So much of what passes for Australian political discourse relies on existential threats.

It’s easy to make grandiose statements and take positions when the threat is some amorphous vague maybe that could possibly happen.

It’s what our defence spending is built on. No one ever questions whether or not it is needed, because part of its job is to be a threat deterrent. And in the absence of a threat, well then, the only obvious answer must be because it’s working. China could be a threat one day, just as Indonesia was once considered a possible maybe threat.

China and Indonesia have not actualised that threat, so obviously, Australia’s defence spending is doing its job.

It doesn’t matter that there are holes in the logic or that, for the most part, it is Australia’s allies who are doing the invading and bombing. Existential threats are everywhere and easy politics – migration, budget crises, international relations, national security – the fear-mongering and demonisation is easy when the threat is a possibility but not something most of the voting public feels day to day.

We even do it with climate change – an actual tangible threat – except in the other way; because imagine, if actually, there was no threat. That makes sense in this context because most of our discourse is centred around maintaining the dominant power structures that hold up the status quo. Fossil fuel is important to that status quo, so the real threat of global warming is to be diminished so nothing needs to change.

That same power is invested in making people think of potential possible risks to keep manufacturing consent to do things exactly the way they want.

There has been a campaign to manufacture consent, for example, to cut growth funding for the NDIS. So there are warnings about the risk to the nation’s budget, the........

© The New Daily