Australia will apparently have to do without ministers who have specific responsibilities for science, technology and engineering, but we do have a Defence Minister. He was reported on the front page of The Sydney Morning Herald (21 Sept) as saying: "We've got to make sure as a supplier of vital resources, we're a reliable supplier and we've got to let everybody in our region know that we are prepared to defend those sea lanes." How true, and how much more important will the defence of those sea lanes become if our domestic oil refineries all shut down and we become totally dependent on importation of petroleum products. But how are we going to maintain the defence of those long sea lanes if we have only diesel powered submarines, as planned by the previous Australian government?
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