Those waiting, hoping even, to see the Australian prime minister humiliated by the US president when they met at the White House this week were disappointed. They should not have been.

Although the president has turned his unpredictability into an asset – no one knows what I am going to do – Australian political leaders have, over a long time, proved surprisingly adept when dealing with geopolitical uncertainty.

They did it during the world wars, then when the British empire imploded and Britain shifted its trading allegiance to Europe and later when the penny dropped that the nation’s future lay in the Asian hemisphere.

On each occasion the recalibration involved an alignment of economic and security interests, and confidence that the vast land mass of the Australian continent was an inexhaustible resource which could be offered to the new best friend – for mines, military bases, agriculture and more mines.

That they generally managed to do this without appearing too obsequious and maintaining a distinctive self-deprecating sense of humour – thank you Kevin Rudd for being the fall guy this time – is a marker of national distinctiveness.

But so is the enduring sense since colonial days that the land is there to be used, traded, exploited, mined and developed.

Australia is the only........

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