The humiliating slapdown of Australia’s ambassador to the USA, and former prime minister Kevin Rudd by President Donald Trump in the Oval office this week was long overdue, long anticipated, and well worth the wait. Responding to a loaded question from an Australian reporter, Andrew Clennell from Sky News Australia, the President at first admitted he did not know Mr Rudd very well before pointedly admitting he did not like Mr Rudd and probably never would. Full marks to Andrew for dropping the equivalent of a B-2 bunker buster bomb of a question with pinpoint accuracy after flying non-stop halfway around the world. The weapons-grade toxic sludge of Mr Rudd’s narcissistic ego that has hung over Australia since 2007 has now been obliterated, at least for the time being.

But as entertaining as the nuking of Mr Rudd may have been, it obscured the real irony and humour of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s historic meeting. The most obvious point to make is that the entire episode was just one small move – a pawn at best – in Mr Trump’s ever-evolving game of 4-D chess with China. (See Rebecca Weisser’s column this week.) Global military dominance in coming years depends on AI; AI technology depends on vast amounts of energy and ready access to critical minerals and rare earths; Australia has an abundance of these resources; the USA needs access to them; our alliance suddenly takes on a whole new meaning. Lucky us and lucky Albo – who in the space of a few months has gone from someone the President ‘did not know’ to a ‘great prime minister’ and close friend and ally.

It will be entertaining to see what happens when unfettered US access to certain Aussie minerals deep in the heart of the Pilbara runs up against the so-called ‘songline’ of the spotted rainbow goanna or whatever. Fun times ahead.

Displaying hitherto unseen levels of swift thinking as well as unbelievable chutzpah, Mr Albanese – who by the way visibly grew in self-confidence over the course of the meeting, especially once he’d helped toss Mr Rudd under the proverbial bus – had the temerity to cheekily equate his own lamentable ‘Future Made in Australia’ slogan with Mr Trump’s ‘Put America first’ campaign. Mr Albanese’s agenda is merely a failed, pale shadow of Joe Biden’s equally disastrous green energy scam, whereas Mr Trump’s campaign is literally the complete opposite.

The list of failed, postponed and cancelled projects under the Albanese ‘Future Made in Australia’, from green hydrogen fantasies to collapsed smelters, is a long and miserable one indeed. But still, if it comes to picking winners, Mr Albanese’s track record can be expected to improve dramatically now that the US is in the driver’s seat.

The most intriguing moment of the meeting, however, came with Mr Albanese’s unrehearsed quip about using Donald Trump’s praise of him in his 2028 election campaign. Oh, the sweet irony! Here was Anthony Albanese, the man who after Kevin Rudd has done more to demonise Donald J. Trump than any other senior Australian political figure (‘He scares the sh-t out of me’) now wallowing in the warm glow of an Oval office embrace and Presidential praise.

But the irony does not stop there. During the last election campaign, this magazine repeatedly begged the Coalition to ‘embrace Donald Trump’. Indeed, in an editorial in March this year, we said: ‘Events over the past few days have shown that the Coalition’s flawed strategy of keeping the Trump administration at arm’s length is not only detrimental to its own election chances but detrimental to this nation. In an alternative universe, Peter Dutton would have already flown to Washington, already met one-on-one with Donald Trump, already promised a close working relationship in exchange for tariff exemptions and publicly supported Mr Trump’s efforts to bring peace to Ukraine and Gaza. Instead, at every opportunity – up until this week – the Dutton team have given the impression that they are at best lukewarm about the new administration, at worst at odds with it.’

Following Mr Dutton’s disgraceful response to Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price uttering the words ‘Make Australia great again’, we said: ‘Since that disastrous mistake we’ve had the silly comment that Kevin Rudd – a man who has repeatedly sneered at Mr Trump – will remain as ambassador under Mr Dutton, whereas of course a Coalition government should make it a matter of priority to install an ambassador who is ideologically aligned with – and not opposed to – both the US administration and its own values.’

Talk about gobsmacking. Ms Price gets humiliated by the Coalition for using a Trumpian phrase. Re-elected Prime Minister Albanese deliberately conflates his own agenda with a Trumpian phrase.

And we correctly concluded: ‘The irony in the current Coalition approach of seemingly distancing itself from Mr Trump is that it is a lose-lose strategy.’

Looks like Mr Albanese took our advice, even if the Coalition ignored it.