The Liberal Party’s latest bout of soul-searching has arrived at a very familiar point: the problem isn’t the packaging, it’s what’s inside the package. Following another round of disastrous opinion poll numbers, senior figures of the Liberal Party are openly discussing a rebrand, with suggestions that the party’s name may have become an electoral liability.

In the advertising drama series, Mad Men, Peggy Olson asks: “If this was a dog food, we’d change the name, so why don’t we just change the name?”. We’re not suggesting that the Liberal Party has reached the point of dog food – others might – but it’s a remarkable admission for a party that once regarded itself as Australia’s natural party of government, having held office for 51 years since it was formed in 1944, or 63 per cent of that time.

Changing the name is far easier than confronting the reasons why the electorate has walked away from the Liberal Party. After making the endless push for privatisation, deregulation, tax cuts for high-income earners and an increasingly market-driven approach to housing, wages and public services, many people associate the party with a system that has delivered unprecedented wealth to those already at the top while leaving everyone else facing stagnant living standards and diminishing economic security.

The problem for the Liberal Party is that they continue to make that mistake that the lowest point in its history is therefore an opportunity to bring in a marketing solution to a political crisis, instead of looking directly in the mirror and realising that they are the actual problem.

The irony here is that the Liberal Party – in the Menzian tradition – once saw itself as the party of aspiration and opportunity, but also providing a modest safety net for those who might be lagging behind. Today, many younger Australians see it as the defender of inherited wealth, property speculation and entrenched privilege. And something that’s been created over many decades, coupled with the nasty right-wing hate promoted during the Howard era, is not going to be repaired by a fancy new logo or a name that continues to deceive the electorate. Isn’t it bad enough that the use of “Liberal” in its name disguises what is essentially is a hard-line conservative party?

Rebranding might end up produce a few favourable headlines and a few look-here moments, especially from their friends in the mainstream media, but will the voters buy it? Olson’s question in Mad Men captures the basic instinct of advertising that a brand refresh can change perceptions. In politics, though, voters generally look beyond the label: if the product behind the name remains the same, a new name by itself won’t deliver any long-term political benefits.

The teals become a part of the establishment

The launch of Community Strong Australia is a sign that the teal movement – some of them, at least – has decided to become what they’ve always opposed: the structures of a political party. It’s not exactly a name that rolls of the tongue – something like the Teal Alliance would have been far more suitable if that’s the path they were going to go down – and it has all the hallmarks of being market tested to the point of being meaningless, but that’s beside the point. What started off as well-funded community independents campaigning against the excesses of the major parties is now showing all the signs of the political establishment it has always claimed to challenge.

The rationale being offered by current independents Allegra Spender and Zali Steggall is fairly straightforward: Australia’s electoral funding laws have always favoured the formal party structure, making it difficult for like-minded independents to form allegiances and hold more political influence. It’s always going to be a trade-off – is it better to have clear independence, or form a party that will enable the pooling of resources, manage co-ordinated campaigns and build a national brand, and hold power to account more effectively? How independent are the teals anyway, considering the massive support they receive though the Climate 200 group?

The bigger question is what the teals actually represent. They have successfully positioned themselves as competent, moderate and evidence-based, and their appeal relies heavily on integrity, climate policy and professional management – all highly desirable attributes for political operatives – but the far more contentious issues about wealth concentration, housing speculation, corporate influence and growing inequality seems to have been overlooked. The seats that are occupied by teal independents are also the most affluent in Australia and that might be the reason why they’ve paid lip-service to some of these issues.

This might end up being both their strength and their weakness. They do offer reassurance to voters frustrated with the major parties without asking for fundamental changes to the system that produced that frustration in the first place. But the economic insecurity that is affecting many people across Australia is hardly felt at all in the seats currently held by the teals.

If these electorates feel that the main point of difference for the teals was the fact that they are truly independent from the party structures, the day Community Strong Australia was announced last week could end up being its high-water mark and hard work performed by these independents over the past decade runs the risk of being lost.

The limitations of Hanson’s monoculture

The latest opinion polls contain an uncomfortable message that neither major party seems particularly eager to confront. Labor has stabilised after its post-budget wobble, the Coalition has sunk to historically weak levels, and One Nation continues to command support that would have been unimaginable just a few years ago, albeit with a slight drop. Yet beneath the headline figures is a different reality: there’s not much enthusiasm for any of the parties or leaders, and it seems to be more a case about choosing the least-worst option.

Anthony Albanese is comfortably ahead of Angus Taylor as preferred prime minister, but much of that advantage reflects the Opposition’s inability to present itself as a credible alternative rather than any excitement about the government’s agenda. Meanwhile, the Coalition appears trapped in a cycle of self-inflicted decline, searching for better messaging while avoiding the harder conversation about whether any of its political and economic offerings matches up to the lives Australians are actually living.

Meanwhile, support for One Nation has dropped slightly, and we suggest that it will continue to drop, as each new bizarre announcement is made by Pauline Hanson, to give us an idea of what’s really going on inside her head. The latest from her “monocultural series” is that Paul Hogan and Norman Gunston (who, incidentally, is not a real person) are the classic definition of the monoculture that she is espousing, even going to the extent of claiming that the current World Cup Socceroos team, is also an excellent example of “monoculture”.

This claim would be a surprise to many people, as the squad is made of players from Italian, Scottish, Cypriot, Ugandan, Sudanese, Tanzanian, Serbian and Dutch backgrounds, which would seem to be the true essence of multiculturalism, but perhaps we’ve been wrong all along and Pauline knows best. We is all Straylian now.

But this politics of nostalgia is starting to wear thin. For years, Hanson has built her political brand around the promise of returning Australia to an imagined past: a simpler, more familiar, more “Australian” nation supposedly before multiculturalism, migration and social change arrived unwantedly on onto the scene, and ruined the national story. Right at this moment, it’s an effective political strategy because calls for nostalgia rarely requires evidence; it just requires people to believe that yesterday was much better than today (narrator’s voice: no, it was not much better than today).

It’s not possible to feed the public this constant line of fact-free bullshit and expect they will fully accept this rhetoric forever. Nostalgia does have its limits: as the cost-of-living crisis deepens and housing becomes increasingly unaffordable, voters are beginning to ask more practical questions.

How will a return to Norman Gunston help to reduce grocery bills, lower rents or make it easier for young Australians to buy a home? And by the way, who is Norman Gunston? Played by Garry McDonald, the character of Gunston hasn’t appeared for over 45 years. He might have been the precursor to Da Ali G as far as his style is concerned, but how many people in the electorate would know who he is?

It’s cyclical, but this culture-war politics has probably reached its limits too. Hanson insults the intelligence of the public by offering inane and outdated cultural references as solutions to the big problems the country faces. The public might detest many of our politics leaders, but they too can see that Hanson is the fool on the stage who is being seriously exposed as her audience grows.

Political theatre can attract attention, but eventually voters expect substance. If economic insecurity continues to dominate public life, there’s not much of a future for the likes of Hanson and One Nation, despite what the opinions polls might be saying today.

Keir Starmer’s resignation as British Prime Minister after just 18 months in office is more than another chapter in the United Kingdom’s revolving-door leadership. It raises a much bigger question for centre-left governments across the democratic world: why do parties elected on promises of transformational change so often end up governing as cautious managers of the status quo?

We examine the striking parallels between Labour in Britain and Labor in Australia. Both parties inherited government after long periods of conservative rule, both secured commanding parliamentary majorities despite relatively modest primary vote support, and both promised to tackle deep economic and social problems. Yet once in office, the politics of reform quickly gave way to the politics of caution.

