Former deputy prime minister Kim Beazley has warned Australia risks becoming an outsider if it elects One Nation.
It’s been 20 years since he lost Labor’s federal leadership and announced he was quitting politics. So, does Beazley still miss it?
“Only every day,” Australia’s former Ambassador to the US told 7NEWS podcast The Issue.
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What fires him up about politics today is One Nation’s recent rise in polls.
If the numbers hold to the next election, Hanson’s party would be well placed for at least a role in government.
“(It) would be a total disaster for us. We would be risking becoming a pariah,” he says.
The 77-year-old has pointed to the message he says One Nation’s success sends in Australia’s region.
“You see two billion people who, in the course of the immigration debate, have been routinely insulted by One Nation,” he says.
He warns if Australia opts for political extremes, then: “We’ve had it. Any country that gets that, has had it.”
Beazley has also defended Australia committing hundreds of billions of dollars to the AUKUS partnership with the UK and US, confirming as Defence Minister and Ambassador, he held talks years ago to buy America’s Virginia nuclear powered submarines
“I tried a couple of times informally to get from the Americans and they told me to put it in my pipe and smoke it, that they’re the crown jewels, they’d never let us anywhere near them,” he says.
Australia is due to get the first of up to five subs in the early 2030s, if the US president approves their transfer.
Many doubt they’ll ever be sent and see AUKUS as trading away Australia’s sovereignty, including Beazley’s old boss.
“We don’t need to be basically a pair of shoes hanging out of the American backside,” former prime minister Paul Keating said.
“AUKUS is a terrible deal. It is so unfair to Australia,” former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull said.
“It is major league security worth trying to get,” he says.
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