News Corp Hysteria Brands Andrews A Traitor

The Australian fuels baseless China panic to smear Albanese while shielding Washington’s collapsing empire.

Daniel Andrews’ Beijing visit should have been a footnote. Instead, Murdoch media weaponised it into a smear campaign — exposing Australia’s addiction to Washington’s paranoia and its fear of an independent foreign policy.

COVID left Daniel Andrews branded as Victoria’s “evil emperor” — a legacy perhaps justified if you were a Victorian living under his draconian pandemic laws. At the time, the world was upside down and health and safety became the substitute narrative for power and control.

But no matter what you think of Andrews, a spy and traitor he isn’t. As is typical of Australia’s media — and much of the Western world — the Sinophobes are in meltdown. Andrews’ attendance at China’s military parade this week, the sight of him on a red carpet in Beijing beside Xi Jinping and world leaders, has sent the Australian political and media class into hysterics.

The insanity is being driven by The Australian and other Murdoch outlets – demanding Prime Minister Anthony Albanese “distance” himself or even resign - as if a friendship with Andrews compromises Australia’s national security. What’s even more comical is what the security threats are.

It’s an absurd implication that any Australian who engages with China is either a communist sympathiser or a spy.

The paranoia reveals less about Andrews and more about the fevered mindset shaping Australia’s political debate. It’s a mindset built on fear, conditioned by Washington’s obsession with maintaining global dominance, amplified by the Murdoch media addicted to Cold War tropes, and reinforced by Canberra’s own security establishment, which thrives on painting China as an existential threat. And it simply isn’t!

Andrews’ presence wasn’t an act of subversion against Australia’s alliances. Like many former leaders around the world, he attended as a guest. He stood at a ceremony honouring the families of foreign soldiers who fought alongside China during World War II. The Chinese government praised him for “defending peace and justice.” That’s hardly the language of espionage—it’s the routine flattery China extends to every foreign dignitary.

Reading the coverage in The Australian, would cause most to think Andrews had personally commanded the PLA’s tanks through Tiananmen Square. They’re exaggerations that expose the hollowness of the narrative: the story isn’t about what Andrews did, but how his mere presence triggers a pre-programmed panic among Australia’s political and media elites.

The most ludicrous escalation has been the attempt to connect Andrews’ trip to Albanese, with claims the PM must resign because of his “friendship” with Andrews. This logic suggests, personal relationships are evidence of national betrayal. It’s an argument that collapses under the weight of its own absurdity.

Albanese’s government deliberately downgraded Australia’s official representation at the parade. The decision to do so was unwise and pandering to Washington’s chokehold and control over Australian foreign policy. To leap from that decision to suggesting Albanese is “compromised” by knowing Andrews is a pathetic smear tactic.

The true underlying problem is in Australia’s imagination, shaped relentlessly by Washington and amplified by Murdoch’s media outlets. China has become the convenient villain for every insecurity. Trade competition, technological innovation, infrastructure investment—each development is filtered through the language of threat.

The narrative also suits the institutional interests of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) and ASIO. Both rely on a steady drumbeat of “China threat” assessments to justify their funding, influence, and relevance.

ASPI isn’t just government-backed, but bankrolled by the US State Department and some of the world’s largest arms manufacturers. Corporations like Lockheed Martin’s profits depend on fuelling forever wars. Every alarmist ASPI report on China doubles as marketing material for its funders’ products. For ASPI, a calm, balanced relationship with Beijing would be a financial disaster.

ASIO, too, benefits from this drumbeat. The constant spectre of foreign subversion ensures it remains politically indispensable. Together with Murdoch’s media, they create a self-reinforcing echo chamber: every handshake with Beijing becomes a scandal, every act of diplomacy reframed as betrayal.

The fury over Andrews isn’t about him, but about what his attendance symbolises: that the world is no longer unipolar. The US, long accustomed to dictating the global order, is visibly weakening. Its interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria drained its credibility. Its reckless support for Israel as Gaza burns has alienated much of the Global South. Its economy, once unrivalled, now trails behind China’s in purchasing power and manufacturing dominance.

China’s parade was not only a display of military strength but of diplomatic reach. Leaders and former leaders from across continents attended. Beijing is building a coalition around trade, infrastructure, and multipolar cooperation. That new order is emerging whether Australia likes it or not.

For those wedded to Washington’s worldview, this is intolerable. The desperate attempt to smear Andrews and, by extension, Albanese is a typical strategy - attack individuals to prevent Australians from questioning the broader architecture of dependence on the US.

The hysteria illustrates how effectively Australians have been conditioned. Any engagement with China is painted as a betrayal. Meanwhile, unquestioned loyalty to Washington—whether through AUKUS, hosting US bases, or following America into disastrous wars all based on lies that have never served Australia’s interests but the interests of the US —is presented as patriotism.

The double standard is glaring. When Australian leaders appear beside American presidents who launched illegal wars or are complicit in a genocide, nobody demands their resignation. When Canberra buys nuclear-powered submarines at Washington’s urging, few call it dangerous entanglement. But when a former state premier appears at a Chinese parade, the sky is supposedly falling.

It's not national security but brainwashing. Australians are being taught to equate sovereignty with subservience to Washington, and independence with treachery. The hysteria around Andrews shows how frightened Australia’s elites are of an independent path. They would rather see their own PM politically kneecapped than admit the US empire is crumbling.

Australia doesn’t need to choose between Washington and Beijing. It needs the maturity to engage with both and chart its own path. To do that means rejecting the false binary of “friend” or “spy” that has poisoned debate and recognise China isn’t a passing threat but a permanent power, one Australians must learn to deal with on equal terms.

The outrage over Daniel Andrews in Beijing is theatre. It reveals the insecurity of a nation still unsure of its place in a changing world. The Murdoch narrative—that China is the enemy and America the eternal guardian—perfectly suits the interests of ASPI, ASIO, and Washington’s strategic planners. But it collapses under the weight of global realities.

A new order is forming, led by China and joined by much of the world.