Rather than confronting entrenched concentrations of wealth and power, governments increasingly rely on reviews, inquiries, consultations and incremental policy adjustments. Major reforms are softened, delayed or abandoned altogether, leaving many voters with the impression that elections change governments but rarely change the direction of the country.

The consequences are now becoming clear. As Labour’s support collapsed in Britain, Reform UK filled the political vacuum. In Australia, One Nation is experiencing a similar surge in opinion polling. These developments are often dismissed as populism, misinformation or protest voting, but those explanations overlook a more fundamental issue: when mainstream parties fail to deliver meaningful change, frustrated voters inevitably begin searching elsewhere.

We also explore how political accountability has fundamentally changed. Governments are no longer judged primarily against the failures of their predecessors but against the promises they made before taking office. Starmer campaigned on renewal but was quickly associated with austerity measures, while Anthony Albanese increasingly faces criticism that Labor has retreated from many of its reform ambitions, from the National Anti-Corruption Commission to broader structural economic change. In today’s political environment, broken expectations carry far greater political costs than unmet historical comparisons.

Starmer’s downfall is a reminder that overwhelming parliamentary majorities can evaporate quickly when governments are seen as managing problems rather than solving them.

The lesson extends well beyond Britain. Modern electorates are becoming less patient, more demanding and increasingly unwilling to reward cautious incrementalism. If governments elected to deliver change instead preserve the existing political and economic settlement, they may discover that the greatest beneficiaries are not their opponents in parliament, but the insurgent movements waiting outside it.

Pauline Hanson is often described as angry, but the anger in itself is not the problem. We’ve seen historically that anger can be one of the great drivers of democracy: it has exposed the humiliation, exploitation and abandonment of people by terrible governments in the past, will continue to do so in the future. The question isn’t whether anger belongs in politics, but what that anger is hoping to achieve: is the purpose to shine a light on the behaviour of the powerful, or is there to hide the power? And is to identify who has caused these problems, or is it transforming this anger into resentment towards those who have even less power in society?

Hanson’s politics belongs firmly to the latter tradition. Rather than helping Australians understand the economic and political structures that have produced this sense of insecurity, it offers a simpler story in which migrants, Muslims, Indigenous Australians, trans people, public broadcasters, academics and assorted “elites” become the cause of a national decline. It’s a politics that creates problems without offering resolutions and solid grievance without an analysis, transforming genuine frustrations into suspicion of the people in the community who least responsible for creating them.

The common defence of Hanson is that she has identified real grievances but has misdirected them. But even that is being too generous. The grievances might be real, but her explanation of them was wrong from the beginning. Over the past four decades Australians have experienced insecure work, weakened unions, privatisation, regional neglect, housing speculation, declining public services and the growing power of the wealth class over democratic institutions.

Hanson has seen these developments over the years, but instead of identifying the political and economic order that produced them – and the underlying principles of neoliberalism – she has racialised their consequences.

The legacy of racial nationalism

In this sense, Hansonism didn’t emerge from nowhere in 1996. Australian political commentary often treats each eruption of right-wing populism as a shocking deviation from an otherwise tolerant national story, but the historical roots are much older. Australia was federated with racial exclusion close to the centre of its national identity, where The White Australia policy wasn’t a side issue of the newly created Commonwealth; it was one of its founding principles. Race, labour and nationhood were bound together through the promise that white workers would be protected, not by democratic control over economic power but by racial boundaries based around citizenship and employment.

Hansonism has inherited this tradition in a degraded form. It’s an style of thinking that speaks constantly of protection, but not protection from economic insecurity or concentrated wealth. Instead, it promises protection from cultural and demographic change, and nothing else: that’s it. The result is a politics that preserves existing economic arrangements while directing popular anger away from those who benefit most from them.

There is also a deeper lineage running through sections of the Australian far right, from the League of Rights and anti-communist conspiracies to the fear of international institutions, hidden elites and a betrayal of the nation. Hansonism is not just a continuation of those movements, but it draws upon the same political vernacular. Ordinary Australians are imagined as virtuous producers, constantly threatened by the external forces that do not truly belong: internationalists, bureaucrats, globalists, multiculturalists, human rights advocates or whichever group currently occupies the role of national enemy: they are not monoculturalists. The names change, but the structure remains the same.

Queensland provided much of the political theatre for this tradition. Former Queensland Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen demonstrated how anti-Canberra resentment, hostility to unions, suspicion of the ABC and an aggressive law-and-order politics could be repackaged as “common sense”. Hanson has inherited many of these instincts and adapted them for the age of television, talkback radio and social media.

Her rise coincided with the onset of neoliberalist thinking in the 1980s and 1990s, where protection for critical industries was removed, many public services were privatised, unions were neutered and employment became far less secure. At the same time, political leaders suggested that the third wave of globalisation that arose from neoliberalism was inevitable. Hanson’s “achievement” was to separate multiculturalism from neoliberalism in the public imagination, where she has persuaded many Australians to blame cultural diversity for economic changes that had little to do with migration and everything to do with political choices.

Subscribe to read the full article

This article continues by examining how Hansonism operates as a form of “racist neoliberalism”, why culture wars benefit powerful economic interests, the myth of a monocultural Australia, and what a genuine alternative to Hansonism might look like.

Read more

One of the big developments in Australian politics has been the growing influence of mining billionaire Gina Rinehart and a small circle of ultra-wealthy political donors. As we all know, very little in life is free, and that’s certainly the case when it comes to politics; it’s always a question of what the trade-off is. While political influence has always followed the money, the relationship is becoming increasingly more obvious. What was once conducted through clandestine and private meetings, industry associations and backroom lobbying, is now taking place in full public view through media ownership, political donations, advocacy campaigns and direct intervention in national debates.

Rinehart’s growing support for figures such as Pauline Hanson raises a broader question about the health of Australian democracy. If ordinary voters are increasingly struggling with housing costs, lower living standards and a reduction in economic security, why do some of the loudest voices in politics belong to those who have benefited most from the existing neoliberalist environment? The language they use is often one of freedom, the so-called “common sense” and standing up to elites, even though these campaigns themselves are funded and amplified by some of the wealthiest people in the country.

Australia has liked this idea of being more resistant to the excesses of American-style politics. Yet the arrival of billionaire wealth, media influence, the endless culture-wars and increasingly personalised political movements suggests that this assumption is starting to fray at the edges. As public trust in institutions weakens and traditional parties struggle to inspire voters – the Liberal Party, and Labor too, even with their massive majority – the wealth class is finding new opportunities to direct the national conversation towards their line of thinking, which seems to be based around a hard-right style of extremism.

The question isn’t about whether money influences politics – that has always been the case, despite the desire from the public to remove it completely. The question is whether politics is gradually becoming another asset class for the wealthy, and only available to them, because they’re the only ones who can afford the price of entry.

Missing in action: Where have the Greens gone?

If money coming in more obviously from the wealth class is one development within politics, another one is the party which spent years positioning itself as the conscience of Parliament has become remarkably difficult to find within the current national conversation. The Australia Greens still have significant influence in the Senate and, according to national opinion polls, still attract a significant level of support – yet while One Nation continues to dominate the headlines with their inane outrage and culture-war narratives, the Greens seem to be missing in action, just a time when they should be finding their place in the sun.

Of course, part of the problem is structural, where the Albanese government has successfully occupied much of the centrist political territory, leaving the Greens struggling to distinguish themselves without appearing either obstructive or irrelevant. At the same time, the mainstream media remains far more attracted to outrage, conflict and political spectacle than detailed policy debates, where a fight about immigration, national identity and transgender issues – where the debate has been reduced to a man is going to steal a women’s Olympic gold medal – will always get more coverage than a discussion about public housing construction or tax reform.

