The Farrer byelection may have shocked the political establishment, but the real story is not just that One Nation won its first ever federal lower-house seat – it’s that the Liberal Party’s political base has collapsed. One Nation candidate David Farley secured a decisive victory, while the Liberal Party’s primary vote crashed from 43 per cent at the 2025 federal election to just 12 per cent barely a year later. That scale of decline is almost unheard of in modern Australian politics and points to a much deeper structural crisis inside Australian conservatism.

For years, support for the Liberal and National parties has been eroding across regional and outer-suburban Australia as voters face housing stress, stagnant wages, declining public services and growing distrust in political institutions. The Farrer result exposed how much anger is now directed towards the conservative parties themselves. While byelections are often protest votes, this result reflected something larger: a growing sense that the Liberal Party no longer stands for anything beyond opposition and internal conflict. Leadership changes alone are unlikely to fix that problem.

At the same time, One Nation’s rise has been carefully cultivated over decades. Pauline Hanson has maintained an enormous public profile through sustained exposure across commercial television and right-wing media, helping transform One Nation from a fringe protest movement into a permanent force in Australian politics. Backed by wealthy conservative interests and sections of the media, the party has become a vehicle for pushing culture wars, anti-immigration politics, climate scepticism and neoliberal economics further into the mainstream.

But One Nation’s growth is also creating a dangerous fracture on the political right. Much of its support is coming directly from former Liberal and National voters, particularly in regional areas, and there are now open discussions among some conservative MPs about defecting to the party altogether. The result in Farrer suggests the biggest threat facing the Liberal Party may no longer come from Labor – but from the political forces emerging from inside its own collapsing coalition.

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The 2026 Australian federal Budget has triggered outrage from conservative commentators, who are branding it everything from a “Whitlam budget” to outright “Marxism”. But the reaction says more about the collapse of the bipartisan consensus on neoliberalism than it does about the Budget itself. After four decades of governments protecting property speculation, corporate power and market-driven economics, even modest reforms to negative gearing and capital gains tax are now being treated as radical political acts.

We examine Labor’s cautious attempt to rebalance Australia’s housing market, and why the government’s reforms reflect a growing public recognition that housing should be treated as a social necessity rather than a speculative asset. We also look at the political legacy of the 2019 negative gearing scare campaign, the worsening housing affordability crisis, and why Labor appears trapped between responding to public anger over inequality while still protecting the broader neoliberal framework that created it.

There’s a lot of contradictions inside the Budget itself: limited cost-of-living relief, no meaningful increase to JobSeeker, cuts to the NDIS disguised as “slowing growth”, continued underfunding of education, and massive support for defence, mining and corporate interests. While Treasurer Jim Chalmers has taken tentative steps towards reform, Australia’s political economy still overwhelmingly favours wealth, property and corporate power over public need.

Plus, we analyse Angus Taylor’s predictable budget reply, the Liberal Party’s continued obsession with “tax cuts”, and why Pauline Hanson accusing Labor of “communism” may be the clearest sign yet that Australia’s political debate is shifting in ways the conservative establishment no longer fully understands.

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#AustralianPolitics #FederalBudget #Budget2026 #HousingCrisis #NegativeGearing #CapitalGainsTax #Neoliberalism #LaborParty #JimChalmers #CostOfLiving #NDIS #HousingAffordability #AustralianEconomy #NewPoliticsPodcast

Treasurer Jim Chalmers had delivered his fifth budget – but the first for this term which commenced over a year ago – and it’s a mixed but ideologically revealing budget: it contains some redistributive reforms, especially on housing tax concessions, but it also preserves the deeper neoliberal framework that has afflicted most economies in the Western world for far too long – there’s the typical material about budget repair, productivity, business incentives, expanding the defence, means-testing and restraint on social spending, especially within the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

The most prominent changes relate to negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount. New investors won’t be able to use negative gearing on existing homes – applying to new builds only – while the 50 per cent CGT discount will be replaced by inflation indexation and a 30 per cent minimum tax rate from July 2027. This change directly targets those tax concessions that have helped turn housing into an investment portfolio and a tax minimisation scheme, rather than a social necessity, and it’s a change that’s well overdue.

We’ve long argued that housing should be about providing homes and shelter and building up communities, not as a tradable commodities linked to wealth creation, and it would have better to have a staged reduction of negative gearing benefits on existing properties, rather than grandfathering them completely, but for a cautious government that’s been suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder after their 2019 election loss, this might the best that it can deliver and will go some way in exorcising those demons.

There are some modest benefits for workers: a $250 Working Australians Tax Offset, a simplified deduction process for $1,000 in work-expenses, and an increase in Medicare/public hospital funding, including an extra $25 billion for public hospitals and $1.8 billion in urgent care clinics.

The huge issue is the cutbacks to the NDIS, which is harsh and immediate. This budget aims reduce the growth in the scheme from around 10 per cent per year to 5 per cent, with massive reductions in funding over the next four years. The NDIS has been used as a punching bag by the right-wing media and conservative interests, running lengthy and exaggerated stories on waste and provider profiteering and, once again, people with disabilities are treated as a budget problem to be cut, rather that citizens who are entitled to public support. Yet another win for the neoliberalists in our midst.

The budget also provides the usual largesse to business – absolutely no budgetary problems there or a need to look at waste – there’s regulatory “productivity” measures, expanded venture capital tax incentives, permanent loss carry-back for companies with a turnover of up to $1 billion, and a permanent $20,000 instant asset write-off for small business.

Some of these measures might help genuine small operators, but the ideological language of the Labor government still favours the business class and worships the gods of capitalism. For sure, we can have an existential argument about who came first – the capitalist or the worker – as well as the argument that without capitalism there would be no modern economy, but without workers there would be no capitalism in the first place.

Defence is another big concern. Just like the business sector, there seems to be an endless supply of funding available for defence, and there’s never any question of finding waste or “provider profiteering”. It might be a case of needing to be careful with those that control the guns and tanks, lest they be used against a government, but an extra $53 billion over a decade is going into defence, while social programs such as the NDIS are facing severe cutbacks – it’s robbing carers to pay for the colonels and it’s totally unacceptable.

Does this Budget reverse the neoliberal ideology that was fast-tracked by the Howard government in the mid-1990s? Not by a long shot, but at least it’s a tiny start, without knowing what the next steps might be. The housing tax reforms challenge the idea that investor wealth-building should dominate housing policy, and that is a significant change. But this is a Labor government that we’re talking about; it’s the least they could do.

But it doesn’t break that connection with those policies of the Howard government, and still accepts the core features of Howardism: fiscal discipline, productivity through business incentives, private markets as the main provider of social services, targeted rather than universal welfare, and “sustainability” as the rationale for cutting social programs such as the NDIS. Not much has been announced to change the massive imbalance between public and private education. The higher education sector has been a mess for some time, and there’s little in there that suggests anything will change.

A more progressive budget would have included stronger welfare support – there are still no changes to JobSeeker or youth allowance – there should be more funding for large-scale public housing construction, serious reforms to mining and gas taxation, public ownership or public investment in energy, stronger national renters’ rights, and less funding for defence and business concessions.

And the support that is being provided for working people, much of it is delayed or modest. The $250 tax offset won’t arrive immediately, and the $1,000 deduction will save workers an average of about $205. For sure, that is useful and better than receiving nothing at all, but these are not transformative changes during a cost-of-living crisis, and feels more like the leftovers scraps after the mining, business and defence sectors have already had their banquet and left the scene.

For underprivileged people within the community, the result is weak. Medicare and hospitals help, but the NDIS changes, lack of major welfare spend, and no obvious large-scale public housing build mean the poorest – as usual – will be the hardest hit.

For big business and mining, the budget is not aggressive enough. Gas companies face a domestic reservation requirement, but the PRRT take is only revised up by $400 million despite windfall conditions caused by the Israel/United States war on Iran, and there is no major super-profits tax or serious mining rent reform.

The New Politics verdict

The 2026 budget is:

• A good start on housing tax fairness, but it’s still nowhere what’s needed to truly transform the idea of housing in the future.

• Weak on poverty issues, social services, public housing, mining taxation and disability support.

• Still far too generous to the business, mining and defence sectors.

• Gives working people something, but not enough and not now.

• Removes one picket from that long white fence of Howard government neoliberal orthodoxy, but mainly keeps it intact, and is tinkering at the edges.

Generally, it moves away from the cautious Labor budgets that we’ve seen since 2022, but it’s still too timid on the scale of inequality, housing stress, and standing up to corporate power and vested interests in Australia.

On Tuesday night, Treasurer Jim Chalmers will deliver what is being regarded as one of the most important federal Budgets in many years, promising action on housing affordability, productivity, cost-of-living pressures and long-awaited tax reform.

Of course, we’ll have to wait to see whether this will be the case or not, but behind all of this talk about “structural repair” and “reprioritisation” lays a deeper political issue: after four years of caution, hesitation and carefully managed expectations, is the Albanese government finally prepared to confront the vested interests that have distorted the Australian economy and worked against too many people for far too long, or is this another round of choreography designed to look “transformative” without actually changing very much at all?

The Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, has spent most his time in office acquiescing to many powerful groups in Australia. For example, there was great debate about the introduction of a 25 per cent gas exports tax, only for Albanese to rule it out after pressure from the resources sector.

To support Albanese’s position, Chalmers has indicated that the petroleum resources rent tax has raised additional revenue in this financial year, so there’s no need to worry about taxing gas exports at an appropriate rate. But Chalmers is trying to be too clever, and not even by half: yes, the revenue PRRT has increased from $1.41 billion, to $1.5 billion, but a gas exports tax – even if it fully replaced the PRRT – would raise around $17 billion per year, a sum that’s 188 times greater than the additional revenue Chalmers has claimed. This is the price the public pays – $17 billion in this case – when governments pander to the vested interests in Australia.

For well over a decade, the major parties – if we can still call the Liberal Party a “major party” – have avoided the serious reform of negative gearing, capital gains concessions and the massive wealth accumulations gained through property, despite the mounting economic and social evidence that shows how the existing system overwhelmingly benefits older asset holders while locking younger Australians out of home ownership.

Everyone seems to know about this: Labor, Liberal, Treasury, most economists. Yet governments continue treating even the mildest reforms as political kryptonite, terrified of stirring up yet another scare campaign from the property industry, the mainstream media and the opposition parties who defend a system of intergenerational protectionism that makes millennials and Gen Z pay for the largesse of the older and already wealthy propertied class. This is not to pit different generations against each other but the reality is that is unsustainable economically and socially – and politically.

The government’s language in the lead up to the Budget suggests that something will change, but many governments over the past 30 years or so have perfected the art of leading the “bold conversations” before the Budget that somehow end up in mouse talk, modest adjustments, a raft of review panels and carefully diluted compromises, once the final decisions are made.

