend more on defence, Trump is assured, guaranteeing (by the way) that we, too, must cut foreign aid budgets, and even welfare programs at home. MORE MARK KENNY: Sir Major followed his rhetorical question with several more. "Is barbarianism now acceptable if the barbarian is strong enough, or the victim without friends?" he asked. "Can it be that our world is so exhausted, politics so tainted, self-interest so predominant that it has abandoned compassion? "Is might now right? Has the law, human decency, and political morality been cast aside? "Or is it, perhaps, as simple as this: that our world is now beginning to elect leaders concerned only about national self-interest? "If so, if politics leads countries to hunker down in their own little trenches of interest, ignore reason, bypass diplomacy, forego enlightened self-interest - then heaven help us all." Heaven, indeed. It is galling to witness the stunning overlap of people who simultaneously hold to Heaven as a core belief, while actively denying the most fundamental point of Jesus Christ's example: his life stood for nothing if not for care, compassion and respect for the poor, the sick, those cast out to the peripheries. Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill" is a vulgar billionaire's thumb in Christ's eye. Along with pumping billions into his deportation program, it slashes funds for things as basic as food safety-net programs, green energy, and healthcare, while cementing stonking tax cuts for the mega-wealthy. This is the country with which Australia shares so many values? The country that breaks international law without hesitation and re-drafts a felonious former president who had fomented a violent denial of his election loss. A president who openly uses high office for self-enrichment, vilifies migrants as rapists and murderers, deploys his country's military against political opponents, and commits nearly three times as many dollars to its Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportation police than to the FBI. California Governor Gavin Newsom, who had decried Trump's immigration agents "parading around masked in unmarked cars and snatching hardworking people off the streets ... just to meet indiscriminate arrest quotas," called the OBBB America's "ultimate betrayal". "Seventeen million people just lost health care, 18 million kids just lost school meals, 3 million Americans just lost food assistance, and US$3.5 trillion ($5.2 trillion) was added to the deficit, all for a tax cut to Trump's billionaire donors," he tweeted. As he puffed triumphantly on a cigar after the OBBB passed by four votes, Republican Congressman Troy Nehls gave his answer to a version of Sir Major's question. Did it concern him that Americans would lose their health care? "Oh well, just some Americans, that aren't Americans, and that is the illegals," he said. How did you feel when Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, removed aid from the poorest people on the planet? It is a pretty searching question, right? Both for Americans and for those like Britain and Australia who are proudly America-adjacent. The words, however, are not mine. Rather, they belong to an erstwhile Conservative British prime minister, Sir John Major, who delivered a searing 2025 Sir Edward Heath Lecture last week. Ted Heath, too, had been a Conservative PM. Sir John used the occasion to pose what might be the "major" question for this terrifying historical crux. How so? I'd wager that the answer to Sir Major's ostensibly narrow question provides an answer to a much wider set of tests going to how resolutely liberal democracy stands against the resurgent competition - populist authoritarianism, military aggression, nativism and "barbarism". That is to say, what you think about axing USAID operates as a surrogate marker for a deeper public shift in which the citizens of nominal democracies seem prepared to give up on the civilisation project imperfectly pursued since WWII, quietly surrendering values like diplomacy and rules and the concept of universal human dignity. In his address, Sir Major quantified what sitting prime ministers in his country and ours, steadfastly avoid - the fast-widening gap between what we say we stand for in the West, and what we will stay silent on to ensure smooth relations and serve political self-interest, even in instances of racism and the denial of human rights. Individually as voters, and officially through our governments, our response to Sir Major's question goes a long way towards explaining the rise and burgeoning confidence of lawless bullies like Donald Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Vladimir Putin. In this, the age of impunity, Sir Major invites us to consider whether we are different from Trump's Americans or merely distant. For example, if you were unmoved by the epic callousness of his administration's new assault on the least fortunate - its "One Big Beautiful Bill" of tax breaks for billionaires while