Michael calls in from Count Binface’s campaign to beat Reform UK’s Nigel Farage in the Clacton by-election. The Grumpies ponder a Binface-type manifesto for Australia – “I will cut your taxes and raise everyone else’s,” along with “The hand-dryer in the gents’ toilet at the Great Himalayas restaurant Southport to be moved to a more sensible position”. Practical politics for real people.

Then Marcus unveils his path to make the AUKUS submarine program a truly national endeavour. It involves Strategic Analysis Australia being the centre of a new, mandatory, national contributions program centred on residents of the Australian Capital Territory. This leads naturally to Australia’s developing contortions, somersaults & rotations around the fact that US submarines stationed in Australia will be carrying nuclear weapons, in breach of Australia’s commitments to a nuclear free South Pacific under the Treaty of Raratonga.

The episode covers the astounding new release of Australia’s 2026 Defence Innovation and Science strategy just two years on from the last one. Defence Science head Prof Tanya Monro (AC) uses this to prove that innovation requires nothing new and nothing to be achieved besides a font change and a modest cover page redesign.

It ends with two philosophers: the new Chief of the Defence Force, Mark Hammond and his deputy Rob Chipman, and Grand Admiral Hammond’s rousing commitment to an Australian military centred on Lethal Wellbeing.