Australia would last 19 days in war!

Diesel is pumped straight from the ground in the Mereenie Field west of Alice. It just gets filtered and put straight into trucks so I'm told. Dunno at what rate ... but hopefully enough to keep basic heavy transport going if we don't use it for mining, power generation and people-moving.

But yeah, I agree ... not just our military ... our entire economy flat-lines if supply lines from Asia are cut. If China ever put an emabrgo on us we'd be utterly buggered. Almost everything we have comes from there or uses components/ingredients from there.

In reality, our fuel stocks would last on a couple of days after the news of an embargo on our fuel ships leaving Singapore as everybody panic buys, and that's only before the government/military steps in and confiscates all fuel at the fuel stations for themselves.

We have the infrastructure in place to ramp up our own production of fuels, the oil companies just need to stop being greedy cnuts and open them back up

Hi all, while I hear what your saying about fuel supplies, we are also very dependent on Asia for all of our electrical technology needs.... It is almost impossible now to fix a basic power supply with discrete components. A simple electronic component which I would have once been able to buy a bag of ten for $5 at any DickSmiths store, called an SCR recently had no stock in Perth, Radio Parts in Melbourne showed several in stock but the shelf was empty and they had to be brought in from Hong Kong several weeks latter...

Not only are the parts getting impossible to source but people with the technical know how, are all getting like me, past there best before date! The current practice of buying in a complete unit of whatever you need is clever from and accountants perspective, but is leaving Australia very wanting in the electronics area not only for repairs but the innovation that flows from sound subject matter knowledge.....it has just gone!

I was around in the 1970's when the transport workers union stopped fuel supplies in Victoria, within a day the service stations where told only to sell to emergency services vehicles. At least 50% of the cars were off the road after about a week, petrol theft was riff, with people not being able to get to work in many instances...which is when the government stepped in and ended it.... But if circumstances were beyond government control we would have had civil unrest of that I'm sure as there was a lot of angry people who don't take kindly to having their wings clipped.

That would be all the single, white, males aged between 18-50 that have full time jobs and have never taken any of the above, like me.

So really it wouldn't change anything as we don't get anything from the government anyway.

The Roma gasfields west of Taroom have 100's of capped oil and gas wells. The light crude there is super pure and only needs a double filter to
be used in diesel motors! Before some idiot opened his mouth it was being sold locally for 9 cents per liter pumped into bulk fuel trucks.
Do not believe that this country has no light crude oil to use as it is just out and out lies.
We carry enough fuel stored here for two years with normal usage not including used cooking oil stored for filtration and cutting with diesel.
Was using it 50/50 with diesel years ago when fuel was $1.60 a liter plus.
Basic useage I could stretch it out to 5 years.

I know a couple of Singaporeans who also did compulsory national service. They do it straight out of high school, and then have to do a certain period of time (2 weeks I think) per year until they turn 50.

We've recently started working with a Singaporean company, but have trouble organising work meetings with them, as one or other of the managerial staff always seem to be off doing their annual service when we need to speak. Its not just military service though; one of the main guys we work with is an ex-cop, who does police service a couple of times a year. 
Another guy I know who lives in China said he didn't go back and do his annual medical for a few years, after which he was threatened with a fine; as all male citizens in the age bracket have to do it regardless of where they are. Once he did the medical, he had to start dieting and exercising, as he wasn't able to finish the route march in the required time. The fact that he lived overseas meant nothing -- he still had to meet the requirements as he is a citizen.

That would be me as well. I spent decades designing electronics gadgetry but started losing interest a couple of years ago when PCBs I was designing were out of date before I could even finish the development. Also it's very difficult to physically manufacture anything in the shed these days, the parts are just too damn small.

Basically I'm done with computing and electronics, one reason I'm moving into older technologies like blacksmithing, that has hardly changed in 100s of years.