Election Coming Mk4: Starwars Will Save Us

Wedge issues are flowing thick and fast.

The Howard Government may expand its controversial involvement in the "son of Star Wars" missile defence program to build a missile shield to protect Australian cities.

The move would dramatically increase the multibillion-dollar cost of Australian involvement and is likely to be used to campaign against Labor, which opposes the missile shield.

This would have to be one of the more stupid defence proposals put to the Australian public. Isn't today's threat terrorism? Fat lot of use a few billion dollars worth of missile shield will be against someone planting a bomb on a train.

Speaking to a defence and industry conference, he [Defence Minister Robert Hill] warned that ballistic missile systems "are now within reach of a number of erratic dictatorships".

Yes, and we know why they want them, too. Any 'erratic dictatorship' worth its salt would have noticed that the US is very reluctant to take military action against North Korea, who has a couple of missiles, compared to Iraq, which had none. Yet another unfortunate consequence of the Iraq misadventure.