A Letter From Australia Nr 1
Dear reader,
I have been meaning to write this letter for some time, to let you all know that we have not forgotten the ‘old world’ even though we are now living on the other side of the world. Also, to let you know that the central values that were imbibed into us through either being born over there, or our direct ancestors were born over there, are still important to us and they have passed those things onto us, and those values are still strong within us.
Australia, unlike Europe and the UK, has a particular set of issues that must be addressed in the near future. One of the first things is that we have to realise that we are, essentially, a European nation that finds itself slap bang in the middle of Southeast Asia, with neighbors that we simply have to get along with.
You all have some notion of what I am referring to. You all have to deal with the differing attitudes, beliefs and cultures of your European neighbors. That’s not even taking account of the Russian debacle in Ukraine. Malcolm Fraser, one of our delightful Prime Ministers in the 1980’s once proclaimed to the people, “Life wasn’t meant to be easy!” He was about to drop a load on us all and that was all he had to offer! Anyway, we now have a Prime Minister that apparently actually means what he says; this is such an unusual phenomenon that the people can hardly believe it. One of the first things that he has done is make great inroads into mending the mess that our last government made in relations to China. We must be grateful that the New Government is truly trying to keep us all safe!
Our country has recently signed a new agreement with the United States of America and the United Kingdom, to jointly provide us with some nuclear powered submarines. Notice the words nuclear powered. There are no nuclear weapons on board, of course there will always be the usual ‘nay-sayers’ who make ridiculous claims about the vessels; the introduction of the submarines will, however, supply us with knowledge and a possible deterrent to any prospective aggressors in the future, not to mention the jobs involved. We would be foolish to rely completely on our allies to come to our rescue in the face of any kind of warfare. Our alliances however are between us, New Zealand, Japan and India – maybe later we will be able to add to that list!
Well dear reader, that is my first attempt. I do hope you are safe, healthy and happy.
Sincerely Yours
Mike
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