“The walls of the defence minister’s parliamentary office are lined with his enlarged photographs of American landmarks. Shelves are devoted to US history and politics, topped with White House memorabilia and gift-boxed flags from the Pentagon. Richard Marles’s ministerial office in Geelong displays a framed certificate signed by the then Kentucky governor when Marles was commissioned a Kentucky colonel. Heavy volumes of American history and biographies of US political and military figures travel with Marles on his flights.”

Prior to being elected to parliament, Marles worked as a lawyer and trade union official. This obsession with the USA and narrow real world experience makes him ill-suited to independent thinking about the AUKUS submarine project. 

Australian defence officials and officers may be patriots but above all they want to play with expensive toys, wear nice uniforms, and if possible get an overseas trip and postings. Like Marles, they are generally not equipped for independent thinking. In most cases they chose the military specifically to avoid having to think independently, and were promoted because of their willingness to conform!

Anthony Albanese, as Prime Minister, presently sits above them all. But, like all of these people, he hardly has a brilliant mind or wide real world experince.

Combining the limited minds of Marles, Albanese and carear security and defence officials is a recipe for “group think”. 

These people are tying Australia to a defence strategy that may cost this country dearly in the future.

As far as I can tell, nobody has been able to identify an “independent expert” who believes it possible to build AUKUS nuclear submarines in Adelaide. On the contrary, there a plenty of doubters.