The Housing Australia Future Fund is an excellent example of this – after much parliamentary debate, political grandstanding and delay, it was introduced in late 2023, 18 months after the Albanese government was first elected in May 2022. As of May 2026, just 889 dwellings have been completed: only 889, in four years of office; or an average of one dwelling per 17 suburbs across Australia. Whichever way it’s calculated or viewed, this is a pathetic number.

Sure, there are a further 9,500 currently under construction and 55,000 social and affordable homes are due to be completed by mid-2029 – but it’s around 500,000 dwellings short of where it needs to be, and that’s according to the government’s National Housing Supply and Affordability Council. There was a “bold conversation” in the lead-up to the 2022 federal election but, on housing at least, the strong words have been matched up with very weak action.

The bigger contradiction here is that governments talk endlessly about productivity and fairness – or in the case of the Prime Minister, “no one left behind” – while preserving the tax structures that overwhelmingly reward the wealth class and speculators more than work itself. A salary is for mugs: the real support from government goes to the people whose real work is deciding the best time to sell a property to maximise the profit, or at which point rents should be raised on a working and struggling family.

Will any of these areas be addressed in Tuesday night’s Budget? Will the Labor Party remember the people who brought it into office in 2022, and returned it again in 2025 with the greatest majority a government has ever held in the lower house? The Labor Platform can’t just be a document that Albanese uses for his bedtime reading at The Lodge, as a reminder of yesteryear and the possibilities that can exist for a progressive government; it’s something that has to be lived and breathed by the entire Labor Caucus.

If Albanese still holds these core Labor beliefs of “no one left behind” and has simply been waiting for the “right time” to fully introduce them, then this is the time. Otherwise, no one left behind will just become a football-type slogan and that’s used ironically against the Labor Party, in the same way the “honest John” moniker was used against former Prime Minister John Howard, when he was anything but.

The point is that there probably never ever will be a greater time for the introduction of a true Labor agenda within federal Parliament. The early signs, however, are not good – Chalmers promising “spending restraint” on the eve of the Budget, including a $37 billion cutback for the NDIS over four years – but if Labor genuinely wants to claim a mandate for reform after its substantial 2025 election victory, then this Budget will determine whether it intends to start governing differently – and that would be about time – or just continue with the business as usual approach and manage the continuing divides within the Australian community slightly more softly and less savagely than its conservative opponents.

This week’s briefing outlines the big issues to look out for: Labor’s defining Budget test over tax reform, housing affordability, gas exports and cost-of-living pressures, as the Albanese government faces growing demands for economic change while navigating the rise of One Nation, deepening tensions with China and mounting questions about whether caution has replaced genuine reform.

The federal Budget and Labor’s reform agenda

The Albanese government’s upcoming federal Budget will dominate political discussion this week, particularly around whether Labor is willing to pursue serious budgetary reform in its second term, even though it’s process that it will be starting around four years too late. Better late than never though. The pre-Budget debates have focussed on housing tax concessions, budget repair, energy policy and whether Labor has become far too cautious politically for its own good.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese are facing pressure from the more progressive MPs on its backbench, from many economists, and the independents on the crossbench, to pursue broader tax reform; while business groups – who represent the many vested interests across Australia – are warning against any major change, aside from their erstwhile demands for “lower taxes”. And why not: they’re doing very well from the existing arrangements, and will always work to protect their own interests, and not in the interests of the community. Questions around gas exports, fuel security and the government’s broader economic narrative are likely to define the week: it is, after all, Budget week.

Gas exports, energy prices and the “windfall tax” debate

The political fight over gas exports and domestic energy prices has been escalating, and the debate had focused on whether Australia should implement a 25 per cent gas export tax or expand reservation schemes to lower domestic prices and increase government revenue.

While the Albanese government has announced a 20 per cent reservation that will be implemented in 2027, it has ruled out a gas exports tax, arguing it could damage certainty in investment – even though there’s much evidence out there to suggest that it won’t – and it’s a debate that’s taking place at the same time that multinational gas companies keep extracting enormous profits without a sufficient return to the Australian public. Independent MPs, unions and the Australian Greens are expected to intensify pressure this week ahead of the Budget.

Housing affordability and negative gearing

Housing affordability remains as one our most politically volatile issues, especially for millennials and Gen Z. There has been much speculation about changes to negative gearing and capital gains taxes, but there’s other issues that relate to housing supply as well, and it will be interesting to see what the government will announce on Tuesday night. The government faces a number of pressures – younger people demanding housing reform, so at least they can live somewhere, while industry groups are lobbying hard to resist these changes.

And it’s usually the industry groups that win out, irrespective of the government of the day. The Coalition and the Australian Greens will continue to frame the Labor government as being either too weak or too cautious on the housing crisis and, in this case, they are absolutely correct.

The rise of One Nation and right-wing populism

One Nation’s growing electoral support is becoming a major political issue for both Labor and the Coalition, but especially for the Liberal Party, which was almost wiped out at the Farrer byelection on the weekend. One Nation won the byelection and this suggests the party is increasingly attracting rural working-class voters frustrated by housing costs, migration levels, energy prices and economic insecurity, even though the party offers no real solutions to any of these concerns and is primarily an avenue for the electorate to funnel their grievances and anger, emotions that are usually whipped up by the likes of One Nation in the first place.

It’s a classic case of vote for us, because we will fix the problems that we created.

While it’s not clear at this stage how this splintering of the conservative side of politics will affect the Labor Party – it didn’t run a candidate in this byelection, and the recent state election in South Australia suggests that there hasn’t been an negative effect so far – it does appear to be a reorganisation of the deck chairs, primarily at the expense of the Liberal Party.

The eternal cost-of-living pressures

Inflation has risen to 4.6 per cent, and cost-of-living pressures have the potential to cause major political problems. Rising insurance costs, rents, mortgages, groceries, fuel prices and electricity bills continue to drive voter dissatisfaction, although it’s not being vented directly towards the Labor government.

The Leader of the Opposition, Angus Taylor – facing his own pressures after the Liberal Party’s diabolical performance at the Farrer byelection – is attempting to frame Labor as economically weak and ineffective, while the government is arguing that global conditions and energy instability are major contributing factors.

But as the British Prime Minister Harold McMillan once said, the role of government is to manage events: whether they’re expected or unexpected, it’s up to the government of the day to resolve them. We should expect to see more arguments this week around wages, supermarket pricing, tax relief and energy bills.

Australia–China relations and more tensions in the Indo–Pacific

Australia’s relationship with China always bubbles under the surface – amplified and magnified by conservative politicians and the right-wing media – and it again is being whipped up to the forefront of political debate, particularly around issues relating to defence spending, regional security, trade dependency and the expanding and secretive AUKUS arrangements with the United States and Britain.

Recent military activity in the South China Sea and growing concern about instability around Taiwan are putting pressure on the Albanese government to clarify Australia’s long-term strategic position while at the same time, business groups and sections of Labor Party are continuing to push for stable economic engagement with China, given its importance to Australian exports and the strong cultural and social relationship between the two countries.

The Coalition is likely to argue Labor is not moving quickly enough to prepare for a war with China – a war that has around a zero per cent chance of materialising – while the government will attempt to balance national security concerns with economic pragmatism. It’s a debate that’s likely to intensify this week because, in Australian politics, there’s always room for jingoism and a healthy dose of racism.

In this episode of the New Politics podcast, we examine the interim findings of the Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion following the devastating Bondi Beach attack that killed 15 people and injured more than 40 others. While the Commission’s initial recommendations on gun control, policing resources and intelligence coordination appear measured and relatively uncontroversial, major questions remain unanswered about the role of Australia’s intelligence and security agencies in the lead-up to the tragedy.

We explore whether ASIO, the Australian Federal Police and NSW Police missed critical warning signs after reports emerged that alleged Bondi attackers had been monitored by ASIO as far back as 2019, with allegations of extremist links, ISIS sympathies and weapons stockpiling. If these reports are credible, how did such a catastrophic failure occur, and why are security agencies insisting there was “no intelligence failure”? We discuss the growing concerns around operational secrecy, national security claims, intelligence sharing failures and whether democratic accountability is being sacrificed in the name of protecting Australia’s security institutions.

There’s also the parallels between the Bondi attacks and the 2014 Lindt Café siege, where gunman Man Haron Monis was previously known to ASIO before carrying a major terror incident. What lessons, if any, did Australia’s intelligence agencies learn from Lindt Café, and are similar mistakes now being repeated? We analyse how ASIO’s political influence, expanding surveillance powers and repeated funding increases intersect with questions of public trust, transparency and civil liberties.

We also discuss whether the Royal Commission’s focus on antisemitism and “social cohesion” risks shifting attention away from deeper questions about institutional accountability, intelligence failures and democratic freedoms. Could the inquiry eventually be used to justify tougher restrictions on protests, free speech and dissent, particularly around pro-Palestine activism and criticism of the Israeli state? And can Australia maintain an open democratic society while balancing security, grief, political dissent and civil liberties?

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The interim findings of the Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion have been released with a certain level of caution, containing a series of recommendations that, on the surface at least, appear to be largely uncontroversial – mainly relating to gun control measures and increased resources for policing. Yet beneath that surface is a far more troubling issue: the Commission, at least at this stage, seems reluctant to scrutinise the security institutions whose failures may have contributed to the December 2025 Bondi attack, and the public needs to understand why those failures occurred.

While public attention has been directed towards community tensions, the emotional aftermath of the attack, and this concept of “social cohesion” that we keep being told about, the central question remains – what did Australia’s intelligence and law enforcement agencies know about the Bondi attackers, and why did that knowledge fail to prevent this tragedy?

The nine interim recommendations that have been publicly released, recommend improved coordination between security agencies and police forces, and what appears to be modest reforms to firearms regulations, while also asserting that the existing legal framework is adequate, albeit in need of some level of strengthening. The logical conclusion from this is that if the existing laws are adequate, then the failures are not within the legislation itself – and hopefully the Premiers of New South Wales and Queensland are taking note of this – but in the application of those laws, and how security agencies are using them. And this is what the Royal Commission needs to assess, because all the evidence that we know of, suggests that the warning signs were there, way before the Bondi attacks occurred.

ASIO actually performed a six-month investigation into the alleged perpetrator all the way back in 2019, but even though it was shown that he had links to well-established terror networks, they decided that he wasn’t an “active threat”. Five years later, ASIO was notified by a whistleblower that he was also a supporter of Islamic State, was acquiring weapons – albeit legally – and planned to travel to parts of the world where extremists were active. Why didn’t this this information trigger further investigation by ASIO? By the time the perpetrators went missing in the lead-up to the attack, the opportunity for prevention had already have passed.

Both ASIO and the Australian Federal Police have maintained that there “was no intelligence failure”, a statement that has drawn scepticism from many observers, including the former ASIO boss, Dennis Richardson. ASIO is not beyond reproach – no organisation is – and claims of no intelligence failure needs further examination. Intelligence work, of course, is inherently uncertain and dangerous, and not every threat can be neutralised: the public, more is less, would understand these imperfections, if not necessarily accept them. But when known individuals with established connections to extremist networks proceed to carry out such a large-scale attack, and the warnings were made directly to AISO, then their claim that there was no intelligence failure stretches credibility, as well as the public’s trust in the organisation.