Many of the economic anxieties that are driving politics at the moment – housing affordability, insecure work, declining living standards and rising inequality – are tailor-made for a party advocating a major overhaul of the political system and seeking positive social reform. Yet public frustration is increasingly being channelled towards far-right populist movements rather than the progressive alternatives that are out there, even though the likes of Pauline Hanson offer no solutions and essentially represent a culture of complaint. Whether this is a failure of messaging, poor leadership, a weak political strategy or just because of the mainstream media is going to be a matter of debate. But whatever the case is, the Greens need to work it out, and work it out now.

The danger for the Greens isn’t so much that they’ll disappear – they’ve had a strong and consistent vote over the past 15–20 years, with a strong representation in the Senate – but they seem to be silent, just at a time when the conditions would seem to be favourable to them.

A party can hold seats – or lose them, as the Greens found out in the lower house during the 2025 federal election – win votes and exercise parliamentary influence, but if it no longer defines the national conversation, its capacity to influence the future begins to fade. In a political environment that’s becoming increasingly dominated by anger, grievance and political personalities, the question is whether the Greens have been sidelined by the circumstances that politics is currently in – or whether they’ve lost the ability to tell a compelling story about what kind of country they would like to build.

Letters from Britain: Is Albanese sleep-walking towards oblivion?

One of the most important political questions might not be about the Liberal Party, the Greens or even One Nation. It’s about whether the Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, is following in the same path as his British counterpart, Keir Starmer. Starmer is widely expected to resign as Prime Minister, and the parallels with these two leaders is remarkably similar.

Both leaders won enormous parliamentary majorities that looks impressive on paper – Labor won 94 seats of 150 on offer; British Labour won 411 from 650 – but these results hide a far more complicated reality. In both instances, voters were not necessarily enamoured by the choices on offer, but were far more repulsed by what was being presented by the conservative alternatives. Of course, it can’t be denied that the Labor/Labour results were incredible, but there was very little public enthusiasm for either Albanese or Starmer.

Some of this is because political parties from the centre-left find themselves trapped, once they win elections. They spend years in opposition arguing that government should be there to improve people’s lives, but once they get there, they govern in the interests of the status quo. Decisions end up being deferred, everything that was promised gets watered down, and issues are managed rather than resolved. Or in the case of Australia’s National Anti-Corruption Commission, things turn to shyte.

In Britain, this is producing a political revolt. The soon-to-be-gone Starmer government seems like they won an election for no good reason, except to kick the Tories out – which, of course, is usually the good enough reason, but it’s only the first part of the equation. Public frustration is no longer directed only at the Conservatives; it’s increasingly directed at Labour itself.

Australia might be heading towards a similar moment. The danger for Albanese is not an immediate leadership challenge, in the way that newly-elected Labour MP Andy Burnham has presented himself against Starmer in the UK – but that continuing public perception that his government is presiding over a decline rather than stopping it, and avoiding the better future that they promised to build.

Meanwhile, protest politics continues to gather momentum. Just like the Reform party in the UK, the rise of One Nation is not necessarily an endorsement of its policies, it’s mainly a symptom of a broader belief that established institutions are currently incapable of delivering meaningful change. When voters understand that mainstream politics has become just a choice between different managers of the same system, they begin looking elsewhere.

The lesson from Britain isn’t that Albanese will suffer Starmer’s fate: while they’re respective circumstances are similar – Albanese doesn’t have Jim Chalmers lurking in the background creating havoc for him, although that could change. The lesson is that governments elected to deliver change, have to deliver it. And if they don’t, the electorate will turn towards the people who will deliver that desperately needed change.

For years, the public was told that conflict with Iran was unavoidable. Successive governments in the US and Israel have argued that diplomacy had failed, sanctions had reached their limits, and military action was the only remaining option. When the US and Israel launched their attacks on Iran in February, the consequences arrived quickly: oil prices surged, shipping through the Strait of Hormuz was disrupted, inflationary pressures intensified, and global markets braced for a wider regional war.

Four months later, the United States and Iran have signed a memorandum of understanding, with a broader ceasefire agreement expected to follow. Yet the central question remains: what exactly was achieved?

Despite repeated claims that Iran represented an existential threat requiring military intervention, the Iranian state remains intact. The government survived the conflict, sanctions are being eased, frozen assets are being released, and Iranian oil exports are set to expand. The outcome appears remarkably similar to what could have been achieved through diplomacy from the outset, raising serious questions about the strategic rationale behind a war that imposed enormous economic and human costs while producing few tangible political gains.

The political implications are equally significant. Donald Trump abandoned the international nuclear agreement with Iran, arguing that it was too favourable to Tehran. Nearly a decade later, Iran is on the verge of securing a more advantageous settlement than the one Washington rejected. At the same time, Israel’s strategy of pushing for confrontation has drawn greater international scrutiny of its broader regional conduct, including its genocidal actions in Gaza and Lebanon, while increasing public scepticism toward Western support for Israeli policy.

As governments debate regional security, nuclear negotiations and future sanctions arrangements, ordinary people have experienced the consequences through higher fuel prices, increased living costs and prolonged economic uncertainty. Meanwhile, defence contractors, commodity traders and financial speculators have emerged among the few clear beneficiaries of the conflict.

We explore the strategic failures of the United States and Israel, the changing balance of power in the Middle East, the role of diplomacy in ending the conflict, and why so many observers are now asking whether this war achieved anything at all.

But Hanson’s speech also highlighted a broader issue in Australian politics. As economic pressures, housing affordability and declining trust in institutions continue to frustrate voters, simplistic slogans and culture-war politics are finding a larger audience. The challenge is that while these messages identify targets for public anger, they rarely offer solutions to the complex problems Australians face.

The rise of One Nation reflects both the decline of the Liberal Party and growing dissatisfaction with mainstream politics. Yet recent elections have shown there are limits to fear-based campaigns that paint Australia as a nation in decline. Voters may be frustrated, but many remain unconvinced by narratives built on division and nostalgia.

We examine Hanson’s National Press Club appearance, the media’s role in normalising fringe politics, the contradictions within One Nation’s economic agenda, and why bad ideas should be challenged rather than ignored. As populist movements continue to gain attention around the world, the question is whether grievance politics can offer anything beyond anger, scapegoating and a vision of Australia looking backwards rather than forwards.

For months, if not years, the world was told – mainly by the United States and Israel – that a confrontation with Iran was totally necessary and inevitable. When the attacks on Iran commenced in late February, the markets reacted accordingly, oil prices surged and the shipping routes through the Strait of Hormuz were thrown into total chaos. At the time, there was a possibility of a wider regional conflict within the West Asia region and dragging the entire world economy into a catastrophe – and while there were several attacks on US bases in the region, the conflict has been limited to Israel’s unwarranted and illegal aggression in southern Lebanon and attacks on Beirut.

There is now a memorandum of understanding between the United States and Iran – and of course, we’ll have to wait until the conflict fully ends before we can believe that this MOU will actually end this war – but there’s an even bigger question that needs to be answered: what exactly was the point of this war?

Neither Washington nor Tehran has publicly released the full text of the agreement, which is due to be finalised in coming days and, as a result, much of this is speculation. However, there seems to be a broad outline from various diplomatic sources that frozen Iranian assets will be released, there’ll be less restrictions on Iranian oil exports, and new security arrangements over the management of the Strait of Hormuz will be implemented. The Iranian government is also pursuing compensation for damages from the United States, although it’s unclear how this would be achieved, or even if the US would be willing to proceed with such a reparation deal.

The US, of course, sees things differently – with a focus on reopening of the Strait of Hormuz (even though Iran did open it up, only for the US to close it down again for unknown reasons), stabilisation of global energy markets (even though it was their actions that created the instability in the first place), and guarantees from Iran that it won’t obtain or develop nuclear weapons.

