Those who remember the MX missile "crisis" of the 1980s are probably bemused by several mentions in recent days nominating that incident as the last great conniption in a normally unruffled US-Australia relationship.
That's not because these MX comparisons are entirely wrong per se – although "crisis" it was not. Rather it is because of some striking parallels – albeit with reversed roles – that the controversy has with the current refugee impasse.
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Trump's phone call to 'Trunbull'
White House Press Secretary, Sean Spicer, says President Trump had a 'very cordial' conversation with the prime minister of Australia. But he gets one important detail wrong...
Back then, it was not the Americans, but a new Australian government that found its hands tied by an unpalatable secret deal – one agreed with Washington by the Fraser government.
The Bob Hawke-led ALP had come to office in 1983 on a king-tide of goodwill. But that positivity took a hit when it emerged that the centre-left prime minister had agreed to let the hawkish Ronald Reagan test-fire his MX missiles in our neck of the woods. The unarmed rockets capable of carrying nuclear warheads would be launched from California with an intended splashdown in the Tasman Sea only a couple of hundred kilometres off the Apple Isle's east coast.
The avowedly pro-ANZUS Hawke believed he had to honour the commitment from his predecessor, Malcolm Fraser.
Voters, and many Labor MPs, saw it differently. A less-fashionable idea than nuclear missile testing with the US might have been hard to find.
If the current times are notable for the rightward drift of public sentiment, fuelling a nativist backlash against free trade, multiculturalism, refugees and other progressive vanities foisted on the masses, not so in Australia in the 1980s where Thatcherism and Reaganomics were eschewed in favour of universal healthcare and the social compact.
In the end, Hawke bowed to local pressure and withdrew Australia's permission.
Turnbull is desperately hoping this is where the MX parallels end, and that Trump sticks to his word on the 1250 refugees.
While the response in Australia to Trump's telephone tantrum has ranged from the alarmist and unhinged, to more-balanced observers, the leak itself speaks to the chaos engulfing Washington.
Perhaps more worrying again is Trump's erratic amateurism, making clear he is almost impossible to deal with.
"This has obviously been a very difficult episode in the relationship," said Andrew Shearer, a Washington-based foreign policy expert and former national security adviser to both John Howard and Tony Abbott.
"It's a big deal when the details of a prime minister and presidential conversation get revealed in the media. Whenever those sensitive leader-to-leader discussions leak, it erodes mutual trust and it takes time to rebuild. The clear sense this came from the White House is even more damaging as it makes it look deliberate, It makes it look like Australia is being used as a pawn in US domestic politics."
By Friday, the opposition had wisely turned its focus to Trump rather than Turnbull: "This may surprise you, but whilst I'm not a fan of the way Mr Turnbull has been handling matters, on this one I don't. I've got some sympathy for him because quite bluntly, I don't think you can run an American-Australian alliance by Twitter ... I think Mr Trump needs to show more respect to Malcolm Turnbull and Australia than does appear has happened," Bill Shorten said from Perth.
It was a welcome advance from his Thursday call on Turnbull to reveal details of the bilateral telephone discussion.
As Parliament returns this week, both sides of politics will be considering the implications arising from the changing US relationship, a long-standing constant in Australian politics, that is suddenly in flux.
For the more clear-eyed, the advent of a resentful and inwardly turning US, will be viewed as the kind of problem that is really an opportunity in disguise – a chance for Australia to craft a foreign policy that is functionally independent, as former prime minister Paul Keating has advocated.
"This is a better society than the United States. Therefore the idea we should get around like Uriah Heep like we're some subordinate outfit that has to get a signal from abroad before we think, is of course a complete denial of everything we've created here ... I mean isn't an independent, balanced foreign policy the right answer? Or do we stay in a crouch, saying Hail Marys to the alliance," Keating told Leigh Sales in November.
It's a view that is gaining ground across the board. Even Fraser regretted the original MX agreement, admitting years later he would not do it again. Like Keating, he, too, argued for a more independent Australian foreign policy.
Meanwhile, Shearer warns against offering future Australian participation in a US security or military exercise to cement the refugee resettlement: "To offer something up explicitly now as a payoff for honouring the deal would be to play into the rough-house negotiating tactics and set us up to have it done time and again".
Sage advice in light of the Trump administration's dangerous sabre-rattling over the South China Sea.
Mark Kenny is chief political correspondent.
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