The Royal Commission has withheld five of its 14 recommendations on the grounds of national security and ongoing legal proceedings against Naveed Akram. While the latter is understandable – to jeopardise this legal case would be totally unacceptable – but bringing up national security as a reason to withhold these recommendations raises deeper concerns. For sure, secrecy is necessary in certain contexts, but it can also be used as a bureaucratic shield against public accountability. We not suggesting that all the information that pertains to national security must be released publicly, but at least some direction needs to be provided to the public so they can some gain trust again in the role and actions of ASIO.

And it’s not a case where we haven’t seen these types of failures before: the Lindt Café siege in 2014 exposed similar shortcomings in Australia’s counterterrorism actions, including the challenges of managing individuals or “assets” who exist on the margins of extremist networks, both here and abroad. At the same time, the broader framing of the Royal Commission raises its own set of issues. By placing the inquiry within the context of antisemitism and social cohesion, there is that risk that the focus will shift away from this institutional accountability and the role of security agencies, and into the social narratives that are easier to manage politically, and can be exploited by certain groups to implement their personal agendas.

The grief experienced by the Jewish community following the Bondi attack is real and must be acknowledged, there’s no question about that. But grief, if it is to serve any constructive purpose, needs to be accompanied with a sober examination of the causes of the attack. Blaming the Bondi attack on the people who walked the Sydney Harbour Bridge to voice their opposition to the genocidal actions of Israel in Gaza isn’t acceptable, as has been claimed by the Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism, Jillian Segal. The perpetrators of these attacks were not radicalised by public protests or debates about Palestine on university campuses: they were individuals known to authorities whose propensity for violence was not effectively intercepted.

A mature democratic society should be able to understand that it is possible to hold multiple perspectives at the same time – grieving for victims, confronting antisemitism, and engaging in a robust debate about foreign policy, whether it relates to Israel or Australia – without reducing these issues into a single level of blame to those people who are opposed to violence and wish to offer their views on this publicly. The Akrams were responsible for the Bondi attacks, and that’s where the blame should be apportioned.

But the danger is that the Royal Commission becomes a forum of community tensions – the so-called social cohesion – rather than an avenue to reform the security institutions that badly need it. If its ultimate legacy is a set of recommendations that expand protections for one particular group, and not everyone else – without addressing the operational failures of intelligence and law enforcement agencies – then it will have fallen short of its most essential purpose.

What is required now is a shift in emphasis of this Royal Commission. It needs to move from the language of social cohesion – which has now become a set of code words for silencing dissent – and into the much harder territory of accountability. It needs to examine not only what the intelligence agencies knew, but how this knowledge was analysed, interpreted and acted on. It needs to scrutinise the leadership of Mike Burgess at ASIO, Krissy Barret, the head of the Australian Federal Police, and also the responsibilities of the minister for Home Affairs, Tony Burke. This is not to reduce any of the responsibility of the gunmen who caused the Bondi attacks and caused immeasurable damage and harm to both the Jewish community and the general public, but ultimately, the credibility of the Royal Commission, and of the institutions that it needs to examine, relies on the willingness of the Commissioner Virginia Bell – if she’s allowed to within the terms of reference that have been given to her – to confront some uncomfortable truths.

The question isn’t about whether Australia’s security agencies can prevent every act of violence: there’s no system in the world that can do that. The question is whether they are prepared to acknowledge when they have made mistakes, and whether there will be enough measures put in place to ensure that such failures are never repeated again or, at the very least, minimised. We hope the Royal Commission will be able to provide the answers, otherwise there won’t be much point to it.

The conflict now expanding across Iran and Lebanon – and forced on by Israel and the United States – is no longer a short-term regional crisis; it’s placing a great deal of pressure on the global order that countries like Australia have depended on for many decades. What began as the regular cycle of violence by Israel in the Western Asia region had now evolved into something far more dangerous and unpredictable: a breakdown in the ability of the United States to influence the outcomes, control either the escalation or deescalation, or even to articulate a coherent objective that can hold up for longer than several days.

Sixty days into this conflict, and while it can be argued that at least the zone of the warfare has been restricted to a relatively smaller region, the instability has affected almost every country in the world – the economics version of coronavirus that threatens to collapse the many economies that are dependent on energy and resource supplies from the Persian Gulf.

Israel’s campaign of war and genocide against Gaza since October 2023 has drawn widespread international condemnation for the scale of the harm to civilians and the humanitarian disaster, and its extension into southern Lebanon with almost the same tactics has only deepened those concerns of a broader regional war.

Each new escalation by Israel at this stage creates opportunities for military miscalculations and tit-for-tat retaliations, and a new scope for bringing in other countries into the conflict. Initially, the United States stated that its main goals were “regime change” in Iran, feeding an internal revolution and containing the conflict, with the hidden agenda of asserting its influence and seizing the resource assets of Iran. Yet after months of confrontation with Iran and its regional allies, none of those objectives have been achieved. Other unwanted consequences have arrived, however: oil prices have surged internationally, American diplomacy has disappeared, allies are confused, and the adversaries – Iran and Hezbollah – have easily adapted with their long-developed style of asymmetric warfare that is showing up the limitations of America’s traditional military dominance.

The problem for the United States is that it assumed that all it had to do was project its power – as it had done on so many occasions throughout its history – but the lack of a clear plan or a strategy has exposed its limitations and weakened it in the eyes of many leaders around the world. Yes, the United States still commands immense military and economic resources, but all the power and economic resources in the world won’t guarantee success if the people who are guiding this strategy are incompetent and have no idea what they are doing. And this has created the paradox where the more aggressively the United States behaves in this situation – as well as sacking many of its experienced military generals – the less effective it appears to be.

It’s hard to separate this international decay of American authority from the political environment that’s been created under the presidency of Donald Trump. While previous administrations, for all of their flaws, at least attempted to frame interventions such as the invasion of Iraq in 2003 through a weak but persuasive narrative and went through the process of building up alliances, Trump’s approach has been defined by ad hoc improvisation, the lazy spectacle and inherent contradictions that appear on a daily basis. While US presidents in the past might have argued the case for war – Lyndon Johnson, George H. and W. Bush – Trump just goes to war, with the same nonchalance of ordering a pancake from one of his Trump Tower diners.

Trump is the prime example of someone who firmly believes in American exceptionalism, but the gap between his empty rhetoric and the reality on the ground is just becoming too difficult to ignore. The recent assassination attempt against Trump – if that’s what it actually was – illustrates how deeply this dysfunction has infiltrated domestic politics. In another era, an assassination attempt would have produced shock within the electorate and a unified national response. Instead, half of the world questions whether it was a staged or manipulated event, and it has generated division, suspicion and resulted in different versions of what actually occurred. It’s almost as though whatever actually did happen doesn’t matter anymore: once a political culture has its trust so significantly eroded, it’s hard to believe anything that occurs in the White House and, perhaps, that’s what the Trump regime would prefer.

For many years – during the four years of his first term and now into his second – Trump has attacked institutions, discredited the media and blurred the lines between truth and outright lies. It’s not just an incidental by-product of his political style; this is the strategy. The outcome is a public domain where no single account is credible but, friends and foes alike, pick the narrative that suits them the best. When the reality itself becomes the bigger contest rather than the contest over policy and ideas, every crisis becomes an opportunity for it to be exploited for political gain.

It’s not a new strategy – history is littered with examples of clown shows and idiocy within political leadership, such as Caligula, Benito Mussolini, and the more modern versions of Silvio Berlusconi, Boris Johnson, Javier Milei, Jair Bolsonaro – extravagant fools who wasted space and became the convenient idiots creating the pathways for more corruption and vested interests. Trump is no exception in this field.

But it’s a strategy that leads to a state of permanent instability, with no clear boundary between the normal state of politics and the emergency; every day creates a drama, and a created drama then needs to be resolved. Over time, this creates a high level of exhaustion and fatigue within the electorate: can’t we just have a normal government for a change? The risk for any government that relies on constant disruption – whether it’s Trump, Johnson, Milei or Scott Morrison – is that it eventually loses the capacity to distinguish between legitimate action and foolish improvisation, where they are just trying to wing it each and every day. Eventually, people just want governments to resolve the problems of society, not to create more of them.

The economic conditions – which Trump has actually caused – are now compounding this instability. The rising energy costs, increased living expenses and stagnant wages create an environment that is unlikely to favour incumbents who engage in this type of behaviour. Political messaging – in the style of flooding the zone with shit – can reshape perceptions, but it can’t indefinitely bend the rules of the lived experience. If the electorate begins to associate chaos with dysfunction – and the current polls suggest that this is currently the case – then everything in politics shifts dramatically. The midterm elections in the United States have historically acted as a corrective mechanism for weak or incompetent Presidents, and there are indications that a similar dynamic will emerge again.

The consequences of this behaviour, however, go far beyond the cycle of midterm elections, or even what might happen in the 2028 presidential election. There’s a great deal of uncertainty over the future of NATO. There’s also a great deal of uncertainty surrounding of the future of AUKUS, although, as we’ve argued many times before, cancelling this ill-thought-out deal would be beneficial to all parties, and save Australia at least $368 billion over the next 30 years or so.

The central issue here is not just that the chaos exists – governing is difficult and there’s always going to events that fall outside of the control of a leader – but that it has been embraced as a governing principle. We frequently complain about the Albanese government and its lack of ambition, but it’s not a government of chaos; the main job of government is to reduce chaos, not to create it, and the Prime Minister has largely avoided that.

Markets – and societies – also require a certain level of predictability to function efficiently. Money is the eternal coward, and will follow the path of least resistance and shy away from conflict and chaos. But if the crisis becomes permanent though, the conditions for economic recovery disappear.

The Trump presidency – Marks I and II – has highlighted this contradiction, but how can the system be rebuilt after the state of chaos has been normalised? Joe Biden managed to end Trump’s chaos in 2020, but was a weak president who didn’t know when his time in politics was up. Similarly, Albanese ended the chaos of the Morrison years, but is yet to work out how to use his massive mandate constructively, except for his goal of making Labor “the natural party of government”.

The answer to all of this is not so obvious: Trump was voted out in 2020, only to reappear in 2024. He might not be eligible for re-election in 2028 but, as history has frequently shown, there are always new clown-show leaders who can replace the old. Trump won’t be the last to appear in the exhibition hall of disgraceful political leaders who distract the electorate with their laugh-out-loud routines, and allow the corrupt to fester in the background. But their influence can be diminished.

