In case you were wondering where Richard Marles is – I know that personally, it consumes my every waking hour – he has just arrived in the US. He’ll be having ALL the Aukus meetings with the Trump administration and US defence hawks, where he’ll be asked lots of fun things like, ‘what would you do with these submarines that we have already agreed to sell you but don’t think you should control on your own, and in fact think we should have agency over, despite your ‘ownership’ of them’.

Australia has sent at least $1.6bn to the states to help with its own ship building, the idea being that if the US can meet its own capability needs, it will get around to ours. But fun fact; the US don’t have to give us the submarines, or the money back, if it decides it doesn’t want to! And increasingly, the Trump administration is saying all the quiet bits out loud, including that the US wants to be able to deploy the Australian subs in the event the US decides to go to war with China.

Fun! Lucky we have Richard Marles though.