Australia’s newly commissioned Shortfin Barracuda submarines may as well be referred to as the Shorten Barracudas, because it is largely thanks to the success of the leader of the opposition in spooking the government that they are being built at all. Costing $50 billion that the taxpayer doesn’t have, this latest extravagance is a huge victory for the ‘progressive’ politics of protectionism and pork-barrelling, not to mention union greed and muscle.