It's barely 75 years since the most significant event in Australian foreign policy making – not that anyone noticed.
On December 27, 1941, with Japanese forces pouring south and Australia under threat, Labor Prime Minister John Curtin wrote: "Without any inhibitions of any kind, I make it quite clear that Australia looks to America, free of any pangs as to our traditional links or kinship with the United Kingdom."
This appeal to the US marked a decisive shift in an Australian foreign policy which had been closely tied to the apron strings of the "mother country", Britain, since Federation.
As Curtin wrote in the Melbourne Herald: "We know the problems that the United Kingdom faces. We know the constant threat of invasion. We know the dangers of dispersal of strength, but we know too, that Australia can go and Britain can still hold on."
Curtin's foreign policy shift led to the wartime stationing of US forces in Australia under the command of General Douglas MacArthur and the signing of the ANZUS Treaty. From that point, Australian troops fought alongside American soldiers in just about every conflict, including Korea, Vietnam, the two Gulf Wars and Afghanistan.
Beyond other distractions, the anniversary of Curtin turning to Washington should remind Canberra that – although Australia is not facing the threat of invasion – the extraordinary ructions in America, Asia and Europe mean that at a time of dramatic change we need to be focused on the main, global game.
Sussan Ley, embattled Health Minister wasn't thinking about the global order this week but she hit the mark when she labelled yet another politicians' expenses scandal, in which she is the epicentre, a "distraction".
As Australians read headlines about politicians' use of the public purse to fund thinly camouflaged private jaunts, their attention was distracted from the most extraordinary events, and amazing scenes, occurring around the world.
It's hard to know where to begin. But try this: just days away from assuming the US Presidency, Donald Trump acknowledged the Russians cyber-hacked the Democratic Party during the presidential election campaign to influence the result, but at the same time denounced his own intelligence agencies.
The target of his denunciation is the revelation of a seven-months-old document, which included explosive, unsubstantiated accounts of Trumpian frolics with prostitutes, real estate deals that were intended as bribes and co-ordination with Russian intelligence in the hacking of Democrats. Paradoxically, these claims were summarised for Mr Trump and outgoing US President Barack Obama by their own intelligence agency.
President-elect Trump's attack followed the public release by BuzzFeed, an on-line news site, of the offending 35-page dossier which was boiled down in the CIA appendix. It was originally assembled by Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer working for a private investigation company, and detailed the allegations that Trump had been effectively suborned by Vladimir Putin's agents.
According to The New York Times, the consequences of the document's claims and Trump's attack are "incalculable" and will reverberate "long past" his January 20 inauguration.
Just imagine someone from another era – say, the height of the Cold War in the '50s – being cryogenically frozen, then emerging in 2017 to hear the CIA has concluded that Russia tried to game the US Presidential election, that the winner wants to cosy up to the Russian leader and has even denounced his own intelligence agencies. And, for good measure, the winner's own secretary of state and defence secretary (presumptive) publicly contradicted him.
You want more amazing scenes? How about Trump's nominee for Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, proposing to prevent the Chinese from accessing their artificially constructed islands in the South China Sea. This area hosts more than half the world's shipping tonnage and is also a potentially explosive centre of competing territorial claims. And the US is Australia's number one alliance partner.
Beyond any fallout from increased US-China tension, Tillerson's threat to deny China access to islands in the South China Sea could lead to a Trump-led administration asking Australia to take part in joint naval patrols in contested waters – an idea re-enforced by Trump's incoming defence secretary, James "Mad Dog" Mattis, who said the US should rely more on its partners in the region. So Canberra may well get requests for the increased stationing of US troops on Australian soil, plus more regular, lengthy stays by American naval ships in Australian ports.
And yet, these unprecedented events in the global order struggle for local attention alongside yet another politicians' expenses scandal – that has typically hit the headlines as Australians holiday during a long, hot summer.
But there is a global connection. The local expenses scandal is fanning similar sentiments of resentment to those behind the upending of polls and forecasts in the UK Brexit result and Trump's November 8 US Presidential election boilover and will do in countless elections across the Northern Hemisphere in 2017.
A nativist wave will doubtless be expressed in a higher One Nation vote in the March 17 Western Australia state election, and more so in the state election scheduled in Queensland next year.
For some voters the problem is there's just too much going on – Trump, Brexit, refugees, Putin, oh, and the expenses scandal. It's "the full catastrophe", as Zorba the Greek once put it.
AFR Contributor
