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Guests: Senator David Shoebridge; Peter Cronau, journalist, former ABC producer, co-founder Declassified Australia. Interviewers: Cathy Vogan and Joe Lauria. Producer: Cathy Vogan. Time: 1 hr. 0 min. 29 s.
While Australia has rejected Donald Trump’s request to send a war ship to help open the Strait of Hormuz, last week Australian PM Anthony Albanese announced that one of the country’s long-range surveillance planes, an E7-A Wedgetail, and 85 defence personnel had been sent to the United Arab Emirates to help defend stranded Australians and other civilians in the region. It is seen as a replacement for U.S. radar in the region destroyed by Iran.
Albanese added that missiles would also be on the way, but stressed that Australia’s role in the war on Iran would be purely defensive. Critics of these moves fear that Australia is being dragged into another forever war by the United States. Australia has taken part in U.S. wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq.
This week Australian Defence Minister Richard Marles confirmed that information collected by the Wedgetail is being sent to the U.S. Combined Air Operations Centre in Qatar, which provides the command and control of offensive airpower for the Pentagon’s Central Command.
On Wednesday Albanese announced that an Iranian missile had hit a road leading to Australia’s UAE base. It caused minor damage and no one was injured, but the strike leave us with a few burning questions. Was this but a warning shot, and did the Wedgetail fail to detect the incoming missile for interception?
After major oil and gas installations were hit in the Gulf on Thursday, Albanese called on Australians to stop panic-buying fuel and he announced a taskforce to investigate price-gauging by suppliers.
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