The world has entered a period in which the consequences of American disorder can no longer be isolated, or tolerated. From the bombs being dropped on the villages of southern Lebanon and Iran, to the corridors of power within the White House, we can see the same pattern repeating itself: a loss of control is presented by Trump as a strength, there’s a reliance on the spectacle over substance, and a belief that the chaos can continue forever. But it can’t: eventually, the chaos stops being a useful tool when the public has had enough of it, and that time is approaching very quickly.

And when that time arrives, there won’t be any winners – only those left to pick up the pieces afterwards, trying to rebuild a sense of order from the ruins of a post-World War II system that once promised stability but, instead, delivered uncertainty on a grand scale. That is Trump’s legacy.

This week’s briefing outlines the big issues to look out for: the truths being withheld in the antisemitism inquiry… a US strategy unravelling in the Middle East… a federal Budget shaped by fear rather than reform… and a Liberal Party victory that masks the deepening fractures on the right.

The blind spots and closed doors: What the antisemitism inquiry isn’t telling us

The interim findings of the Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion were announced at the end of last week – and while most of it at this stage seems to be uncontroversial, the actions of the NSW Police seems to have been underplayed, and the information that ASIO and the Australian Federal Police may have held on the two Bondi shooters, and how their inactions may have contributed to the tragedy in December 2025, has been withheld.

The nine recommendations that have been released seem to be unremarkable, and have suggested a tighter co-ordination of security and police resources, modest reforms to firearms control and a gun buy-back scheme, and the suggestion that existing legal frameworks are adequate, albeit with some strengthening of laws in certain areas. Yet there’s an uncomfortable reality that’s sitting under the surface: if the legal framework is already adequate, then why did these failures occurs? What exactly did ASIO know, and will we ever find out?

Just like in the Lindt Café attack in 2014, the Bondi attacks have become another example of failures within our security systems. The Lindt Café attacker – Man Haron Monis – was an ASIO “asset”, where he was useful in creating the links to other miscreants and possible terrorists, and was tolerated while he served this purpose. It’s quite possible that the two Bondi attackers also served a similar role – their weapons were legally obtained, intelligence agencies had been aware for some time of the risks they posed to the community, and warnings about these vulnerabilities seem to have been identified but not acted upon.

That, of course, leads to a bigger question: what exactly is the point of ASIO and the Australian Federal Police if it can’t transform the information they hold on these people that are a danger to society, into prevention and protections for the community?

The five unreleased recommendations have been withheld because of national security and ongoing criminal proceedings – in the case against Naveed Akram, that is certainly justified, but national security grounds? It could be a secrecy that’s been used to protect security agencies institutions from embarrassment and cover over their ongoing incompetence, rather than about protecting the public from harm.

There needs to be accountability here, and the Royal Commission should look at leadership within these security agencies, what their priorities are, and what’s happening to all the massive increases in funding that both ASIO and the Australian Federal Police always receive when they agitate about security threats, the same threats that they never seem to be able to stop. The hearings in Sydney will continue and keep the pressure on, but the central issue remains: how much of the truth is being withheld, and when will the public will ever be allowed to see it?

A war without the endgame: Australia watches as the US strategy collapses

The expanding conflict involving Iran, Israel, Lebanon and the United States is placing more pressure on the fragile global order that Australia has long relied upon. Israel implemented a genocide and humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and they’ve exported this campaign into southern Lebanon, with a growing sense that Israel is totally out of control and more humanitarian disasters are going to be created, certainly in the lead up to the next Israeli general election.

The stated objectives from the United States – deterrence, containment and increased influence in the region – is now looking less like a coherent plan and more like a set of unrealistic ambitions and foolish overreach. Sixty days into this war against Iran, and none of the US objectives have materialised. Instead, oil prices have risen sharply, allies are unclear about what their relationship with the United States is – or even if there still is one – and adversaries such as Iran and Hezbollah have adapted during this war through the use of asymmetric warfare tactics.

And this is no longer a projection of American power; it’s been an exercise in the limitations of its power. Perhaps some time ago – or under a different President – the United States could have shaped these events in its favour. But this time around, it’s wallowing like a weakened and diminishing power, with an incompetent buffoon as a President, who’s only too happy to talk about his exceptionalism, while the authority of the United States burns in the background. At least Nero fiddled on his cithara during the Great Fire of Rome; Donald Trump waxes lyrical like a stand-up comedian, hoping no one will notice the calamity that’s swallowing up his Presidency.

A budget on the brink? An international crisis, a domestic compromise

The coming federal budget has promised much, but is becoming less of an economic blueprint for change, and more like an outline of the Albanese government’s political priorities. Of course, there are many pressures on the federal government due to weakening economic circumstances, and an increase in global instability created by the unstable Trump regime.

There’s issues related to cost-of-living relief, healthcare, housing, and national security spending all competing for attention, but the bigger question is whether the upcoming Budget will result in a coherent plan for much-needed economic reform.

Rising oil prices and disruptions to many supply chains are already filtering through to household budgets, and while federal Budgets can’t create immediate change, this one has to be more than the window dressing and the “abundance of caution” that the Prime Minister has become well-known for. Temporary fixes like extending fuel excise cuts may ease short-term pain, but they will do little to address the structural problems that exist in the Australian economy.

However, there might some unexpected announcements by the Treasurer, Jim Chalmers. Speculation about winding back negative gearing and capital gains concessions has dragged on for many years, and it appears that the federal government might make some reforms here. But why now? As we know, Anthony Albanese is not one to risk any of his political capital, even when he holds a massive amount of it, but there’s a clear political incentive: younger voters now outnumber the older propertied classes that built their exorbitant wealth through the outrageous policies implemented by the Howard government.

Changing these policies to make them fairer for younger voters now might make also them forget that Albanese failed to stand up to vested interests by blocking a 25 per cent gas export tax. But it could also end up being a case of trying to satisfy everyone, but convincing no one – and making the Budget look like the usual game of politics, rather than doing anything economically meaningful.

Despite the win, there’s still a weakness in the Liberal vote

The win in the Nepean by-election in Victoria has been celebrated by the Liberal Party as a major victory, but underneath all the theatre is still an uncomfortable reality. The prominence in this campaign of the Victoria leader of the opposition, Jess Wilson – effectively treated as the main act in what should have been a routine by-election – suggests a party stretching itself to manufacture a new-found momentum when it actually doesn’t exist. Declaring herself to be the “next premier of Victoria” after a single by-election win might energise the Liberal Party faithful, but it’s also a sign of hubris when a lower-key reaction would have been more useful.

While the result was relatively meaningless – Nepean is a traditionally safe Liberal Party seat, and Labor didn’t run a candidate in this by-election – it did reinforce a longer-term trend: the fragmentation of the conservative vote. Increasing reliance on preference flows from far-right parties like One Nation seems to be becoming a necessity for the Liberal Party, but all it’s going to do is drag both the Liberal Party and One Nation from the seat numbers that are needed to form government.

With another electoral test coming up in the federal seat of Farrer – the by-election there will be held on 9 May – the broader picture is becoming clearer: the control of the two-party system by the major parties is still breaking at the seams, and it’s just a question of who picks up the pieces. For conservatives, the challenge is not just about winning seats – it’s about holding together a coalition of interests that increasingly looks like it doesn’t agree with itself.

In this episode, we explore the latest incident involving Donald Trump, framed as an assassination attempt but unfolding in a political environment where truth itself has been eroded beyond recognition. As conspiracy theories mix in with official narratives, we examine how years of attacks on “fake news,” media manipulation and disinformation have created a climate where large sections of the public no longer trust anything – even events that may be real. This is the logical endpoint of a political strategy built on permanent distrust, where the line between truth and fiction is deliberately blurred, and every crisis becomes a political weapon.

We explore how the Trump playbook turns chaos into opportunity, with crises immediately reframed to blame political opponents, particularly Democrats, while justifying expansive and controversial policies. This latest incident is being used to support a massive $400 million White House ballroom project — framed as harmless infrastructure but raising serious concerns about surveillance, security expansion, and executive power in the United States. While US foreign policies of interventionism and power are not new, the Trump era has stripped away the pretence, making these strategies more explicit and aggressive.

Turning to global implications, we analyse how instability in the United States is reverberating across the world, including tensions within NATO and growing uncertainty around the AUKUS alliance. The recent visit by King Charles III to the White House highlights the seriousness of these fractures, with allies increasingly concerned about US reliability, defence commitments and geopolitical strategy, particularly in relation to Iran and the Indo–Pacific.

Finally, we consider the political consequences of permanent crisis. When every day is defined by chaos, outrage and competing narratives, voter fatigue becomes inevitable. As the United States heads toward crucial midterm elections, we ask whether this constant state of instability will eventually produce a breaking point among the electorate – and why the normalisation of chaos may prove to be the most dangerous development of all.

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We take a closer look at the role of mining billionaire Gina Rinehart, whose speech on Anzac Day injected talking points on immigration, taxation, and transgender issues into debate – issues far removed from the historical meaning of the Gallipoli campaign. We explore how wealthy power brokers, media influence and political donations are shaping public narratives, and how figures connected to organisations like the Institute of Public Affairs, the Liberal Party, and One Nation are helping redefine Anzac Day as a vehicle for right-wing ideology.

There’s a historical reality of the original Anzacs – largely working-class Australians, many of them union members – challenging the modern appropriation of their legacy by political actors who claim ownership over national identity and patriotism. We reflect on the overlooked contributions of over 1,300 Indigenous Australians who served in World War I, many of whom were denied basic rights at home, and ask what it means when their service is disrespected through political protest and division at commemorative events.

More broadly, we explore how Anzac Day has, over decades, been elevated into an almost untouchable national ritual – one increasingly resistant to critique, yet vulnerable to political capture by the right.

Photograph: Bunurong elder Mark Brown. Image: Ruby Alexander/The Age.

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What began as peaceful protest in Brisbane – the usual placards, people calling for an end to the war in Gaza and justice for Palestinians – has been transformed into a test case for the limits of political expression in Australia. This demonstration descended into a confrontation with police, not because of any violent threats or personal intimidation, but because of the use of words that a certain group of people do not like.

Protesters chanting the phrase “from the river to the sea” were surrounded by police officers, resulting in around 20 arrests and multiple charges tied not to any of these actions, but because of their political viewpoints. It reached a surreal level when, in response, a flash mob tried to evade these laws by singing the same words to the tune of a song by the Australian music legend, John Farnham, a sight that captured both the absurdity and the seriousness of these new anti-protest and anti-Palestine laws.

This continues that broader and more troubling pattern that’s developing in Australia: a steady expansion of undemocratic laws that blur the line between genuine hate speech and political dissent. In all jurisdictions, Australia already has the legal frameworks to address incitement, harassment and discrimination. Yet these newer measures, particularly in Queensland, are pulling those definitions into the field of political crackdowns that the former East German Stasi police would be proud of. The result is a legal environment where individuals can face arrest not for harming others, but for uttering innocuous words that a powerful group of people have decided offends their sensibilities, and deflects from their violent intentions to erase an entire group of people from Gaza and the West Bank.