cutting welfare, you had probably been fine with the earlier closing of USAID. Unperturbed, still, as USAID's shuttering brought credible predictions of countless preventable deaths (climbing into the millions) - many of them children - in the world's most wretched, war-ravaged regions. Musk's cheery chainsaw massacre of USAID - the leading global provider of foreign development assistance, including clean water, healthcare, and vaccination against lethal diseases - thrusts him and the toxic administration he served onto the moral trajectory of history's more lethal. The West's response? Silence. Worse, fawning praise, undignified crawling, pre-emptive capitulations, gushing obedience. Yes, we will spend more on defence, Trump is assured, guaranteeing (by the way) that we, too, must cut foreign aid budgets, and even welfare programs at home. MORE MARK KENNY: Sir Major followed his rhetorical question with several more. "Is barbarianism now acceptable if the barbarian is strong enough, or the victim without friends?" he asked. "Can it be that our world is so exhausted, politics so tainted, self-interest so predominant that it has abandoned compassion? "Is might now right? Has the law, human decency, and political morality been cast aside? "Or is it, perhaps, as simple as this: that our world is now beginning to elect leaders concerned only about national self-interest? "If so, if politics leads countries to hunker down in their own little trenches of interest, ignore reason, bypass diplomacy, forego enlightened self-interest - then heaven help us all." Heaven, indeed. It is galling to witness the stunning overlap of people who simultaneously hold to Heaven as a core belief, while actively denying the most fundamental point of Jesus Christ's example: his life stood for nothing if not for care, compassion and respect for the poor, the sick, those cast out to the peripheries. Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill" is a vulgar billionaire's thumb in Christ's eye. Along with pumping billions into his deportation program, it slashes funds for things as basic as food safety-net programs, green energy, and healthcare, while cementing stonking tax cuts for the mega-wealthy. This is the country with which Australia shares so many values? The country that breaks international law without hesitation and re-drafts a felonious former president who had fomented a violent denial of his election loss. A president who openly uses high office for self-enrichment, vilifies migrants as rapists and murderers, deploys his country's military against political opponents, and commits nearly three times as many dollars to its Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportation police than to the FBI. California Governor Gavin Newsom, who had decried Trump's immigration agents "parading around masked in unmarked cars and snatching hardworking people off the streets ... just to meet indiscriminate arrest quotas," called the OBBB America's "ultimate betrayal". "Seventeen million people just lost health care, 18 million kids just lost school meals, 3 million Americans just lost food assistance, and US$3.5 trillion ($5.2 trillion) was added to the deficit, all for a tax cut to Trump's billionaire donors," he tweeted. As he puffed triumphantly on a cigar after the OBBB passed by four votes, Republican Congressman Troy Nehls gave his answer to a version of Sir Major's question. Did it concern him that Americans would lose their health care? "Oh well, just some Americans, that aren't Americans, and that is the illegals," he said. How did you feel when Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, removed aid from the poorest people on the planet? It is a pretty searching question, right? Both for Americans and for those like Britain and Australia who are proudly America-adjacent. The words, however, are not mine. Rather, they belong to an erstwhile Conservative British prime minister, Sir John Major, who delivered a searing 2025 Sir Edward Heath Lecture last week. Ted Heath, too, had been a Conservative PM. Sir John used the occasion to pose what might be the "major" question for this terrifying historical crux. How so? I'd wager that the answer to Sir Major's ostensibly narrow question provides an answer to a much wider set of tests going to how resolutely liberal democracy stands against the resurgent competition - populist authoritarianism, military aggression, nativism and "barbarism". That is to say, what you think about axing USAID operates as a surrogate marker for a deeper public shift in which the citizens of nominal democracies seem prepared to give up on the civilisation project imperfectly pursued since WWII, quietly surrendering values like diplomacy and rules and the concept of universal human dignity. In his address, Sir Major quantified what sitting prime ministers in his country and ours, steadfastly avoid - the fast-widening gap between what we say we stand for in the West, and what we will stay