True enough, but even the public wouldn't stand for another Curtin. "[Foreign capital] might not love us any more if we have our own command structure!"

Marles' policy is merely making explicitly de jure what has been de facto for decades.

And in a baffling act of sanity, Canberra under the last two governments has attempted to ensure the submarine-centric "Seventh and A Half" fleet can submerge and travel home under their own power should a future parliament develop the gumption to say "no" to foreign masters.

Unlike the situation our 8th Div was in in 1942.