On the evidence before us – and as been suspected for some time – this appears to be a massive loss for the United States (and Israel) and a major victory for Iran. And neither the United States or Israel have gone through the usual bravado of claiming a strategic victory – and certainly nothing like George W. Bush prematurely announcing “mission accomplished” in 2003 after the invasion of Iraq – and this comes after months of idle threats of escalating tensions and military confrontation.

US President Donald Trump has pushed the memorandum on Truth Social as a “diplomatic success”, but has wanted to move on from Iran very quickly, shifting attention back to domestic issues such as border security, infrastructure and economic policy. Yet the speed with which he appears to be “moving on” and eager to close off this saga raises a few uncomfortable questions for him.

If the outcome is a negotiated arrangement that allows Iran to continue exporting oil, gain access to frozen assets, avoid direct military action and remains a major regional power – and if anything, its power and stature in the region has increased – then it’s difficult to see what precisely the United States has gained through a confrontation, where the end result could have been achieved through diplomacy in the first place.

It’s even more difficult to understand the purpose of this war, when compared to the Iran nuclear agreement that Trump abandoned in 2018. At the time, Trump argued that the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action – agreed to in 2015 by the five permanent Security Council members of the United Nations, and the European Union – was fundamentally flawed, and promised a tougher approach on Iran. Yet this new agreement – if it comes to that – will delivers a deal that is significantly better for Iran than any previous deal. Once again: what was the point of it all, aside from acquiescing completely to the unrealistic and maniacal demands of Israel, the one country that might end up being the biggest loser out of this?

For years, successive Israeli governments have argued that Iran represents an existential threat requiring constant pressure, isolation and, when necessary, military action – a pissant country of 9 million people, demanding action from a country of 350 million, ultimately to be used against a country of 93 million people, and destabilising an entire region in the process. The assumption here is that Iran could be deterred, weakened and eventually forced into concessions, which of course, didn’t happen – and anyone with basic understandings of geopolitics and military strategy, could have easily predicted this outcome.

Instead, Iran has shown that it retains substantial military capabilities, significant regional influence – which has now been boosted – and enough leverage to force major powers back to the negotiating table. Whatever the effectiveness of Iran’s missile operations, the broader political outcome has reinforced Iran’s position as an important regional player, rather than an isolated pariah the United States has been telling the entire world for over 47 years.

Israel now also faces a deeper strategic problem. This conflict has drawn more international attention to the instability of the region, including the ongoing genocide and humanitarian crisis in Gaza, longstanding questions about the rights of Palestinian, and Israel’s current illegal invasions and military actions in southern Lebanon.

Increasingly, for global audiences, including those in Australia, the more the military escalation dominates the headlines, the more difficult it becomes for Western governments to maintain that deception about Israel’s “right to defend itself”, when the public can see for themselves which countries are causing this conflict. And for those in the electorate who are prepared to tolerate or overlook Israel’s assorted war crimes and invasions of neighbouring countries, they can certainly feel the effects of their actions at the petrol bowser or at the supermarket check-outs

The United States is also now finding itself on the outer in international circles, although for the current Trump administration, they’re possible not overly concerned about this. Most major European powers failed to support the US and showed little enthusiasm for a prolonged military confrontation with Iran. Of course, their lack of enthusiasm for conflict would have been based around self-interest, rather than any humanitarian concerns about Iranians or Palestinians – they understood that a major war in the region would threaten global energy supplies and have a significant economic impact – but the fact that they didn’t support the US at all, is quite telling.

These economic consequences also raise another uncomfortable issue that deserves far greater scrutiny, an issue that we previously explored in “The kings of chaos: Who really profits from war”. Major geopolitical crises such as this create enormous opportunities for speculation and profits, where significant movements in oil futures, defence stocks and shipping markets create winners and losers – mainly winners among the captains of industry – long before any diplomatic settlement is reached. Was this war all based around creating these winners in the United States? When will the important questions start being asked by the US regulators?

Perhaps the most extraordinary aspect of the entire episode is how little appears to have changed despite the enormous risks involved. We’ve long argued that there was a distinct lack of a strategy in this attack on Iran. Many military commentators and experts were bemused by the direction of US action in the region, and could not quite follow the tactics, because it seemed to defy the history of successful military campaigns. There were some suggestions that Trump was utilising Richard Nixon’s madman theory of bizarre and unorthodox strategies to bamboozle and confuse the opponent, but in the end, it was the sign of a madman who simply didn’t know what he was doing.

Just look at the results: Iran remains governed by the same political system, and while the regime change that Trump openly espoused resulted in the assassination of Iran’s spiritual leader Ali Khamenei, the government remains the same. The US is deeply entangled in the Middle East and can’t pull out, even if it wanted to. Israel is despised even further, not just in the region, but not all around the world, and remains locked in an even deeper competition with its neighbours. There’s still a wide range of disputes concerning sanctions, regional influence, nuclear technology and security issues that remain unresolved, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

Nothing has changed. The rest of the world, however, has paid the price for this foolish intervention, through destabilised fuel and energy supplies, shipping and supply chains disrupted, and yet another period of global fear and uncertainty, as if the world hasn’t had enough to deal with over the past decade. And for what reason?

Of course, history will be the final arbiter of the merits – or otherwise – of Trump’s foolish war, but it proves that a show of strength and injecting a large dose of testosterone rarely wins the war, unless it’s supported by strong diplomacy. But this in itself, is an inherent contradiction: strong diplomacy in the first place would have avoided this conflict, but the likes of Trump, Peter Hegseth and Marco Rubio had other ambitions, which were not clear to anyone else, and perhaps not even to themselves.

The real losers here are those who occupy the White House and the Knesset, and the war mongers who were too stupid to save themselves from their own ignominy. And they will continue to convince themselves, and their supporters, that they really did win the war, even when all the evidence suggests the opposite. For all the talk of imaginary victories, the final verdict is very easy to make: a massive amount of damage was done to the global community and economy, a great deal of unwanted risk was created, and in the end, America’s idiot king has arrived back to the point where he started. That really is a special skill.

Recent polling showing strong support for One Nation continues to generate fear on the left and excitement on the right across Australia’s political class. These numbers won’t hold up until the 2028 election – still two years away – but that’s almost beside the point. The real story is a political system that appears to be incapable of responding to the concerns of the electorate, even when they’ve been given so many chances to do this.

It’s easy to try and explain One Nation’s rise through the issues that they keep pushing – with great support from the mainstream media and assorted right-wing hangers on – housing, blaming migrants, cost-of-living pressures, distrust of institutions and growing disillusionment with the major parties – but this is more about the exhaustion of the current political system and its inability to adapt itself to the needs of the modern-day world.

The Liberal Party is still a shell of its former self – in terms of seats held and in the opinion polls – and is struggling to articulate a purpose beyond toxic politics and opposition for opposition’s sake – and it’s obvious that One Nation has moved into that space, positioning itself as the vessel for protest and grievance, a space which the Liberal Party is also trying to occupy, albeit unsuccessfully.

The Albanese government also bears responsibility for the rise in One Nation. Having achieved a massive victory in 2025 – one of the biggest ever in federal history – the Prime Minister appears to have convinced himself that his trademark caution and severe incrementalism is not just an electoral strategy worth pursuing further, but has become his entire philosophy of governing.

Reform has been slow and fragmented, and usually abandoned at the first sign of resistance. The lesson Albanese drew from that election victory – an incorrect lesson – was not that voters wanted change, but that voters wanted snail-pace stability and a level of conservatism that would make John Howard proud. But as governments often discover – and usually far too late – standing still in politics is just another way of moving backwards.

