@shallowchal: In the mid-80s, Mel Gibson sat with Ray Martin and said out loud what polite Australia didn’t want to hear. That foreign aid without strategy wasn’t charity, it was leverage being handed away. That teaching, training, and funding capacity offshore while neglecting our own foundations would come back to bite us. He wasn’t preaching ideology. He was talking consequence. Decades later, here we are. We import what we used to make. We rely on supply chains we don’t control. We wonder how a country rich in resources ended up poor in capability. This isn’t hindsight. It’s recognition. The road always led here. And today, on his birthday, it’s worth saying it plainly. Happy birthday to an Aussie legend who spoke early, stood firm, wore the scars, and never outsourced his convictions. Backbone like that is rare now. It was rare then too. #australia #steel #industry #debt #aid

shallowchal

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Saturday 03 January 2026 02:16:40 GMT