The national security experts

One of the mysteries of Australian politics is that on many issues the Liberal-National Party leads with its chin and one Labor leader after another refuses to knock them out. Almost as if it might be too easy and it wouldn’t be fair. Well, I say to such Labor leaders, if you don’t want to fight, get out of the ring.

This happens so often that, eventually, it becomes received wisdom that on this issue, Labor is “weak” and the Coalition is “strong.” The Coalition loves to talk about it and Labor would rather talk about anything else. In this case I am talking about the Coalition’s favourite soft toy, “National Security.”

It may well be received wisdom but the facts don’t support it. Let’s go back to the 1930s, when the man who would become an untouchable Liberal hero, Robert Menzies, was Prime Minister. The armies of Japan were busy invading China and slaughtering and raping tens of thousands of civilians. But Menzies was happy to take their money by selling Australian pig-iron to them. It was Australian unions who tried to put a stop to this and for (not enough) years, Menzies was known as Pig Iron Bob. In no time, of course, that iron was coming back to us in the form of bombs dropped on Darwin and mini-subs in Sydney Harbour. But, by that time, we had a Labor government. You see, even though a world war was raging, the Party of National Security could not even keep itself together, never mind unite the country in the war against the Nazis.

Still, we all make mistakes and Menzies learned from his. He put his party back together, beat the National Security drum again and got back into office in 1949. He was in office forever and towards the end of his reign he made up for his failures against Fascism by leading Australia into the Vietnam War. This is frequently portrayed as a disaster for Australia and the United States, which it was. But nothing compared to the catastrophe that it was for the Vietnamese who died in their millions. And who bravely opposed this war and were vilified for it? Well, the Labor Party, of course. But who would listen to them?

Still, we all make mistakes and the Liberals learned from theirs. When they were back in office in 2001 they - with Labor support, this time - led Australia, unquestioningly, into the War against Terror. This was fantastically successful. Along with the US and their allies we invaded Afghanistan and defeated the Taliban. However, after 20 years and a trillion dollars or so, the Taliban were back in power.

But the Lib-Nats can chew gum and walk at the same time. With war in Afghanistan still raging, they led Australia into the invasion of Iraq in 2003. This was opposed by the Labor Party and by most people in Australia. Also by the UN and most of the world, for that matter. The stated reasons for the war - that Iraq possessed vast stores of chemical weapons that posed a grave threat to the West - were bollocks and soon proven to be so. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed and maimed and displaced for no reason. Still, the scale of the suffering was not well understood in the West. America and its allies, while carefully counting every wound suffered by their soldiers, made no effort to count the number of Iraqi casualties.

And this is the party that is “strong” on National Security?

I wouldn’t trust them to lock up my bike.