There’s a lot of comparisons going on at the moment with the Coalition after its surprise 2019 victory. Scott Morrison interpreted that election victory as a public endorsement of the status quo – and of him personally, only to discover that political sentiment rapidly deteriorates when governments mistake short-term approval for a long-lasting enthusiasm. An ill-timed and surreptitious trip to Hawaii wouldn’t have helped either. And a quick read of Machiavelli’s The Prince would have been far more valuable to Morrison than penning the words of Plans For Your Good, his post-prime ministerial book that gave an insight into his bizarre leadership.

Albanese risks falling into the same trap that most prime ministers fall into, probably now keeping a tally of when he’ll overtake Bob Hawke’s record of 3203 days in office (by the way, he’s up to 1484 days, so still a long way to go). While prime ministers might congratulate themselves on managing the headlines and achieving great results from their focus group testing, voters are looking around and wondering why so little seems to be changing.

That helps explain the extraordinary result of this week’s Resolve poll showing Pauline Hanson leading Anthony Albanese as preferred prime minister, with a figure of 33 per cent to 29. We can argue the point that the figures are ultimately meaningless so far out from an election – and that the figure is pretty much a vanity number – but it’s astonishing that a prime minister with every institutional advantage at his disposal has found himself trailing to a politician who is a racist, who has obvious limitations, whose appeal is built almost entirely around complaint, resentment and perpetual opposition to everything. That’s 33 per cent of people – every third person that you walk by – when given an option, will say they would prefer Hanson to lead the country.

Yet One Nation’s own contradictions deserve far more scrutiny than they usually receive from the mainstream media. Hanson presents herself as a champion of ordinary Australians standing against powerful elites, but kicks down on the ordinary people who don’t fit into her narrow world view. At the same time, she takes policy advice from Gina Rinehart, Australia’s wealthiest person, while maintaining a close relationship with well-heeled donors (usually racist as well), endorsements and access to private resources. For a movement that picks up a lot of support through its anti-establishment rhetoric, it’s a contradiction that never gets the serious attention.

And One Nation’s broader agenda is rarely subjected to the level of examination routinely applied to other political movements, mainly because it’s an agenda that fits into that of the establishment media: climate denialism, hostility to women’s reproductive rights, culture-war campaigns against trans people, vulnerable communities, minorities. When challenged on the details, Hanson always veers back to outrage and grievance, which is then lapped up again by the media. It’s a success that relies less on solutions, and more on identifying the targets that can be weaponised for political advantage.

That’s why Hanson’s appearance at the National Press Club this week matters. Despite our reservations about the support the club receives from the same donor pool as One Nation, this type of forum at least provides a level of scrutiny that Hanson has evaded for far too long. If Hanson believes that she’s “ready to be prime minister”, let’s put her up on that pedestal and see how far she gets with her racist squawking on the stage. She won’t be able to ban journalists from the ABC or from SBS from the club, as she has with other One Nation events, so let’s see how she fares once the full blowtorch is applied.

For decades, Hanson has benefited from a media environment that often treats her as a political curiosity rather than a public figure whose dubious claims, alliances and contradictions deserve intense forensic examination. The real question is whether Australia’s political journalists are finally prepared to subject one of the country’s most influential protest politicians to the same level of scrutiny routinely directed at everyone else.

The electorate just doesn’t care anymore

It’s the story that now sits under almost every political issue in Australia. The rise of One Nation; the collapse of trust in institutions; hostility towards immigrants, anger over housing and a cynicism towards government are all a part of the deeper breakdown between voters and the political establishment.

For decades, politics operated on a social pact. Governments couldn’t solve every problem in the world, but they needed to convince people that the system was broadly working in their interests. It’s obvious that the Australian electorate no longer believes this to be the case: stagnate wages, unaffordable housing – whether it’s housing purchases or rent – public services deteriorating and governments consumed by the management of headlines rather than dealing with the difficult problems. And voters are arriving as a simple conclusion: political leaders either cannot fix things or don’t want to.

Australia is beginning to resemble the same traits that have been visible for some time in the United States, Britain, Canada and parts of Europe, where it seems that the traditional contest between “left” and “right” is being replaced by a struggle between establishment and anti-establishment politics. For sure, that left/right divide has been waning for some time, and replaced with multiple divides – market–state; individualism–communitarianism; global–national; social progressiveness–conservativism – but this appears to be a new divide that the political system has yet to work out a way of dealing with.

Perhaps the clearest evidence of this shift is that even major international crises appear to have no influence in building confidence in political leaders. Traditionally, periods of uncertainty give rise to the “rally ’round the flag” effect, where voters gravitate towards governments for stability and reassurance: it’s certainly what occurred during the onset of COVID, where many incumbent governments received a boost in their political support and went on to achieve re-election (not the Morrison government, however).

Yet as conflict and instability escalate in the West Asia/Middle East region, and global economic uncertainty continues to grow, many voters appear to be unconvinced. They are just so alienated from the political class that competence, experience in office and even basic credibility don’t seem to matter that much anymore.

And that’s the danger for Australia’s political establishment. When voters lose faith in institutions, they don’t necessarily become more ideological or more informed, they just appear to not give a shit anymore, and are willing to take risks.

In this kind of environment, political outsiders, protest parties and professional peddlers of grievance politics don’t need to offer any convincing answers. And whether they are capable of governing has become almost irrelevant. The greatest threat to Australia’s politics is not that voters have found a better alternative in One Nation – they haven’t – it’s the increasing numbers who have decided that they no longer care.

For much of modern Australian political history, federal politics has been defined by a stable contest between Labor and the Coalition. While minor parties have sometimes disrupted the landscape, they have rarely threatened the dominance of the major parties in any sustained way. That is why recent opinion polls showing One Nation leading the primary vote in surveys conducted by Newspoll, YouGov, Roy Morgan and RedBridge have attracted so much attention. Polls conducted two years before an election are snapshots rather than predictions, and Australian voters have repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to change their minds when campaigns begin in earnest. But the broader significance of these results is what they reveal about growing dissatisfaction with Australia’s political system.

The rise of One Nation might be less a reflection of widespread enthusiasm for Pauline Hanson and more a manifestation of frustration with the political establishment. Across Australia, voters are confronting persistent cost-of-living pressures, housing affordability problems, stagnant living standards and declining trust in institutions. For many, support for One Nation functions as a protest against the major parties rather than an endorsement of a coherent ideological project. The party has become a vehicle for political dissent, attracting voters who believe Labor and the Coalition are increasingly disconnected from their concerns.

The more realistic scenario is that a stronger One Nation could exert influence through the balance of power or by supporting a conservative government from outside cabinet. That possibility raises important questions about the future direction of Australian politics. Is One Nation genuinely creating a new political movement, or is it simply providing another outlet for voters frustrated with the existing system? More importantly, can a party built around protest sustain support once it is required to offer practical solutions rather than simply criticism?

The current polling may ultimately prove to be One Nation’s high-water mark, or it may signal the beginning of a longer realignment in Australian politics. At this stage, nobody can be sure. Whether that sentiment strengthens One Nation, produces new political movements, or forces Labor and the Coalition to adapt is set to become one of the defining questions of Australian politics over the next decade.

This week, we examine whether AUKUS was ever really about submarines at all. As new legislation moves through the US Congress, including provisions within the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act that would significantly deepen military technology integration between the United States and Israel, important questions are emerging about where Australia fits into an increasingly interconnected defence architecture. AI, autonomous weapons, cyber warfare, missile defence systems and advanced military networks are no longer separate national projects – they are becoming part of a broader system designed around “interoperability” – the increasingly common and innocuous sounding defence term that describes the ability of allied military forces, intelligence agencies and weapons platforms to operate as a single integrated structure.