silent on to ensure smooth relations and serve political self-interest, even in instances of racism and the denial of human rights. Individually as voters, and officially through our governments, our response to Sir Major's question goes a long way towards explaining the rise and burgeoning confidence of lawless bullies like Donald Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Vladimir Putin. In this, the age of impunity, Sir Major invites us to consider whether we are different from Trump's Americans or merely distant. For example, if you were unmoved by the epic callousness of his administration's new assault on the least fortunate - its "One Big Beautiful Bill" of tax breaks for billionaires while cutting welfare, you had probably been fine with the earlier closing of USAID. Unperturbed, still, as USAID's shuttering brought credible predictions of countless preventable deaths (climbing into the millions) - many of them children - in the world's most wretched, war-ravaged regions. Musk's cheery chainsaw massacre of USAID - the leading global provider of foreign development assistance, including clean water, healthcare, and vaccination against lethal diseases - thrusts him and the toxic administration he served onto the moral trajectory of history's more lethal. The West's response? Silence. Worse, fawning praise, undignified crawling, pre-emptive capitulations, gushing obedience. Yes, we will spend more on defence, Trump is assured, guaranteeing (by the way) that we, too, must cut foreign aid budgets, and even welfare programs at home. MORE MARK KENNY: Sir Major followed his rhetorical question with several more. "Is barbarianism now acceptable if the barbarian is strong enough, or the victim without friends?" he asked. "Can it be that our world is so exhausted, politics so tainted, self-interest so predominant that it has abandoned compassion? "Is might now right? Has the law, human decency, and political morality been cast aside? "Or is it, perhaps, as simple as this: that our world is now beginning to elect leaders concerned only about national self-interest? "If so, if politics leads countries to hunker down in their own little trenches of interest, ignore reason, bypass diplomacy, forego enlightened self-interest - then heaven help us all." Heaven, indeed. It is galling to witness the stunning overlap of people who simultaneously hold to Heaven as a core belief, while actively denying the most fundamental point of Jesus Christ's example: his life stood for nothing if not for care, compassion and respect for the poor, the sick, those cast out to the peripheries. Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill" is a vulgar billionaire's thumb in Christ's eye. Along with pumping billions into his deportation program, it slashes funds for things as basic as food safety-net programs, green energy, and healthcare, while cementing stonking tax cuts for the mega-wealthy. This is the country with which Australia shares so many values? The country that breaks international law without hesitation and re-drafts a felonious former president who had fomented a violent denial of his election loss. A president who openly uses high office for self-enrichment, vilifies migrants as rapists and murderers, deploys his country's military against political opponents, and commits nearly three times as many dollars to its Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportation police than to the FBI. California Governor Gavin Newsom, who had decried Trump's immigration agents "parading around masked in unmarked cars and snatching hardworking people off the streets ... just to meet indiscriminate arrest quotas," called the OBBB America's "ultimate betrayal". "Seventeen million people just lost health care, 18 million kids just lost school meals, 3 million Americans just lost food assistance, and US$3.5 trillion ($5.2 trillion) was added to the deficit, all for a tax cut to Trump's billionaire donors," he tweeted. As he puffed triumphantly on a cigar after the OBBB passed by four votes, Republican Congressman Troy Nehls gave his answer to a version of Sir Major's question. Did it concern him that Americans would lose their health care? "Oh well, just some Americans, that aren't Americans, and that is the illegals," he said. How did you feel when Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, removed aid from the poorest people on the planet? It is a pretty searching question, right? Both for Americans and for those like Britain and Australia who are proudly America-adjacent. The words, however, are not mine. Rather, they belong to an erstwhile Conservative British prime minister, Sir John Major, who delivered a searing 2025 Sir Edward Heath Lecture last week. Ted Heath, too, had been a Conservative PM. Sir John used the occasion to pose what might be the "major" question for this terrifying historical crux. How so? I'd wager that the answer to Sir Major's ostensibly narrow question provides an answer to a much wider