Soft WI: Potential Australian Quisling/Petain

Japhy

Banned
First thing first, this is far more a literary question then a hard AH thing. Honestly I don't see any point in the Second World War where Australia is plausibly going to be throwing in the towel once the Pacific War Starts. And generally I'd be one of those people jumping right to the front yelling about how its not going to happen. So bare with me.

From a literary fiction perspective let us toss out an incredibly rough setting: Two American Carriers being sunk at Coral Sea to no Japanese CV losses, Port Moresby and the rest of Australian New Guinea has fallen to the Japanese, pressure on Darwin is upped, submarine, bomber and potentially, surface ship bombardments and SNLF quick raids mount, the Japanese hold on the Lower Solomons is entrenched and convoy supplies and American troops to Australia is effectively off the table. As can happen with any country, mounting pressure eventually leads to portions of the political class to blink, and at least a portion of the general population to as well. (I know this is the sort of stuff I generally can't stand but even a vague setting I feel is necessary.)

Who rises to the top and cuts the deal with Tokyo? Presumably collaboration will be an effective non-starter, being as the Japanese cannot possibly occupy the country, so this could be a long term cease fire or a treaty or whatever. The theoretical new leadership at the very least needs to be the sort to avoid restarting the war at the drop of a hat.

It seems obvious to me that John Curtain is not going to do it, but beyond that I have such a limited understanding of Australian politics that I wouldn't know up from down. IIRC there was a story many years ago where in the Germans set up a dictatorship under Stanley Bruce but I cant comment on how likely that is. So any theoreticals are welcome.
 
The only way it happens is if Britain's knocked out of both the European and Pacific Wars (the former by harsh peace and the latter because the threat of invasion*/mass bombing forcing huge garrisoning of the British Isles and one of the essential treaty conditions is supplying oil to the Japanese). Because of this, anti-colonial fires break out in Southeast Asia and especially India and Australia/New Zealand are left in the cold.

The US stays isolationist since Japan can ignore it and the Phillippines.

That's a lot of PODs.

*Note, just because Sealion is ASB to actually succeed militarily does not mean that it cannot be totally realistic for the threat of it to lead to an excessive response and deep fear in the public mind. For example, average Joes were terrified about a Japanese invasion of the West Coast.
 
To be honest I can't say I know a great deal about Australian politics but in terms of general ideas wouldn't there be a chance to do things backwards? Remove the yellow peril but making a red scare? Australia went through its own version of McCarthyism in the fifties, I'm not sure how this would work out but with the "anti-colonial fires" mentioned above you could perhaps have a reason for Australia to attempt to move closer to Japan, especially if there's covert or explicit support for the anti-imperialists. How this Finlandised Australia would become a client state is probably more of a stretch but nothing brings people together like a good enemy.
 
Remember a collaborator does not necessarily see themselves as a traitor just as someone trying to get the best deal for their country in difficult circumstances. Laval saw himself as a patriotic Frenchman with no other viable options -the Germans have won, they are here, what am I supposed to do? The Czech collaborators in the Protectorate of Bohemia-Moravia took a similar stance, they weren't rabid Nazis, just Czechs who saw no alternative as they hadn't the military or demographic resource to throw off the German yoke. Most of the British appeasers outside the lunatic fringe of Joyce and Mary Allen weren't ideologically driven Nazis either, they were calculating politicians who had (quite rightly in their analysis it must be said) worked out that even a victorious war would be long and expensive and would mean Britain's eclipse as a global power. So you don't need a proto Fascist, you just need a politician who is either slightly pessimistic in outlook, or faced with a fiat accompli of disastrous proportions, and rational/calculating in his political thinking rather than emotive. Don't know much about Australian politics in the 1940s but there are bound to be a couple of people who fit the description.
 
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