The contradiction becomes even more problematic when considering that the same phrase – from the river to the sea – has been used by many Israeli and Jewish people, including Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, raising questions about consistency, interpretation and enforcement of these laws. How will the law interpret the situation were a pro-Israel Zionist uses the same words or unfurls a banner claiming only Jewish settlers can hold the land, from the river to the sea?

It’s obviously not a legal issue; it’s a political one, and this will be challenged once the laws in Queensland are taken to the Supreme Court to test their constitutionality. In New South Wales, the attempts by Premier Chris Minns to restrict protests have already been dismissed, with the Supreme Court agreeing that the laws are unconstitutional. Minns was advised that this was going to be the likely result by his lawyers, but he persisted anyway, and his competence to enact legally viable laws needs to be questioned.

The consequences of pushing these boundaries go far beyond the immediate arrests or court challenges. Once laws of this kind are enacted, however flawed they might be, they remain in place until they are successfully challenged – which in itself, is an expensive, time-consuming process that places the burden on citizens to prove them wrong, rather than the political leaders who implemented them in the first place.

It raises a bigger question about the style of governance that politicians are happy to ride with: if they knowingly introduce legislation that doesn’t withstand judicial scrutiny, what does it say about the integrity of the legislative process itself? What other laws have they introduced that restrict people’s freedoms, but are not high profile enough for anyone to mount a legal challenge?

This issue has become more complicated by the evolving public debate around the actions of Israel and its obvious desire to erase the state of Palestine, despite what many say when they talk about their “commitment” to a two-state solution, which no longer has much meaning anyway. Over the past decade – especially since the events of October 2023 – public opinion has become more polarised in Australia, but also more critical and nuanced, depending on which new draconian laws need to be navigated.

Criticism of the policies and actions of the Israeli state has become more widespread, including within progressive Jewish communities and across the political spectrum – implementing a genocide in Gaza tends to do that – yet in this climate, the accusations are used in ways that conflate criticism of a state with genuine antisemitism, creating a disingenuous and often confusing public debate. There are dangers here: yes, genuine antisemitism must be confronted, but definitions that encompass every minute detail – including saying “from the river to the sea” – makes the term irrelevant and is just being used to stitch up, silence and jail the people that the state no longer tolerates, and supported by its powerful benefactors.

This factor is not just evident in anti-democratic protest laws, but in cultural and institutional responses as well. Just last week, the decision by University of Queensland Press to cancel and pulp a children’s book authored by Jazz Money, due to unrelated comments made by its illustrator, Matt Chun, highlights how the boundaries of acceptable expression are being redrawn and calibrated according to the interests of the Zionist expansionist project in Israel. Chun’s commentary or opinions didn’t appear in the book itself, yet this link was enough for UQP to justify completely destroying this project, claiming that it breached the university’s policy on antisemitism. The book was considered to be acceptable by UQP even to the point where they spent the $25,000 to print 5,000 copies of the book: who intervened to cause as much damage as possible to this project?

Australian universities have adopted the working definition of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance to act against antisemitism on campus, but all it’s going to do is create the situation where institutions will act pre-emptively to avoid controversy, often at the expense of artistic and intellectual freedom. We should expect to see more books pulped over the coming years, due to the weak leadership at many Australian universities, and this will fuel the further decline of their academic credibility: this is what these laws are doing, and this is what their original intention was.

Political leadership also plays a crucial role in the creation of this anti-democratic and anti-intellectual environment. Figures such as Penny Wong and Jim Chalmers, like many of their peers, have engaged in study tours to Israel – essentially, “re-education” and propaganda tours – and diplomatic exchanges that direct their perspectives towards a pro-Israel narrative when they return. Chalmer’s hasn’t had much to say about Israel and Palestine, but Wong certainly has, frequently condoning the actions of Israel by claiming that it’s “difficult to judge” from far away, or raising her voice slightly to the level of concern, or deep concern before whisking the issues away, hoping they never return. It’s certainly been the case with Chris Minns, who attended one of these tours long before he became the Premier of New South Wales, and is now happy to create laws that are disconnected from the shifting public sentiment on Israel. It’s a system that creates convenient political fools and represents an excellent return on investment.

This also continues the overreach that’s eroding democratic principles. Laws that are supposedly designed to promote “social cohesion” are generating division and resentment. And the normalisation of legislation that restricts certain types of protest, will pave the way for new laws that gradually expand the level of state control over everyday life, primarily because not enough people were paying attention when the bad laws were created.

Robust democracies depend not only on the rule of law, but on the legitimacy of those laws in the eyes of the public. When laws are perceived as arbitrary, inconsistent or politically motivated – and we’ve had quite a few of those over the past few years in New South Wales – that public understanding of legitimacy begins to erode. Citizens might comply with new laws out of fear or convenience, but the underlying trust that democratic institutions depend on becomes much weaker.

The question isn’t just about whether particular slogans should be permitted or prohibited – and by now, we should have gone way past this Stasiland type of mentality – but whether the country is willing to uphold the broader principle that political expression – even when it’s uncomfortable or controversial – is a key part of democratic life in Australia. Shouting out “from the river to the sea” isn’t going to destroy our way of life. But criminalising these words certainly will.

The debate over taxing Australia’s gas exports has returned with the same predictably and, of course, the same paralysis. At Senate Estimates last week, the question of a 25 per cent export tax on liquefied natural gas was the centre of attention again, not as some radical leftist idea but as a long-delayed correction to a complete failure in how Australia taxes its natural resources.

This argument should be pretty straightforward: gas is a finite resource formed over millions of years, owned collectively by the Australian people, and extracted largely by multinational corporations for export. The only meaningful mechanism through which the public can benefit from this arrangement is through the taxation system, which can then be used to apply to other public benefits for the entire community. Yet as we enter the third decade of the LNG boom, Australia continues to receive far less value from its resources than many other countries in the world.

At Senate Estimates, Ken Henry, the former Treasury Secretary and architect of the 2009 Henry Tax Review that produced a comprehensive blueprint for reform, provide a simple but blunt assessment – “stop the crap”, “just do it” and raise the taxes on gas: governments license private companies to extract public resources, and if the tax system fails to receive an appropriate return, the public loses out. In Australia’s case, domestic consumption of gas is only a small fraction of total production, meaning the overwhelming economic benefit should come from how these exports are taxed.

It’s not clear if the Albanese government hasn’t got the ability read, or is too politically dumb for its own good, but it has signalled strongly that it will not be proceeding with a new export tax. The Prime Minister has emphasised the importance of maintaining Australia’s reputation as a reliable trading partner – once again, a Labor government prioritising the markets rather than the community – particularly during recent diplomatic engagements in Southeast Asia, where both Albanese Trade Minister Don Farrell has reiterated that existing export arrangements will be kept.

The argument from government and industry is that LNG producers already contribute tens of billions in taxes and royalties, and that raising the burden risks undermining investment and supply. It’s a weak argument – countries apply new taxes on existing arrangements all the time, and the government of Japan applies a tax on Australian gas for its own domestic market, resulting in the outrageous situation where Japan raises more taxes on Australian gas, than the Australian government does. Gas is working in the interests of the countries of Japan, China and South Korea, but not in the interests of the Australian community, and for this, the Albanese government should be admonished for allowing this bizarre situation to continue.

Albanese might be the master of incrementalism, but this is proceeding so slowly, that it’s actually going backwards: a weak prime minister in a powerful once-in-a-generation position, who refuses to take an easy option that will clearly be a benefit to the public interest. The core proposition – that Australians should receive a fair return on their own resources – is a very clear principle, yet repeatedly ignored by our political leaders.

Instead of implementing this reform, there’s the ongoing consultation and listening to debate; instead of action, Treasury produces new modelling; instead of the introduction of policy, there’s the political management of the issue and, ultimately, the deferral of this idea to the neverland. And that gives time for industry groups to mobilise quickly and create the fear campaign to suggest that any change at all will be a form of economic self-harm on everyone. The result is this meandering policy vacuum in which the public interest is clearly acknowledged by everyone – except by the government and the resources industry – and the loss of tax revenue continues.

These are not trivial amounts that we’re talking about. Estimates suggest that a 25 per cent gas export tax could raise in the order of $15–20 billion per year, depending on the market conditions. Even at the lower end, that’s a level of revenue that would transform public finances: funding the health and education systems that are currently under strain, stabilising the National Disability Insurance Scheme, funding housing supply properly instead of using an inadequate housing future fund or, if the government is not prepared to do that, reducing the structural deficits that have been building up for almost two decades.

Australia’s approach is in contrast to other countries such as Norway, which has built a sovereign wealth fund exceeding US$1 trillion by capturing the value of its petroleum resources through clear taxation and public ownership policies. Every country is different, and a Norwegian solution might not fit perfectly into an Australian context, but it shows that the resources of a country can be converted into long-term national prosperity if governments are willing to assert the public claim over it and, at the moment, we have a Prime Minister who is supposedly from the left of the Labor Party, totally unwilling to do this.

The failure to act also reflects a deeper reluctance to engage with the broader reform agenda outlined in the Henry Review all the way back in 2009. Only three of the 138 recommendations were implemented – since removed – but had those reforms been phased in during the early 2010s, and kept, Australia’s budgetary position would have been significantly stronger today, with higher and more stable revenue streams, better resources management, and a more efficient distribution of capital. Instead, the country has accumulated rising public debt while leaving major revenue sources underutilised.

The point is not to bemoan the fact that nothing of the Henry Review exists today – the water under that bridge passed a long time ago – but that governments always have to consider future generations, and a future that they will actually be a part of. Anthony Albanese was a senior member of the Rudd–Gillard–Rudd government between 2007–13. This is not to suggest that he alone could have pushed for the implementation of tax reform, but how much easier would his task have been 13 years later as the Prime Minister, if all these reforms were already in place? He’s unlikely to be Prime Minister in another 13 years, but how easier will the task for Prime Minister Jim Chalmers be in 2039, if a new 25 per cent gas export tax was implemented now? How much would the public benefit over that time from this greater source of revenue?

Applying a 25 per cent tax on gas exports would at least address some of the anomalies and inconsistencies in the application of government revenues. The Albanese government is willing to commit billions of dollars to defence spending at the drop of a hat – $53 billion in new spending announced last week – or maintain the outrageous tax concessions in negative gearing that benefits the already wealthy, while every other area of government spending such as education, health, aged care, disability support, is debated, argued for, and finally drip-fed with a range of caveats that demand that every cent is accounted for, because we simply don’t have enough money.

This isn’t just something that relates to economics, it’s the management of powerful industry stakeholders in the resources and media sectors. It’s the government’s preference to manage that risk, rather than electoral risk, bearing in mind that governments face the electorate only once every three years, but they have to deal with the revolving door of industry lobbyists pestering them every single day of the year. And this is Albanese’s focus – managing the risk of these key stakeholders, rather than acting in the interests of the public.

