Do you think the Chinese will bring a flag?

I've long been an advocate of Nuclear power in Oz...the power stations can be miles & miles from anywhere...safe from seawater etc....We sell Uranium to other countries to enrich...but we do not do it here...madness

Its as ridiculous as we claim 'Green", and shut down coal fired plants.....but sell unknown tonnes of coal to other countries...we then laud electric vehicles, forgetting they are actually coal fired vehicles....we are a dumb nation no two ways about it...we are stupid in many things...very smart in others,..but essentially stupid.

Lets get clean energy from the resources that lie in the land upon which we live, and currently export and use it ourselves....if we are serious about this rubbish, its more than removing freee plastic bags from supermarkets...and making people pay...use it for cheaper energy....but no we are stupid!

And YES to a nuclear arsenal!...let China know we can punch back! Apparently people are appaled at the idea of being Nuclear arms capable,,,.I don't get that...it gets you a seat at the table!

As for letting China colonise the South China Sea....well Bush / Obama / Trump did nothing

We have the 'dirt' (Uranium soil) that we sell to others..so why are we not utilising own resorce!?..We are a dumb Country...always have been...how can you be against nuclear power...wel, 'cos a dume electorate is..

Who all did you leave out in that statement....start with Australia, New Zealand, and a bunch of other nations....even the United Nations.

Exactly what would you have the Nations of the World do to stop the Chinese expansion into the area?

You mean looking after its own interests in the area adjacent to its territory.

I will start to worry when China starts having 100 miltary bases thousands of miles from home.

If only the sun shone in Australia you could be self sufficient with solar power with no need to spend $30 billion on 1 reactor (Hinkley estimate). Of course if you were setting up nuclear power stations in Australia then probably need to set up 3-4 sites so that is $150 billion for a start.

Bearing in mind the Estimate for a 1 MW solar power farm is circa $1 Million. One wonders why Australia produces 8 times more from wind than it does from large scale Solar PV or 100 times more from fossil fuels than large scale Solar.

The sell out began when Reagan left office. Some of us were seeing this begin back in the early 90's. W Bush's dad and Clinton were part of the policy problem. All they could see were dollar signs.

As to nuclear power for electricity: yeah, I am an advocate.
Nuclear weapons: Mr Kim has a few, as insurance. If one can afford them, then why not? But the harder policy problem is:
OK, we can make them, but what do we want them for?

What endeavour ?

Bankrupting Australia for Nukes it will never use.

I think the answer to that is in the details of the government subsidy contracts.
Industry hires top notch lawyers to wrangle the maximum of profit out of the minimum of investment. Efficiency and common sense are not relevant to the outcome.

Separately, rather than Australia nuking up, it surely would be more economical to supply uranium to China's neighbors, such as Viet Nam, Indonesia and Taiwan, to develop their own nuclear deterrent.
China has been throwing its weight around a bit, a reminder that other people also have a say would be useful.

So lets have more people with Nuclear bombs..................

the problem is they are expensive to acquire and even more expensive to keep them in operation - I think the Brits pay over £1Bn a year just to keep their atomic weapons establishments ticking over

then you have to have a delivery system - that is believable - ............... look at the cost of the new SSBN's for the USN & RN....

then the threat - say Canberra threatens the Chinese - with (maybe) 8 missiles on boat somewhere N Of Darwin

One Chinese SSBN could take out Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra & Brisbane and have a few war heads left over

It doesn't make any sense

Spend the money arming the Indonesians and the Philippines if you must

Surely that would rather defeat the purpose of Australia having a nuclear weapon?? I hope and trust Australia will not become involved with nuclear weapons.

That was very much the thrust of an Adelphi paper I read long ago.

The author, likely of Arabic origin judging by his name, emphasized that mutual respect among nations requires some degree of mutual fear.
Otherwise, the lesser states are to China as the Delian League was to the Athenians.

Nuking up. Na
 

If we have 'em, Indonesia will get them, then Malaysia, and that way, my friends madness lies. Don't want to start that little race to oblivion with our northern neighbors.

Thank goodness someone sees sense!

The principal of MAD has worked since 1945....

Not necessarily. You conflate effect and cause. The fact that there has not been a nuclear exchange may not be because of MAD. And the date of the MAD doctrine is much later than 1945.