GREG BARNS SC. HOBART, MELBOURNE, BRISBANE, PERTH, AUSTRALIA. TUESDAY, MARCH 3, 2026. On Thursday this week (Australian time) Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney will address the Australian parliament in Canberra. He is the first to do so in nearly 20 years. Mr. Carney is meeting with his center left counterpart Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. There is much in common between Mr. Carney’s Liberals and Mr. Albanese’s Australian Labor Party (ALP), although the latter’s strong ties to the union movement give a feel of the NDP at times.

But while both Australia and Canda are middle powers Mr. Carney seems to understand what that means. Sadly Mr Albanese and his government do not.

When Mr. Carney delivered his widely praised speech in Davos a few weeks ago about middle powers combining in an unstable world, it was noted by some Australian commentators that it was not a speech Mr. Albanese could give – one big reason being Australia’s continued love affair with Washington.

As Michael Koziol wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald on 21 January Mr Carney’s Davos rhetoric and meaning was ‘not a speech that Anthony Albanese could have given. It is not his style, for one – but moreover, it runs counter to what Labor is doing, which is drawing closer to the US at a time when the world is starting to hedge its bets.’

What Mr. Koziol is referring to is the Albanese government’s insanely dangerous and expensive decision – $A368 million for a few submarines delivered over the next few decades – to join, with the US and the UK, in a China continment strategy called AUKUS.

Why, one wonders would Australia, who’s biggest trading partner is China, want to be key link in the US’s determination to be the only, or the dominant, super power in the Asia Pacific region.

AUKUS has been roundly criticized by most of the ALP grandees. The former Prime Minister Paul Keating, in office from 1991 until 1996, has said of AUKUS it “is arguably the worst international decision by an Australian government since the former Labor leader, Billy Hughes, sought to introduce conscription to augment Australian forces in World War One”. He has also said that “what’s happened … is likely to turn Australia into the 51st state of the United States”.

Gareth Evans, perhaps the most capable Foreign Affairs Minister in recent Australian history and who was in the job for almost a decade to 1996 has written on influential commentary site Pearls and Irritations that ‘AUKUS has been problematic from the outset, in terms of its deliverability, cost-benefit, and implications for our sovereign decision-making agency, ‘ and that ‘the crazy irony of the whole project has always been that it commits Australia to spending eye-watering amounts to build a capability supposed to defend us from military threats which are in fact most likely to arise simply because we have that capability – and are using it to support the US in some conflict not in our interests to engage, without any guarantee of support in return should we ever need it.’

Australia is therefore not a genuine middle power and AUKUS tells you why. As does the Albanese government’s timidity over upsetting the pro Netanyahu elements of the Israel lobby in Australia. This nation has refused to join other middle powers like Ireland, Belgium, Spain and South Africa in condemning unreservedly Israel for its genocide in Gaza.

And on the illegal ‘regime change’ operation run by Israel and it’s lackey the Trump Administration, Mr Albanese and his foreign minister Penny Wong have been cheerleaders for this Middle East madness led by a war criminal in Netanyahu and a crook in Trump.

Australia in summary, is too scared to offend Washington whether its President Trump or a saner person in the White House. It is more wedded to Washington and London than to Dublin, Ottawa or Madrid, let alone Beijing and Delhi.

Perhaps while they are together Mr Carney and Mr Albanese might also like to discuss why both nations have an English person as their Head of State. Mr Albanese, in his usual ineffectual way, has ruled out another Republic Referendum (the last was in 1999 which I ran for Malcom Turnbull who became Prime Minister in 2016 – the referendum was lost), despite the golden opportunity presented by the stench of the House of Windsor personified by the erstwhile Prince Andrew.

But above all, for Australia’s sake, let’s hope Mr Carney puts some spine in Mr Albanese’s back. The latter was apparently miffed that it was suggested he could not give a ‘Carney speech’. Well here’s the chance to prove Australians who wish for a more independent nation turning towards the Asian region rather than tugging Washington’s apron springs, wrong. If that happens then we will have Mr Carney to thank.

Greg Barns is former political adviser to Australian governments and was Chair of the Australian Republican Movement from 2000-2002.