The implications for Australia could be profound. Through AUKUS Pillar II, Australia is already committing itself to deeper integration with American defence technologies and strategic planning. If the United States further embeds Israeli defence capabilities within its own military and industrial systems, what does that mean for Australia’s future defence outlook? Would Australia retain genuine strategic independence, or would key decisions increasingly be influenced by technological dependencies in Washington and Tel Aviv, and supply chains and military arrangements beyond its direct control?

The debate also raises broader questions about sovereignty in the 21st century. Military alliances have always required compromise, but modern defence integration operates at a level far beyond traditional treaty arrangements. Nations can become dependent not simply through formal agreements, but through shared platforms, intelligence systems, communications networks and procurement decisions. As Australia commits hundreds of billions of dollars to AUKUS, what safeguards exist to ensure that future governments retain the capacity to make independent decisions about military engagement, strategic priorities and national interests?

At its heart, this is not simply a discussion about defence procurement or foreign policy. It’s a debate about accountability, democratic oversight and Australia’s place in a rapidly changing world. As AUKUS evolves beyond submarines and into a much broader strategic project, Australians deserve to know exactly what commitments are being made in their name, what future obligations may arise from them, and whether the country is moving towards a model of defence co-operation that future generations may find difficult to reverse.

Because the real question is no longer when will the submarines arrive: it’s about what Australia becomes once this integration has been completed.

#AUSPOL #AUKUS #geopolitics #NewPoliticsPodcast

Has AUKUS only ever been about the submarines? For many years, this is what the focus has been on: new/old submarines, will they arrive/won’t they arrive… and during this time, the political class and mainstream media has corralled the discussions in a child-like way towards the costs, delivery timetables, industrial capabilities and whether the United States will ultimately provide the nuclear-powered submarines that successive Australian governments have been promised. Yet underneath this charade – which has primarily been led by defence minister Richard Marles – is a much bigger development that has received almost no public attention at all.

And it’s something that we do need to pay more attention to and be deeply concerned about, because, if it all proceeds, it could be the end of Australia’s independence and sovereign defence capabilities, and a one-way funnel of taxpayer funds to prop up the US–Israel military industrial complex(es) that continues forever.

There’s a new provision before the US Congress at the moment – Section 224 of the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act – and it proposes a significant expansion of defence technology co-operation between the United States and Israel. Known as the “United States–Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative”, it will establish new frameworks for joint research, development, testing, production and integration of military technologies across a broad range of emerging defence sectors, including artificial intelligence, autonomous systems such as drones, cyber warfare, missile defence, quantum computing and networked military operations.

It means that even simple Israeli innovations such as “skunk water” – a liquid spray with an odour worse than raw sewage and excrement combined, and can linger for weeks after being sprayed from armoured water cannons – can be used equally on the streets of the West Bank or at a No Kings protest in Minnesota, as the circumstances require.

This might seem like the logical extension of a nefarious and clandestine defence relationship that has existed for decades, certainly since the Second World War, but it will make the Israeli and US defence forces almost indistinguishable. Of course, the proposed legislation has been strongly supported by pro-Israel and Zionist organisations in the US, but there’s something more disturbing about this that’s taking place.

Since the state of Israel was created in 1948, the US has transferred over $330 billion in military aid directly to its defence forces, including two additional support payments of at least $34 billion since October 2023, authorised by US President Joe Biden, and continued by Donald Trump.

While their defence forces will technically remain separate if the Act is passed, the legislation will remove that requirement that Congress needs to approve any expenditure or aid granted to Israel, military spending essentially becoming a line-item in the US defense budget that can be increased at whim – and at the behest of the US Defense (War) Secretary, as though Israel exists as a special (and expensive) military outpost of the United States. And like a spoilt and demanding nepo-baby, the state of Israel will no longer need to ask for the funds to perpetrate its endless genocides, it will just take.

This is also an outcome that will fast-track Israel’s expansion into other parts of the West Asia region as well, something we’re already seeing in Gaza and southern Lebanon – at last count, 3866 civilians have been killed by the IDF; in response, just four Israeli civilians have been killed by Lebanese forces – and it will also bind the two countries’ defence industries, research programs and technology ecosystems together for decades to come, if not permanently.

It’s a strategic partnership so deeply embedded through a de facto merger that it would be extremely difficult for any future government to unravel. And after US President Donald Trump’s statement to Israel to say that “he is the one calling the shots” – a US president who was genuinely calling the shots would never need to make such a statement – it’s clear which country would create the difficulties if the United States ever sought to bring the arrangement to an end.

That’s where the issue lies between US and Israel, but it’s not where it ends. For Australia, that distinction about who is calling the shots might not matter too much, because it might end up being a case of Australia receiving the shot calls from either the United States or Israel. And this is the bigger question for us: what happens when Australia increasingly embeds itself so deeply into the American defence ecosystem at the same time that the United States is seeking a deeper integration into Israel’s defence systems? It’s also where AUKUS becomes a key part of this narrative, although it’s clear that it’s not one the Australian government wants to speak very openly about.

Since it was announced in 2021, AUKUS has gone way beyond submarines. Pillar I covered the much-maligned nuclear-powered submarines that we are never going to receive, but Pillar II encompasses the far broader agenda involving AI, autonomous systems, cyber capabilities, sophisticated undersea warfare and advanced military networking. These are exactly the same kinds of technologies outlined in Section 224 of the Act that’s now being discussed by the US Congress, and it’s not a coincidence that Pillar II is almost a replica.

The Albanese government, like the Morrison government before it, has argued that Australia must become “more interoperable” with the United States, in response to a “deteriorating strategic environment”, which has deteriorated only because they keep saying it has, ably supported by the hawks of hack journalism at the Sydney Morning Herald and News Corporation.

“Interoperability” has become one of the key buzzwords of Australian defence policy and it’s the word that Marles and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese like to keep using in the context of AUKUS: it might seem like a fancy and innocuous piece of defence terminology, but it also means that Australian defence forces will be communicating, operating and fighting seamlessly alongside US forces and, if the Act is passed by Congress – which is becoming increasingly likely – alongside Israeli F-35 fighter jets as they bomb yet another village of innocent civilians in southern Lebanon, or decide to revisit Gaza and continue with the genocidal campaign there. Or perhaps expand into the other areas that are outlined within their Greater Israel project.

This is what “interoperability” is in reality, and it’s something that has never been clearly discussed with the Australian public. According to Pew International, 79 per cent of the Australian public has a negative view of the state of Israel, including 49 per cent who hold a “very unfavourable” view. Before the accusations of “antisemitism” start to appear, the Australian public also has a similar view of the state of Russia – 79 per cent hold a negative view – but the Australian government is not about to forge a permanent military alliance with the Russian defence forces.

How would the Australian public react if its government did ally with Russia to perform massacres in the Ukranian cities of Mariupol, Kherson or Zaporizhzhia? Or ethnically cleanse the regions of Donbas or Crimea? Swap these Ukrainian regions with the Palestinian regions of the Gaza Strip, Khan Younis – or many of the hundreds of cities that have obliterated from the map by Israel – and this is what “interoperability” will look like for the Australian Defence Forces after 2027, if this Act is passed by the US Congress.

When military systems become so deeply interconnected, decisions that are made in one country increasingly do affect smaller partners elsewhere. Australia will never have the stature or relevance within the AUKUS deal – or Pillar II – to be able to object to the involvement of its forces in any US- or Israel-led war activity anywhere in the world. It will be a case, to paraphrase former Prime Minister Robert Menzies, where if the US or Israel declare war upon any country in the world, as a result, Australia will also be at war.