set of tests going to how resolutely liberal democracy stands against the resurgent competition - populist authoritarianism, military aggression, nativism and "barbarism". That is to say, what you think about axing USAID operates as a surrogate marker for a deeper public shift in which the citizens of nominal democracies seem prepared to give up on the civilisation project imperfectly pursued since WWII, quietly surrendering values like diplomacy and rules and the concept of universal human dignity. In his address, Sir Major quantified what sitting prime ministers in his country and ours, steadfastly avoid - the fast-widening gap between what we say we stand for in the West, and what we will stay silent on to ensure smooth relations and serve political self-interest, even in instances of racism and the denial of human rights. Individually as voters, and officially through our governments, our response to Sir Major's question goes a long way towards explaining the rise and burgeoning confidence of lawless bullies like Donald Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Vladimir Putin. In this, the age of impunity, Sir Major invites us to consider whether we are different from Trump's Americans or merely distant. For example, if you were unmoved by the epic callousness of his administration's new assault on the least fortunate - its "One Big Beautiful Bill" of tax breaks for billionaires while cutting welfare, you had probably been fine with the earlier closing of USAID. Unperturbed, still, as USAID's shuttering brought credible predictions of countless preventable deaths (climbing into the millions) - many of them children - in the world's most wretched, war-ravaged regions. Musk's cheery chainsaw massacre of USAID - the leading global provider of foreign development assistance, including clean water, healthcare, and vaccination against lethal diseases - thrusts him and the toxic administration he served onto the moral trajectory of history's more lethal. The West's response? Silence. Worse, fawning praise, undignified crawling, pre-emptive capitulations, gushing obedience. Yes, we will spend more on defence, Trump is assured, guaranteeing (by the way) that we, too, must cut foreign aid budgets, and even welfare programs at home. MORE MARK KENNY: Sir Major followed his rhetorical question with several more. "Is barbarianism now acceptable if the barbarian is strong enough, or the victim without friends?" he asked. "Can it be that our world is so exhausted, politics so tainted, self-interest so predominant that it has abandoned compassion? "Is might now right? Has the law, human decency, and political morality been cast aside? "Or is it, perhaps, as simple as this: that our world is now beginning to elect leaders concerned only about national self-interest? "If so, if politics leads countries to hunker down in their own little trenches of interest, ignore reason, bypass diplomacy, forego enlightened self-interest - then heaven help us all." Heaven, indeed. It is galling to witness the stunning overlap of people who simultaneously hold to Heaven as a core belief, while actively denying the most fundamental point of Jesus Christ's example: his life stood for nothing if not for care, compassion and respect for the poor, the sick, those cast out to the peripheries. Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill" is a vulgar billionaire's thumb in Christ's eye. Along with pumping billions into his deportation program, it slashes funds for things as basic as food safety-net programs, green energy, and healthcare, while cementing stonking tax cuts for the mega-wealthy. This is the country with which Australia shares so many values? The country that breaks international law without hesitation and re-drafts a felonious former president who had fomented a violent denial of his election loss. A president who openly uses high office for self-enrichment, vilifies migrants as rapists and murderers, deploys his country's military against political opponents, and commits nearly three times as many dollars to its Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportation police than to the FBI. California Governor Gavin Newsom, who had decried Trump's immigration agents "parading around masked in unmarked cars and snatching hardworking people off the streets ... just to meet indiscriminate arrest quotas," called the OBBB America's "ultimate betrayal". "Seventeen million people just lost health care, 18 million kids just lost school meals, 3 million Americans just lost food assistance, and US$3.5 trillion ($5.2 trillion) was added to the deficit, all for a tax cut to Trump's billionaire donors," he tweeted. As he puffed triumphantly on a cigar after the OBBB passed by four votes, Republican Congressman Troy Nehls gave his answer to a version of Sir Major's question. Did it concern him that Americans would lose their health care? "Oh well, just some Americans, that aren't Americans, and that is the illegals," he said.