The timing for reform – in the unlikely event that anything will happen – is also critical. We have now completed the first third of this term of government and, historically, the second year of a government’s term offers the best opportunity to introduce major policy changes, allowing time for implementation and adjustment before the next election cycle. If a gas export tax is not implemented in the upcoming budget, it’s increasingly unlikely that it will be introduced at all in this term, if ever.

There’s also the question of political legacy. Leaders enter office with finite time and finite opportunity, even those such as Albanese who have been a part of the parliamentary woodwork for over 30 years. The choices they make – or avoid to make – not only define the legacy of their governments but the future of the country.

In 2022, soon after he became Prime Minister, Albanese spoke about the importance of leaving office with a sense of purpose, rather than regretting the opportunities that were missed. Albanese is veering into the second part of that equation, four years in office, with not too much to look back at with a sense of purpose. Albanese has often talked about wanting the Labor Party to become the “natural party of government”, but this is just empty rhetoric and is code for a party wanting to be in government just for the sake of it and enjoy the trappings of office.

Australia remains one of the most prosperous countries in the world, but prosperity without the correct political leadership will just follow the laws of a diminishing return. We don’t want “natural governments”; we want governments that will govern in the national interest, not pander to vested and powerful interests and give them exactly what they want.

Albanese is the incrementalist, he’s made that point very clear. But he’s not even moving incrementally at all on the management of our stock of natural resources which, just like his own political career, is finite, and to continue exporting gas under the current terms is a failure of political will. The question that now faces the Labor government is no longer whether it understands the problem, but whether it’s prepared to solve it – and so far, it has shown that it’s unwilling to do so.

This week’s briefing outlines the big issues to look out for: ANZAC Day hijacked by extremists… the continuing culture wars… gas profits… book censorship by the Zionists and the rise of extremist politics.

The ANZAC Day culture wars continue

The Welcome to Country ceremonies on Anzac Day continue to be hijacked by the extremist culture war warriors, led by actors such as the anti-immigration and nationalist group Fight For Australia and the conservative political lobbyist Advance Australia – and we provide our regular reminder that John Roth (the husband of Australia’s Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism, Jillian Segal) donated $50,000 to Advance – so much for social cohesion.

While there has been some outrage from political leaders, it’s a predictable outcome when these highly organised and well-funded groups based around grievance politics come across a political class that’s far too cautious to confront it directly. It’s also to be expected when people such as the unrepresentative billionaire Gina Rinehart delivers a scathing address on the steps of the Sydney Opera House on Anzac Day eve, offering her unhinged opinions of school children “being taught to hate Australia”, calling for a crackdown on immigration, attacking environmental laws and trans women in sport.

What place has this type of grievance politics when commemorating the deaths of over 8,700 Australian soldiers at Anzac Cove? What gives Rinehart the right to inappropriately provide her right-wing bile and whining at such an important event?

The right has carefully manufactured Anzac Day into a quasi-religious day over the past forty years or so, and now feel that they own the day so much that they can drown out an Indigenous offering to welcome people to a commemoration of fallen soldiers – which includes 1,300 Indigenous soldiers who served during World War I, with around 300 of them killed in action.

There are zero-tolerance policies within many elite sporting codes where spectators who exhibit racist behaviour can receive a life-time ban, with a clear message that their racism is not wanted here. It’s time to apply these policies to Anzac Day events, and perhaps apply even harsher policies for billionaires – especially one whose father wanted to poison Aboriginal water holes so they would breed out – who use these special national moments to platform their own racist views.

Australia’s $20 billion gas giveaway: Who really benefits?

A long-simmering problem in Australia’s economy is starting to break out into the open: the mismatch between the country’s vast gas exports and the small return flowing back to the public, and working towards a change which would make our lives substantially better off.

The idea of a 25 per cent export tax isn’t radical – similar schemes operate in many other resource-intense economies around the world – and it would correct a problem that’s been evident for many years, and so obvious to many people. For years, economists such as Ken Henry have argued that Australia is giving its natural resources to multinational corporations at bargain-basement prices, allowing gas giants to create enormous profits while tax revenues fall far behind.

There are many budget problems in Australia, and these have been developing for some time. With funding constraints in essential services such as the NDIS, this anomaly is becoming harder to ignore: a government that keeps talking about the need for budget restraint on one hand, while ignoring the billions that it could be reaping on the other, with some estimates suggesting that it’s at least $17 billion per year, but could end up being close to $20 billion. The resources industry keeps scaremongering about “sovereign risk” and the flight of investment, but this follows the familiar script that’s always brought out by these vested interests.

This is not so much a tax debate, but more of a test of political will by the Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, and the Treasurer, Jim Chalmers. Will the government confront these entrenched corporate interests, or will it retreat back into Albanese’s infamous incrementalism that ends up achieving nothing? The stakes in this debate are very clear: it’s not just about gas policy – it’s about whether Australia manages its resources in the national interest, or continues to subsidise private profit at the public’s expense.

The Zionists cancel and attack yet again: the Bila children’s book

The withdrawal and pulping of Bila: A River Cycle has revealed the more sinister influences by Zionist groups and says a lot about how cultural power is exercised in Australia. Written by the Wiradjuri poet and artist Jazz Money and illustrated by Matt Chun, the book itself is not controversial – the controversy is the decision by University of Queensland Press to remove this book from circulation and destroy the 5,000 copies that have already been printed, due to external political pressures led by News Corporation, and supported by groups such as the Queensland Jewish Board of Deputies and the Australian Jewish Association.

Chun published an article in early January 2026, titled “Never mourn a fascist”, and it’s a clear and succinct analysis of the fascist tendencies that reside within the Zionist Jewish-supremacist group, Chabad, and outlines the hypocritical nature of the media narratives which solely focus on Jewish grief, while totally ignoring the sufferings of the Palestinian people. The views of Chun are totally unrelated to the illustrations contained within Bila, and there is no reference at all to Palestine or Israel in the book.

But this is never enough for Zionist and pro-Israel groups in Australia, and the issue isn’t about standards, it’s about controlling the narrative and punishing anyone who may hold a view that is contrary to theirs. University of Queensland Press should be admonished for its weak-kneed response on this matter, and the actions by these groups – as usual – were designed to inflict maximum damage. Bila cost around $25,000 to print, with lost revenues of over $130,000 – and this is in line with previous behaviour by Zionists, where events are cancelled way after tickets have been issued and the venues have been booked and paid for. It’s the ultimate act of nihilism: punish everyone, even if Zionists ultimately end up punishing themselves.

Preferencing One Nation: How low is too low for the Liberals?

Speculation is growing that the Victoria branch of the Liberal Party will preference One Nation at the upcoming election in November – it’s being framed as tactical and clever electoral pragmatism, but it’s likely to end up in tears, just as it did in the recent South Australia election.

Since the federal election in May 2025, minor parties have been fragmenting the conservative vote and while the temptation to pull together a winning campaign through preferencing is obvious, what this coalition is starting to represent is a real problem. One Nation represents a racist culture of complaint and grievance – our intention isn’t to hurl insults, but clear and obvious racism is the key brand for the party, so it should accept and take responsibility for that.

That a previously mainstream party such as the Liberal Party – remembering that the Menzian philosophy of liberalism and moderation originated in Melbourne – is prepared to preference One Nation, and possibly form a coalition or alliance with them if it comes to that at the Victoria election, shows how far this party has fallen.

Chasing votes on the fringe might deliver short-term electoral gains, but it risks hollowing out whatever remains of the party. And trying to replicate the behaviour of a fringe party means that the Liberal Party is also now a fringe party. There’s also a broader consequence where major parties that morph into more extreme actors in order to secure power, tend to develop a policy agenda that follows this level of extremism. The South Australia result suggests that it’s a strategy that won’t succeed – dragging down both the Liberal Party and One Nation into a cycle of doom, winning the votes but not enough seats – but even without a victory, it reshapes the political landscape in a way that’s very hard to reverse.

A gas export tax could raise around $20 billion per year in revenue – funding desperately needed investment in health, education, the NDIS, housing, and public services – yet remains politically sidelined due to the influence of the gas lobby, energy companies, and entrenched vested interests across the property and finance sectors. The Henry Tax Review was a missed opportunity to transform Australia’s tax system more than a decade ago, with estimates suggesting the federal budget could be tens of billions stronger each year if those reforms had been implemented.

We explore the broader political failure to tackle structural reform, including the ongoing hesitation around negative gearing changes, and question whether the Albanese government has the political courage to act while it holds a strong electoral position. With the federal Budget approaching, we’ll soon find out if Australia is once again about to miss its window for reform, or whether decisive leadership can finally deliver a fairer tax system that ensures Australians benefit from their own resources.

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We look at how legislation in Queensland and New South Wales is blurring the line between legitimate political expression and so-called hate speech, and why these laws are increasingly being used to silence pro-Palestine activism, with even Jewish and Indigenous Australians caught up in the net.

We explore the contradictions at the heart of this crackdown, including the use of the same phrase by Israeli leaders such as Benjamin Netanyahu, and what this reveals about selective enforcement, political pressure, and the influence of pro-Israel lobbying in Australian politics. We also take a closer look at the role of key political figures including David Crisafulli and Chris Minns, the impact of Israel study tours on Australian MPs, and why multiple pieces of legislation that were pushed through despite warnings of unconstitutionality, are now being struck down by the courts – exposing serious concerns about governance, legal competence, and the willingness of governments to test constitutional limits to appease powerful interests.

Beyond protest laws, we connect these developments to broader structural issues in Australian politics, including the surge in defence spending, the $368 billion AUKUS deal, and the simultaneous scaling back of the National Disability Insurance Scheme, with up to 160,000 people potentially affected by cuts announced by Health Minister Mark Butler.

We analyse the contrast between the ease with which billions are allocated to military expansion and the resistance to funding essential social services like healthcare, housing, education and disability support, highlighting a growing imbalance in national priorities. We also examine Australia’s deepening alignment with United States foreign policy, the increasing militarisation of the economy, and the implications of contracts with companies such as Palantir, whose AI surveillance and defence technologies have been linked to controversial operations in Gaza and beyond. As Australia becomes more embedded in US-led defence and intelligence systems, including AUKUS and Pine Gap, we ask what this means for sovereignty, independence, and the country’s ability to act in its own national interest.

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Australia’s actions in the latest stage of the on/off/on/off US war against Iran shows the familiar and uncomfortable truth about its government, whether it’s led by the likes of Anthony Albanese, Scott Morrison or Malcolm Turnbull: foreign policy and defence continues to revert to a lap-dog obedience and providing all the sacrificial offerings that the United States could ever ask for.

In June 2025, the federal government rejected calls from the US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth to increase defence expenditure to 3.5 per cent of GDP, with the Prime Minister Anthony Albanese suggesting “what we need is things that defend us in real terms, and that’s what we’ll provide,” offering a commitment to boost defence spending by $10 billion but keeping to 2.3 per cent of GDP.

