by Ganesh Sahathevan
For much of the past decade Singapore has had to endure demands from Malaysia's Mahathir Mohamad that the causeway connecting the two countries be replaced by what has become known as the Crooked Bridge. His resignation as prime minister of Malaysia in 2020 seems to have put that demand to rest but now it seems Singapore and its prime minster Lee Hsien Loong are being tormented by a similar demand, this time from the south, from Australia's PM Albanese who demands that Hsien Loong share his fantasy of a solar power cable connecting Singapore and Australia.
As this writer noted, Albanese seemed to be channeling BJ Habibie, the former Indonesian President (who is supposed to have described Singapore as a little red dot) when he told Hsien Loong at a press conference in Canberra:
"This island continent of ours is a little bit bigger than the island continent of Singapore...... And hence, a project like Sun Cable, which has the potential to export clean energy to Singapore, is the ultimate win-win. If this project can be made to work - and I believe it can be - you will see the world's largest solar farm, you will see the export of energy across distances, the production of many jobs here in Australia, including manufacturing jobs".
Hsien Loong said nothing in response, and that is to be expected for Hsien Loong, his government, and the relevant authorities have yet to provide Sun Cable any approvals whatsoever to Sun Cable:
Infrastructure Australia says Sun Cable's Darwin-Singapore solar cable qualifies for taxpayer funding, Singapore says Sun Cable does not have permission to import electricity into Singapore
While Mahathir's insistence on the Crooked Bridge despite a lack of interest from Singapore caused local Malaysian media to investigate the motivation for the project, there has yet to be any serious investigation in Australia into Albanese's fantasy.
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