If the United States proceeds with deeper defence technology integration with Israel, Australia will also be directly connected to those same systems, programs and industrial systems developed by Israeli technology and expertise. Of course, this won’t mean that Australia will instantly become responsible for the actions of the Israel Defence Forces, but it would mean that it becomes a part of a defence system that reaches far beyond the Indo–Pacific region. And this is the reality that’s likely to become increasingly controversial within Australia once the public finds out what this AUKUS – Pillar II deal is really leading us towards.

Public attitudes towards Israel – as shown by the Pew International research – have shifted dramatically across much of the Western world since the beginning of the Gaza war. Allegations of war crimes, collective punishment and breaches of international humanitarian law have generated intense criticism from governments (not many but definitely not Australia), many human rights organisations and large sections of civil society. Whether these allegations are upheld by international courts is, of course, a matter for the respective legal systems, but the political controversy surrounding Israel’s conduct is undeniable.

For Australians who oppose the policies of the Israeli government – and it seems that 79 per cent of the population does – this deeper integration between the United States and Israel raises some serious questions. If Australian military systems increasingly rely upon technologies developed through joint American–Israeli programs, what level of political scrutiny should become a part of that process?

Should Australians have a say in whether their defence infrastructure becomes connected to partnerships extending into the Middle East/West Asia region, especially for a country they view so unfavourably? Shouldn’t Parliament be the national forum where the implications of these issues are debated and fully inspected before they become so deeply embedded that we’ll never be able to get away from them?

This is the issue that needs to be explored and it’s really concerning how little attention and coverage both AUKUS – Pillar II and the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act have received in Australia. Sure, the Act is an American piece of legislation debated in faraway Washington but the consequences – unintended or otherwise – will have great long-term implications for Australia.

The future of AUKUS isn’t just about boats in the water, or even not in the water. This is about how much autonomy Australia really has in its defence capabilities, and how much its government is prepared to inform its own public on what it’s just about it embark upon. And before these foundations become permanent and are set in stone, the public deserves to know exactly what we’re in for before it’s far too late to do anything about it.

This week’s briefing outlines the big issues to look out for: the hidden implications of AUKUS and integration into US military structures; a housing crisis that governments continue to talk about but seem unwilling to solve; and growing pressures on universities as international students and migrants become political scapegoats for policy failures.

AUKUS and Israel: The alliance Australia was never asked to join

Australians have spent the past five years arguing about the cost of AUKUS, the viability of the submarine program and whether the United States can actually or will deliver what has been promised. But those arguments are distracting from a much larger and far more divisive issue.

We now know that AUKUS was never just a program about submarines – although that’s what successive governments have kept telling the public – it’s a program for embedding Australia even more deeply into American military, intelligence and industrial systems, and it will be embedded so deeply that it will be impossible to get out of. And once we’re in there, we’ll also inherent all of America’s strategic relationships, whether we like it or not.

This is a big issue because the United States is now moving to deepen its military integration with Israel, with proposed legislation before Congress which will connect defence technologies, intelligence systems, research programs, logistics networks and weapons development between the two countries to an unprecedented level.

For Australia – already integrating itself into US military structures through AUKUS and other agreements – the implications are pretty clear. If Australia becomes a part of the American defence ecosystem, and the US defence ecosystem becomes integrated with Israel, then Australia becomes a part of Israel’s military and strategic framework too.

There’s been almost no public conversation about whether Australians are comfortable with this deeper military connection with Israel. And sure, most of this is being decided in Washington behind closed doors and will be voted on by US Congress, but it’s all wrapped in the language of the alliance, the interoperability and national security bullshit that’s espoused by the defence minister Richard Marles and, most importantly, we’ve been told nothing at all about these developments.

Given the direction the United States has taken under the Trump regime, it’s debateable whether Australia should maintain good relations with the United States. But diplomatic relationships should be able to survive catastrophic administrations. If AUKUS is bringing Australia closer into the expanding web of US–Israel defence integration, then the public deserves an honest debate about it. So far, we haven’t heard anything at all.

The housing crisis nobody wants to fix

House prices across the nation have fallen by around 1 per cent since the federal budget was announced last month, and for many, this is a sign that the housing market might be cooling down. But the problem is that this is only a small drop and with a national median house price of over $1 million – a drop from $1,000,000 down to $990,000 still makes that house unaffordable – it’s not clear if this will make too much of a difference at this stage. Sure, it’s better to have prices decrease than increase, but they’ll have to drop by a lot more if housing is to become affordable again.

The problem is that housing is stuck between two political realities. Governments regularly acknowledge younger people are being locked out of home ownership, while simultaneously pushing policies that are designed to ensure existing property values never fall significantly. Politicians then talk about affordability, but panic at the prospect of genuinely affordable housing.

Inflation is still high at 4.2 per cent but has moderated somewhat, although groceries, rents, mortgages, and energy costs do remain high. For many households, official economic improvements exist largely on paper while financial stress remains a daily reality.

Housing sits at the centre of this because it’s become a symbol of an economic system that has increasingly rewarded the asset class over the working class. Those who bought decades ago have often accumulated extraordinary wealth through little more than the luck of timing and the many policy changes from successive governments that have rewarded this luck, while Millennials and Gen Z face larger deposits, higher debts and increasingly insecure rental markets.

Housing affordability should remain a major political issue during the week – the majority owner of RealEstate.com.au – News Corporation – will be watching to see if property prices do drop even further, which, of course, will be reported as a calamity for the asset class, rather than a step in the right direction for housing affordability.

Falling universities standards and the migrant as the convenient scapegoat

Australia’s university sector is discovering the consequences of policies they should never been forced to introduce in the first place. For decades, governments steadily withdrew public funding while encouraging universities to behave more like corporations, forcing them to chase international student revenue to fill the gap.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with having international students – it broadens the diversity of campus life, works as a two-way process of cultural exchange. Even if international students only stay for the term of their course, they engage locally and take their experiences and knowledge back to their own communities in their home countries.

If we can ignore the fact that most universities used these students as cash cows and did very little to support them through additional language skill courses and pretty much left them to their own devices, now that migration reduction is becoming a political target – including international students – universities are being punished for a dependency that successive governments have actively encouraged over the past 30 years or so, even though they were warned not to.

And just as it is with housing, the Albanese government is caught between two competing political pressures. There’s a great deal of hostility towards migrants being hurled about by One Nation, and this is being amplified by all the right-wing political opportunists who blame migrants for virtually every social and economic problem, real or imagined.

On the other hand, universities have been warning about budget shortfalls, academic job losses and declining research opportunities if international student numbers continue to fall. And with the education minister, Jason Clare, asleep at the wheel – and possibly distracted with trying to shore up his leadership credentials in a post-Albanese environment – the government is not defending the university system that has been falling apart for some time.

The housing debate is good example of government shirking its responsibilities. International students have become a convenient scapegoat for a housing crisis that has been decades in the making. The evidence points overwhelmingly towards tax concessions, speculative investment, planning failures and chronic underinvestment in public housing as the primary reasons for unaffordability. Yet blaming international students and migrants is politically easier than confronting a property market that has enriched investors while locking younger generations out of home ownership.

Meanwhile, Australia’s universities are showing signs of a broader decline. Falling global rankings, governance scandals (a big hello to Julie Bishop), controversies over executive salaries and the growing casualisation of staff all points to institutions struggling to reconcile their public responsibilities with private-sector business models that were foisted upon them in the early 1990s, where it became more important for universities to look like the business quarters of Sydney and Melbourne, than to have academic rigour and credibility, and act like centres of education, research and critical inquiry.