It’s a resistance that didn’t last too long: less than a year after Albanese’s commitment, Australia has announced a massive expansion of defence expenditure, with an additional $53 billion over the next decade, pushing spending toward 3 per cent of GDP. It might be short of the 3.5 per cent demanded by Hegseth, but we’ll eventually get there. Because when the United States makes demands, Australia will eventually comply: that’s what happens in a captured state, whether it’s the AUKUS payments of $798 million in February 2025, another $800 million in July, and another unknown “down payment” at the end of 2025, or simply tossing $5.3 billion each year into the defence pool for the next ten years. And why not share the love with Britain, where we provided another $310 million for the SSN-AUKUS submarines just a few months ago in February.

What makes this shift so galling is not just the scale, but all the contradictions it reveals. Every dollar directed toward any other form of government spending – housing, healthcare, education, disability services, aged care, infrastructure – always has to pass through many layers of scrutiny by governments and oppositions, justifications need to be provided in triplicate, then there’s a delay and, finally, funding becomes available, just like the drips coming through from a leaking tap.

Governments constantly speak of fiscal discipline, have concerned looks on their faces about a worrying budget outlook, and the need for the strict prioritisation of spending, because we haven’t got the money to fund everything. Or so we keep being told. The health minister, Mark Butler, has detailed the “savings” – in other words, cutbacks – that will be made to the NDIS scheme because it “costs too much”, which will then be used to fund showering and the management of incontinence in aged care facilities, essentially robbing one social service, to pay for another. It’s not exactly being pissed on from a great height, but it’s a similar kind of sentiment.

Yet when it comes to defence spending, particularly to achieve the defence objectives of the United States, those funding constraints magically disappear, it never “costs too much”, and there is money to be found, after all. Tens of billions are committed with relative ease by the defence minister, Richard Marles, announced with such a casual demeanour, as though no alternative exists and there’s no further justification required, except for the stage-managed media conference where all of this spending is announced, followed up by one or two questions asked by government-friendly journalists.

We’re not naïve enough to think that there was a golden age in Australia’s mystical past where these issues have never existed, or that there was a golden fleece on call to provide us with every fiscal need and desire, but what does it say about a government’s worldview when social investment is treated as a burden, yet military expenditure is treated as a necessity, with no questions asked?

All of these defence spending announcements are being made against the backdrop of a Middle East crisis that bears the unmistakable signs of the American instability that we’ve come to expect since early 2025. Under Donald Trump, US foreign policy has become a volatile mix of impulsive decision-making, performative aggression and complete incoherence, as recently shown when Trump unilaterally extended a ceasefire agreement with Iran in the middle of negotiations in Pakistan, and continues to blockade a number of Iranian ports, even though a previous ceasefire explicitly ruled out such actions.

Since this conflict began in late February, Trump has issued deranged late-night threats and contradictory commentary through Truth Social, followed by vague references to negotiations that might exist – or might not – and allies and negotiators are then left to interpret these incoherent messages that shift almost on an hourly basis.

At various points he has called for regime change in Iran, only to backtrack into more limited and undefined objectives, claiming that the war had already been won, even as military operations continued. His timelines have been equally unreliable – initially framing the conflict as a short, decisive campaign ending in weeks, if not days, before insisting he couldn’t be rushed and that this war would end on his own terms. He’s oscillated between violent threats of complete destruction, and openness to negotiation, sometimes suggesting a deal is imminent and Iran is desperate to talk, while in reality, diplomatic talks have been on the verge of collapsing.

This is the lunacy and incoherence that Australia is supporting, taking funding away from much needed public services in health and aged care, and funnelling it towards the American war machine to the tune of an additional $53 billion over the next decade, on the top of the commitment of $368 billion for AUKUS.

Yes, Australia is a part of the US alliance, whether we like it or not, and will be affected by the irresponsible actions of the United States, even if we have no part in the cause of these actions. The United States acts, Australia pays: each and every time. When will enough be finally enough, and give Australia all the reasons to finally say no?

Australian political leaders such as Marles frequently talk about the importance of sovereignty and the national interest, yet never refer to the fact that the decisions that relate to these matters are defined by the leaders who reside in Washington. We might get to make the announcements – thank you, kind sirs – but it’s the more powerful people in the White House who are really pulling the strings. It’s the language of independence that exists with the reality of dependence, and to explain this reality is, to use Churchillian language, as complex as a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.

The broader issue is not just whether Australia should increase its defence spending or support its traditional allies – it’s whether it can hold a strategic position that reflects its own interests, values and capabilities, rather than supporting a faraway power whose priorities and pursuits are radically different to our own.

At a time when global instability is increasing because of a Trump regime that comprises ineffective, corrupt, incompetent and compromised leaders – topped off with the bizarre sight of Christian Zionists performing exorcisms to cleanse the White House of evil spirits, when a kinder act would have been to call in psychiatrists – the need for a rethink is becoming more urgent, if not simply to assess the financial cost of this alliance.

A more mature and confident political culture in Australia would recognise that alliances are not obligations to follow blindly, but relationships to be managed with judgement that are in our own interests. There should be bipartisanship on standing up to the United States; instead, it’s a bipartisan commitment to acquiescence at all times, irrespective of the cost, or the damage that we’re doing to ourselves. America has colonised our minds, and it’s gone on for such a long time, that we don’t even realise it, let alone how to decolonise ourselves.

Until that decolonisation of mind does occur, Australia will remain caught in that same old situation: supporting conflicts it didn’t have anything to do with, funding military hardware that it did not design nor will ever control, and absorbing the consequences of whatever is thrown at us, whether we like it not. When ministers take delight in announcing “savings” from disability services will now be used to fund hot showers and incontinence programs in age care homes, while billions of defence dollars are being flushed down through the sink of American imperialism, we all know that something is seriously wrong.

It’s a theme that we constantly come back to – and apologies for the repetition – but until Australia finds the courage to think and act for itself, it will remain a nation that pays the price of other people’s wars and political mistakes, while trying to convince itself that it’s an act of loyalty. But it’s all a charade, and, as the world becomes more uncertain, it’s a cost that will only continue to keep rising.

The Liberal Party’s push for a so-called “values-based” immigration system, including proposals to scrutinise migrants’ social media accounts, is a real troubling development in Australian politics, not so much because we think it’s a politically winning strategy – it’s not – but because one of Australia’s mainstream political parties – and, supposedly, representing the essence of true liberalism – feels that this is its way of reaching electoral nirvana.

Framing its policy as a necessary defence of national cohesion, in reality, it’s a reflexive move to the culture war politics that have hampered the Liberal Party for well over 30 years, and an attempt to import elements of the ideology associated with figures such as Donald Trump in the United States, albeit without the extreme edges that we’ve come to expect from Trump’s new dystopian world.

Yet even in diluted form, the strategy is very similar: confuse the questions of Australian identity, loyalty and belonging, while constructing a narrative of the eternal threats that demands a constant vigilance and the perpetual fear of the migrant.

What is difficult to comprehend is not just the contents of this Liberal Party policy, but the timing of it. Less than a year after the Australian electorate so thoroughly rejected this style of politics at the 2025 federal election, the party has decided to double down with a different leader, Angus Taylor, and go further to the right in the search for the voters that have been stolen by One Nation, and unlikely to ever return.

At the centre of this draconian shift is the effort to draw a distinction between what Taylor describes as migrants of “noble and patriotic intent” – reflective of the racist undertones of 18th-century European philosophy and the noble savage – and the migrants of “subversive intent”. He doesn’t need to name these subversives or indicate where they actually reside: not providing these details means his audience can fill in the gaps with their own imaginative construct of the other, and insert the specific migrant group of choice that they dislike.

Of course, Taylor is all big on the rhetoric but intellectually shallow, reducing complex social realities into an easy to digest binary that invites suspicion and division in the electorate that can easily be shouted at. Taylor’s rhetoric also relies on a deeply questionable premise, making a causal link between the Bondi terror attacks and pro-Palestinian protests and antisemitism, and then further extending that link between criminal acts, political expression and immigration itself.

Bereft of any other ideas, Taylor feels that he’s hit the political jackpot, encouraging the electorate to associate migration with insecurity, and dissent with disloyalty to Australia. The political logic behind his approach is easy to see: the Liberal Party is still trying to work out how to deal with the new world of a splintered conservative base, challenged on one side by Labor’s complete electoral dominance, and on the other, One Nation, and other creatures lurking in the shadows of the far-right mindset.

Historically, the party has navigated pressures from the far-right by absorbing elements of their rhetoric. Under John Howard in the 1990s, this strategy proved to be electorally effective, neutralising Pauline Hanson’s early rise by adopting a harder edge on issues of national identity and immigration, even though the Howard government actually maintained high levels of immigration for most of their 11 years in office.

But that was many years ago – adopting the politics from 30 years ago, is not going to work in 2026, especially when the stocks of the Liberal Party are so low. For sure, it worked for Howard in the 1990s and early 2000s, but Taylor seems to be testing his lines in public to see what floats, rather than offering coherent policies. And, as a result, the Liberal Party is behaving like a fringe party, shouting at the clouds, and searching for electoral relevance.

The entire premise of moving towards a “values-based” immigration system implies that the values are currently not there, but Australia has always operated with a values-based system in practice, as does every other country in the world. Visa requirements, character tests, and the citizenship process already provide expectations about adherence to the rule of law, democratic values and social participation. Short of suggesting executions, there’s not much more that Taylor could recommend.

Migrants coming to Australia are not entering a value-free space; they are entering a society with established institutions, legal frameworks and civic expectations. Taylor’s suggestion that Australia has somehow abandoned these standards – without indicating which standards, or how they have dropped – is not supported by evidence, but it doesn’t have to be. All it’s doing is serving a political purpose: it’s the classic case of identifying a problem that doesn’t exist, and then offering the solutions that won’t work anyway.

But what is new – and concerning – is the proposed policy of enforcement. The idea that prospective migrants should have their social media activity examined introduces a level of state surveillance that sits uneasily with the very values being claimed by Taylor. Freedom of expression, belief and the right of individual dignity can’t be reconciled in a system where individuals are assessed on their opinions, associations and surveillance of their digital history.

In a direct paraphrase of Howard’s words from 2001, Taylor claims that “we will decide who deserves protection and the circumstances in which that protection is granted”, but who will decide what constitutes acceptable speech, either on the streets or through social media? What level of dissent will determine someone’s ability to become an Australian citizen? How will such judgements be insulated from political bias and interference? It’s simply not good enough to declare a commitment to that jingoistic “fair go”, while creating exclusions that are based on subjective interpretations devised by a team of bureaucrats.

