Disappointments

It's not the first disappointing demo I've attended  but it was a significant disappointment.   It was held as the local Canberra event, the No to AUKUS Rally for the National action week against AUKIS, 8.30am outside Parliament House.  Some of the same faces were there, although not a member I had jsut met the night before.  He actually didn't know of it so I wonder how effective was the advertising.  There were four speakers and they all spoke well, Sen.  David Shoebridge (Greens), a Palestinian student (Lena), unionist Arthur Rorris from Port Kembla, Sue Wareham and David Perkins (IPAN).  They all spoke well; Arthur Rorris spectacularly well.  There's plenty of informed discussion on the likely failure of AUKUS, of rising costs and lack of planning or that current bugbear, lost sovereignty, or crowding out expenditure and concerns on climate, housing and more and an interesting view of AUKUS as a lead to US nuclear submarine bases and nuclear storage in Australia.  Of course, the future is hard to predict but the argument seemed reasonable given recently established bases for US Marines and B52s in the North and the likelihood that the US won't have enough subs to sell us.  In the meantime, do we pay for construction of bases and subs?  Of course, we know so little of all this, as did Labor when they signed on after only 2 hours with marketer Morrison.  And did he have something to sell!  Think "I don't think, I know".  Not that I know but it seems pretty clear to me that AUKUS is a costly shocker so I was there even if very few others were.

IPAN Canberra held a NO to AUKUS rally at Parliament House as part of the National Action Week against AUKUS.