"Australia urged to become 51st state
Australia primed to be yanked into US
By Tess Livingstone
July 16, 2003

AUSTRALIA has been urged to seriously consider
becoming the 51st state of the US.

And American-born historian Dr David Mosler told a
Brisbane audience yesterday there was a 20 per cent
chance of Australia becoming an American state in the
next 50 years.

The visiting research fellow at Adelaide University,
who has lived in Australia since 1971, said the
chances would increase significantly in the event of a
major Al-Qaeda attack on Australia or if Indonesia
became a fundamentalist Islamic republic.

Dr Mosler told the 2003 Fulbright Symposium at
Griffith University yesterday that he decided
Australia was "an unreformable society" after the loss
of the 1999 republic referendum.

Australians, he said, had no flag of their own; a weak
sense of nationhood; no prime minister in the Lodge,
with John Howard living in Sydney; no national
bushfire or water plans, even with the worst drought
in history; and no "broad knowledge of nation in
public discourse or popular culture". Australians had
replaced "Empire with Yanks" after 1942, and the
country retained a "quasi-colonial status".

He said Australian governments, attuned to the
British, Americans, Japanese and global capital
markets, had "sold off the farm" - electricity, water,
ports, airports, resources - while Australians weren't
offended by such "treasonous behaviour".

He said Australia's passage to American statehood
would not be difficult under its Constitution.

He listed the advantages of American statehood for
Australia as:

* Access to the world's best higher education system.

* Large savings on embassies.

* Being part of the world's most effective defence
system.

* Merger with the world's strongest currency.

* Being part of the world's biggest economy.

* A constitution bringing a republic and a Bill of
Rights.

* Fielding teams in the US national basketball,
baseball and gridiron competitions.

The Courier-Mail"