CAMERON MILNER: Dilly-dallying is destroying Australia’s reputation as a reliable ally and puts AUKUS at risk

First, there was the date night disaster, which saw Anthony Albanese stood up by US President at the G7 Summit in Canada last week.

Now, the Prime Minister has opted out of this week’s NATO catch-up in the Netherlands, instead sending his deputy Richard Marles, showing just how bad things have become.

We know now that Albanese wasn’t given a courtesy heads-up by the US ahead of its strikes to neutralise the Iranian nuclear threat.

UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer did get a phone call from the Americans.

Was it that the US didn’t trust Albanese with the inside intel? Or did Washington apply the “need to know” principle, and decide that Albanese wasn’t on the list?

Either way, it illustrates Australia’s fast diminishing role in AUKUS under Albanese and it adds insult to the G7 injury.

Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong’s churlish and childish response to Trump’s intervention in Iran on Sunday — issuing a statement from an anonymous government official — was a new low, even for this lot.

Wong can’t hide her hardcore, hard Left views of Israel as the bad guys. Her tone deaf promotion of a two-state solution as part of the current Hamas ceasefire negotiations is evidence of that.

Wong is working to reward Hamas by offering up support for a Palestinian state right now. If 18 months of Israeli Defence Force work in Gaza hasn’t been able to yet fully eliminate Hamas from the region, how on earth does Wong claim you can now give statehood to the region but somehow magically Hamas won’t be involved? It’s pixie land fantasy passing for foreign policy.

Not lost on the Trump administration was the most recent Australian election campaign where Trump was used as a punchline in Labor’s attack ads on Peter Dutton and the Liberals.

The White House won’t have missed the sneering tone of Labor and its supporters towards Trump, his Vice-President JD Vance and the wider MAGA movement.

Albo can’t expect to have the red carpet rolled out to him by Trump having invoked fear of the very same guy to smear his political opponents.

A host of world leaders made their way to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence prior to his inauguration as President in January. Many more have scored invites to the White House in the months since.

Not Albanese, who didn’t want to be seen anywhere near Trump as it didn’t fit his domestic election agenda.

And now we are playing catch up, chasing dates on the sidelines of events. It may be until September before the pair finally meet.

All the while, Australia is getting smashed by Trump’s tariffs and the Pentagon conducts a review into AUKUS that will be complete before any eventual meeting.

That review will no doubt take into account Australia’s lukewarm support for the US’s intervention into Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

While Albo and Wong were tweeting de-escalation, Trump was working the phones for a ceasefire and a peace deal.

Albanese was already known for for his passivity and procrastination, but now he just looks irrelevant.

America could genuinely make the case that there would be a risk that Australia, if given the US Virginia class submarines, may delay their release from port or ask for more time for diplomacy when instead the subs needed urgent deployment.

Australia, under Wong and Albanese, continually wants to pick our enemies over our allies.

They aren’t decisive or supportive the way an ally — that isn’t pulling their defence budget weight and is still being carried by the US and the UK — should behave.

Into this breach Albanese is sending Marles to deputise for him at a potential NATO sidebar meeting with Trump.

Every other country is sending their leader. Not us.

The fate of AUKUS could rest on this meeting.

It will down to Marles to use his golfing expertise with renowned golfer Trump. Marles will have to choose his very own bunker busting move to get the AUKUS ball back on the green.

He’s worked hard on his defence credentials, lubricating the squeaky wheel left by Wong’s frequent condemnation of Israel.

What does it say that Albo had time to go to Canada but dare not risk going to Belgium only to be stood up a second time? He knows that really would be a message to Australia about where we stand.

Albanese and his Government are now a serious threat to AUKUS and our role as a trusted partner of world super powers.

We are a wealthy nation that spends so very little on our own defence force, hoping and trusting that the US will come to our aid with the force of world’s best bombers and submarines.

That relationship though takes gratitude. That means that when our number one ally saves the world from a potential nuclear attack from a rogue Islamist regime, Albanese should kick off the Sunday morning slippers to say: “Thank you America, thank you President Trump”.

The fact that was stood up at the G7, has a foreign minister totally off-piste on Israel and didn’t even get a heads up on the US bombing campaign tells us just how bad our relationship is with our most important ally has become, and it is why we should all hold grave fears for AUKUS under Albanese.