Did Albanese really champion Australian independence?

Written by: Nick G. on 7 July 2025

In his John Curtin Oration on July 5, PM Albanese is said to have invoked the WW2 Labor PM John Curtin to call for an “Australian Way” independent of pressure from certain great powers.

There is certainly a growing sentiment for greater independence from the US and Albanese has seen that it is a sentiment that he must do something to placate.

In fact, nothing in his speech lived up to the headlines in the pro-US capitalist media.

According to the ABC on July 4, “Albanese to champion 'Australian independence' within US alliance”.

The next day, it was Nine News predicting “Prime Minister tipped to 'ruffle feathers' in Washington with keynote speech”.

And on the day after the speech, when it should by then have known better, the Daily Mirror reported that “Anthony Albanese sends very unsubtle message to Trump in incendiary speech: ‘The Australian Way’”.

You can read this “incendiary speech” here.

The ABC headline at least identified the Catch-22, that the so-called “independence” would be confined to and constrained by the “US Alliance”. It was like a prisoner declaring that he was free – within his cell.

Of course, there was no mention of Labor’s slavish acceptance of the AUKUS arrangement, no apology for the sell-out of sovereignty in the Force Posture Agreement, and no commitment to an independent position on the Israeli Zionists’ campaign of genocide against the Palestinian people.

Even his invocation of Curtin and his defiance of Roosevelt and Churchill over the relocation of Australian troops from the Middle East to Australia during WW2 could not hide the fact that Curtin was not the great symbol of independence that Albanese made him out to be. He would have happily kept serving Britain had that country not walked away from us following the Japanese capture of Singapore. His statement that Australia now looked to the United States meant swapping one great power that kept us in dependency for another.

Real sentiment for independence can be seen in many who would in no way subscribe to our objective of socialism and Communism, but do subscribe to the need for a capacity for independent decision-making in matters of foreign policy and economic direction. 

These people are in all corners of social media, deriding Albanese for not matching his words with action.

For anti-imperialist independence and socialism!

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