Australia’s post-1788 history is quite different to the one that Taylor wants to promote. From the presence of Muslim cameleers in central Australia, to the waves of European migration after World War II, to the removal of the White Australia policy in 1973, the country’s development has been shaped by successive waves of inclusionary migration policies. These processes were often imperfect and up for debate – Howard always claimed multiculturalism was “a mistake” – but these processes also established a broad consensus about Australia’s national identity. Crucially, that consensus – ignoring the shallow men like Howard – has been more or less bipartisan.

In political terms, the social risks are considerable, considering that an opposition party – irrespective of how poor its electorate position might be at the moment – is only one election away from returning to office. By adopting the language and the rhetoric of the more extreme actors in Australian politics, the Liberal Party is hoping to recapture those voters who have drifted off further to the right. But in doing so, it legitimises those very narratives, and all it does is reinforce the fragmentation that it’s seeking to reverse.

The recent South Australian election, where the Liberal Party fell behind both Labor and One Nation on primary votes, confirms that splintering of the right that started off with the 2025 federal election. Rather than consolidating the conservative vote, strategies such as the ones promoted by Taylor will split it even further, leaving the party squeezed between a more moderate centre and a more radical fringe. Chasing the votes garnered by One Nation – a fringe party of right-wing white noise – means that the Liberal Party will also become a fringe party, and this continuing pursuit is unlikely to result in the renewal that the party so desperately needs: it will just cement its continuing decline.

Yet the implications for this go far beyond the low number of seats held by the Liberal Party, or how difficult it will be for them to return to office at the next federal election in 2028. Policies that frame sections of the population as inherently suspicious – and we know who Taylor is talking about when he brings up the rhetoric of the “migrant of subversive intent” – that equate dissent with disloyalty, and expand state surveillance on a select few, have lasting effects on the social fabric of society, and sends a strong message that they… them… the other… and whoever is deemed to not fit in, just don’t belong to that white Australian construct.

In a diverse society, cohesion is not achieved through suspicion, but through shared institutions, mutual recognition and the consistent application of the law. “Social cohesion” seems to be the fashionable phrase of the day, but excluding the brown and black people from our society, just because Taylor wants to decree this to be the case, doesn’t make social cohesion any easier: all societies are difficult to manage politically, irrespective of how homogenous they might be, but the Liberal Party wants us to believe that social cohesion is achieved by ironing out all the kinks of colour, and achieving pure white, if not literally in appearance, but through a colonisation of the mind. It’s a corrosive style of thinking.

What is ultimately at stake is not simply the direction of immigration policy, but the character of Australian democracy itself. Taylor is a tin-pot leader who might not even be the leader of the Liberal Party at the next election, but he’s likely to implement a system that treats values as something to be policed rather than lived, and prioritises political expediency over principled governance, undermining the very foundations that he claims to defend.

The challenge for all political leaders is not to manufacture division in the hope of short-term gain – which is obviously what Taylor is attempting to do – but to articulate a vision of national identity that is confident enough to accommodate difference and celebrate and accept it. After all, no two people on this planet are the same. Anything less than this is not a sign of strength, but Taylor’s own insecurity masquerading as policy – and voters, as recent elections have shown, are increasingly unwilling to reward it.

This week’s briefing outlines the big issues to look out for: more useless military spending by the Australian government… Queensland arrests for pro-Palestine banners… Trump’s on-again, off-again war… the slow decline of One Nation.

Australia drifting towards another round of futile defence spending

Australia’s stance in the on-again/off-again/on-again US–Iran confrontation is once again exposing the duplicity of a political class that tries to convince the public about its independence but, in reality, defaults to the position of acquiescence to the United States.

The Albanese government has publicly resisting pressure from US President Donald Trump to participate more forcefully in a conflict created by the United States – which was essentially for the main purpose of boosting the profits of the oil barons and vested interests in the US – but we have to remember that they previously resisted the calls from Trump to increase military spending, only to announce on the weekend that – you guessed it – military spending is going to receive a significant boost.

The Defence Minister Richard Marles – who casually makes these announcements as though he is cutting the ribbon at the opening of a new fountain at the local park – has released the National Defence Strategy, which will increase defence spending by $53 billion over the next decade, taking defence investment up to 3 per cent of national GDP. While it’s short of the 3.5 per cent demanded by the United States, it’s still a 50 per cent increase, just at a time when we keep being told that there isn’t enough government revenues to support housing reform, better public services, public infrastructure, public school funding, hospitals, mental health, the National Disability Insurance Scheme, measures to reduce domestic violence.

Why is it that every dollar for essential services has to be argued for incessantly, assessed whether it represents value for money by an endless stream of committees and bureaucrats in Treasury, and reluctantly released by government as though the public is extracting a deeply embedded tooth – yet $53 billion for defence and appeasement of an idiot king in the United States is given away with alacrity. Not as cheerfully given away as the $368 billion price tag of AUKUS, but still frittered away without any of the usual checks and balances that are applied to every other measure of government spending.

Who has time to support vital public services and social investment when we’re on the verge of backing an aimless war in a distant country – waged by an even more distant ally that doesn’t know what it’s doing?

The slogan police in Queensland and NSW

While the conflict in Iran has consumed most of the world’s attention and pushed the conflict in Gaza into the background – the issue of Australia’s commitment to free expression when the political pressure grows is once again in the spotlight.

Since October 2023, the Albanese government has made poor attempts at a delicate balancing act: signalling “concerns” about humanitarian conditions in Gaza, while avoiding a diplomatic conflict with Israel, and catering for the extremist pro-Zionist groups that is resulting in further controls over university curricula, what’s permitted within cultural institutions, and what type of political expression is allowed on the streets. Just like the spending on defence, there isn’t a coherent position provided by the government, just this endless appeasement and acquiescence to this pro-Israel lobby, and then trying to contain any political fallout that arises from it.

Queensland’s tightening of protest laws, particularly on Palestine solidarity, reveals how quickly governments reach for new laws and restrictions when dissent becomes inconvenient for them, or their supporters. Twenty people were arrested in Brisbane for holding up a banner with the phrase “from the river to the sea”, words that are banned in Queensland because it’s part of an expression that is – according to these new laws – reasonably expected to menace, harass or offend a member of the public.

At least in New South Wales, the attempts to criminalise the use of “from the river to the sea” and “globalise the intifada” have stalled because advice to the NSW government is that to enact such laws would be unconstitutional. This follows on from the removal of the Public Assembly Restriction Declaration laws, after the NSW Supreme Court deemed them to be unconstitutional, due to the restriction of political communication, and threatening fundamental civil rights.

The broader issue is not so much the draconian banning of such certain words – as bad as that is in itself – but that we have weak and careless leaders such as Queensland Premier David Crisafulli and NSW Premier Chris Minns who are only too happy to throw away democratic rights and freedoms, just so that an exclusive and powerful group of people in Australia don’t have to have their consciences pricked when they do their Sunday shopping, or be reminded of the crimes of genocide being acted out by the state of Israel.

Trump’s continuing crisis

“We’re going to knock out every single power plant, and every single bridge”. No, these are not the words coming from the mouths of Iranian “mad mullahs”, or a mass of anti-American protestors on the streets of Tehran; they are coming from the keyboard-commander-in-chief, US President Donald Trump.

It’s now a cliché to suggest Trump is not of sound mind and, therefore, time to invoke the articles contained with the 25th amendment of the US Constitution, but it’s clear that he’s neither fit nor appropriate to be President. No US President should ever behave like this, irrespective of their political leanings.

The Iran crisis is obviously a failure of diplomacy and a case study in how instability can be manufactured, amplified and politically exploited by a corrupt leader. Under Trump, the United States has vacillated between threats made on Truth Social, grandstanding and vague claims of negotiations, creating a volatile mix that makes him look more like a convenient idiot manipulated behind the scenes by his powerful and leeching benefactors.

Iran’s moves to close the Strait of Hormuz again are being framed by the US as provocation, yet they are the ones who refused to end their blockade after Iran opened up the strait. It’s almost like the politics of the playground acted out by a geriatric leader, but instead of a bruised lip or a black eye in a fight caused by a 10-year-old overgrown bully, this has far greater consequences – to global shipping routes, energy markets and civilian lives – with scant regard being given to any of these issues.

For Australia, the crisis exposes a familiar story: dependence on global energy flows and an obedience to a US alliance that limits our autonomy. We are tied to decisions made by others, and elsewhere: the Prime Minister can claim some success in being able to obtain the supply of 100 million litres of petrol from Malaysia, but this is the equivalent of one day of consumption in Australia. Once again, Australia finds itself reacting to a crisis it has no role in affecting, yet, inevitably helps to sustain it by not calling out the actions of the United States.

One Nation meets the limits of outrage

The latest round of opinion polls shows a dip in the support for One Nation, and this suggests that there are limits to a style of politics that’s built primarily on grievance.

After surging earlier in 2026, One Nation is losing momentum, with voters drifting back toward the major parties, as economic anxiety begins to outweigh the protest of being permanently “pissed off”. Cost-of-living pressures, global instability and the “serious” policy questions have always been the roadblock for One Nation, and this tends to expose the gaps between political anger within the electorate, and political credibility. Yes, the electorate can get angry about key issues that they feel are not being addressed by government but, ultimately, they will choose candidates that can solve problems, not just sit down and complain about it endlessly.

What makes this dip more crucial is the timing. The decline coincides with more scrutiny of the quality of One Nation candidates, including the ones who won seats at the recent South Australia election – management of electoral funds, and the kinds of controversies that are arising, including the employment of a staffer who was jailed for rape in 2018.

Populist movements such as One Nation do thrive on a reputation as political disruptors, but now the electorate has kicked the tyres and looked under the bonnet, they are seeing a political movement that enlists some unsavoury characters, seems to be pilfering public funds, and offers few solutions to the many problems they like to complain about, which usually focus on those issues that tend to bring out the worst in people.

Voters might flirt with outsider politics when their frustrations reach a breaking point – and some may remain there – but many others will retreat to familiar institutions when the uncertainty deepens, especially when they can see that these outsiders don’t have much to offer to the public.

We outline how populism is not so much an ideology but a political strategy used across the spectrum – from Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn to Hugo Chávez – and examine the key differences between right-wing populism’s focus on nationalism, immigration and identity politics, and left-wing populism’s emphasis on economic inequality, workers’ rights, public housing, higher wages and corporate accountability. As political discourse in Australia continues to normalise conservative populist voices in mainstream media, we ask why progressive and socialist perspectives are marginalised, despite widespread public support for policies like stronger healthcare, better education, fair taxation and housing affordability.

With the Greens restructuring the Green Institute and appointing Max Chandler-Mather, we explore whether the party is preparing to embrace a more assertive, pro-worker, anti-corporate message ahead of the next federal election, and whether issues like negative gearing, capital gains tax reform, and the housing crisis could become defining battlegrounds. We also examine media bias, the role of think tanks in shaping political narratives, and the missed opportunities for the Greens to capitalise on voter frustration, asking whether this is the moment they shift towards a more disciplined, unapologetic populist strategy that resonates with younger voters locked out of housing and economic security.

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