What we’re seeing at the moment is the culmination of years of neglect of the university sector: more international students to help pay for the high remuneration packages of poorly qualified chancellors (once again, a big shout out to Julie Bishop); and a new fancy building here and there to keep up appearances – it’s a bit like all those parents who complained to the NSW Department of Education about demountable buildings at primary schools, although in this case, it’s the vice-chancellors who are doing all the complaining. The message always has to be: it’s not the look of the building that matters, it’s all about the quality of education that occurs inside the building.

And what we’re seeing is that old familiar political pattern: a political class searching for easy targets while avoiding difficult reforms. Students become statistics, migrants are kicked into and blamed for everything, and universities become collateral damage in a debate that rarely has anything to do with education at all.

The Albanese government frequently presents Australia as a defender of international law, human rights and the so-called rules-based international order. But when allegations involve one of Australia’s closest allies, those principles appear increasingly difficult to uphold.

This week, we examine serious allegations made by Australian citizens who were detained by Israeli forces following the interception of the Sumud Flotilla. Claims of sexual violence, physical abuse and rape have now been referred to the International Criminal Court, raising profound questions about accountability, consistency and Australia’s response to alleged human rights violations involving the state of Israel.

The issue extends beyond the details of any individual allegation. At its heart is the broader question of whether Australia applies the same standards to all accusations of abuse, regardless of where they occur or who is accused. For years, Australian political leaders have argued that victims of sexual violence should be heard, supported and that their allegations deserve proper investigation. Those principles became central to national debates following the #MeToo movement, the Brittany Higgins case and broader discussions about violence against women. Yet when allegations emerge from Australians detained by Israeli authorities, the political response appears markedly different.

The government’s approach reflects a growing problem within Australian foreign policy. While ministers regularly invoke international law in relation to conflicts involving geopolitical rivals, Israel continues to receive a level of diplomatic protection that would be unimaginable for many other nations. From the killing of Australian aid worker Zomi Frankcom in Gaza to ongoing allegations of civilian harm in Gaza and Lebanon, expressions of concern have rarely translated into meaningful diplomatic consequences.

The referral of these allegations to the International Criminal Court introduces another dimension. For the complainants, the ICC may represent the only forum capable of conducting an independent investigation beyond the political interests of either Australia or Israel. The case therefore becomes not only a test of the allegations themselves, but also a test of Australia’s commitment to the international institutions it once helped establish and champion.

At the same time, the domestic political implications are becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. Australia’s large Lebanese and Middle Eastern communities are watching closely, while younger voters are demanding greater consistency between government rhetoric and government action. For many Australians, the debate is no longer simply about events in Gaza, southern Lebanon or Israel. It is about whether human rights principles are universal, or whether they depend on political convenience.

As public scrutiny grows and international legal processes continue, Anthony Albanese and Penny Wong face an increasingly difficult challenge. The question is no longer whether Australia supports international law in principle. The question is whether it is prepared to uphold those principles when doing so carries a political cost.

AUKUS was sold to Australians as a transformational defence agreement that would deliver a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines and strengthen the nation’s security for decades to come. But nearly five years after the deal was announced, the questions are mounting while all the answers remain elusive.

With Defence Minister Richard Marles confirming that Australia will receive second-hand Virginia-class submarines from the United States, we need to know how a project expected to cost up to $368 billion has shifted from promises of new submarines to used ones, which have use-by date of 33 years. At the same time, Australia continues to spend billions helping expand American and British shipbuilding capacity, despite growing uncertainty over exactly what will be delivered, when it will arrive, and whether Australia will have meaningful control over the program.

As former Labor minister Peter Garrett begins an independent review of AUKUS, the spotlight is falling on one of the most expensive public policy decisions in Australian history. Why has there never been a comprehensive parliamentary inquiry into the agreement? What does Australia actually gain from the deal? And how much sovereignty is being surrendered as Australia’s defence infrastructure becomes increasingly integrated with the United States and Britain?

We examine the escalating costs, shifting promises and strategic assumptions behind AUKUS, why Australia appears to be carrying much of the financial risk, and whether the country is becoming locked into the geopolitical priorities of others. As global politics continues to change and governments come and go, is AUKUS a visionary defence investment, or an extraordinarily expensive gamble that Australia may come to regret?

Has the National Anti-Corruption Commission ever lived up to its promise? Less than three years after it was created, the answer has to be a resounding no. The resignation of NACC Commissioner Paul Brereton has become more than just an issue about him – it’s reopened those basic questions about whether Australia’s long-awaited federal anti-corruption watchdog was ever designed to be a genuinely powerful integrity body, or whether it was paying lip service, and created just reassure a public that’s become deeply cynical about politics, following years of scandals, controversy and declining trust in institutions, especially during the era of the Morrison government.

When Brereton spoke at the launch of the NACC in July 2023, he spoke of a “historic democratic reform”, arguing that the public was no longer willing to tolerate conduct that previous generations might have accepted or ignored, and that parliament had responded by creating a body grounded in the principles of “best-practice” anti-corruption measures.

After decades of demands for a federal integrity commission, many people would have believed a new era of accountability that they could finally rely on had arrived. Instead, they received and institution that’s become laced with secrecy and total disappointment, with a belief that it’s now acting as a hinderance to combatting corruption, and it would be better if it wasn’t there at all.

Brereton suggested that personally being the focus of attention had become a distraction for the commission but, in reality, from the beginning, there had always been questions about whether he was the right person for the role. In so many hearings, Brereton had to recuse himself, because of the many actual or perceived conflicts of interest. Given his previous as a judge and military investigator, this might have been unavoidable, but surely the government would have been aware of the problems this would have caused.

The commission was created in response to the growing anger over a succession of controversies that dominated the final years of the Morrison government. The Robodebt scandal, controversies over sports grants, questions about ministerial conduct, the increasing levels of political lobbying by corporations, concerns about public sector contracting, and revelations regarding Scott Morrison’s secret self-appointments to multiple ministries – all of these issues contributed to a widespread belief that Australia’s federal integrity framework was inadequate or non-existent. Labor’s promise to establish a national anti-corruption body became one of its most popular commitments ahead of the 2022 election.

For many voters, this should have been a pretty straightforward proposition. A powerful anti-corruption commission to investigate serious allegations involving ministers, senior public servants and political figures, acting as a deterrent against misconduct and restoring confidence in public institutions. Nearly three years later, almost all those expectations haven’t been realised.

For sure, the commission has processed thousands of referrals and undertaken numerous assessments and investigations. But its public record and output has been remarkably weak compared with the scale of public concern that led to its creation, with only 11 convictions of corruption over three years. While some of these convictions have arisen from matters referred through NACC processes, these have overwhelmingly involved lower-level misconduct rather than major political corruption cases, and has not produced the kind of high-profile investigations that many Australians would have expected when it was first created.

Nothing highlights this issue more than the scandals surrounding Robodebt. The Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme delivered some devastating findings about one of the greatest failures of public administration in modern Australian history. The scheme unlawfully recovered debts from hundreds of thousands of welfare recipients and contributed to profound financial and psychological harm. The Royal Commission also found that senior public servants and ministers ignored legal concerns and continued to defend a program that was deemed to be unlawful.

Robodebt became a landmark test of whether the NACC would demonstrate independence and courage, with the belief that if an anti-corruption body could not seriously investigate one of the most egregious scandals in Australian history, what exactly was it created to do?

The commission ultimately decided not to pursue corruption investigations arising from the sealed section of the Royal Commission report. Whether or not that decision was legally justified – and it’s unclear if it was – it was political catastrophe: the public expectations that the NACC would find and weed out corruption, especially in such an obvious case, were not met, and the commission seemed to be accountable to no-one for the decisions that it made.

It’s apparent that the NACC was designed with severe limitations that are so different to other integrity commissions around Australia, particularly the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption. Public hearings at the NACC are rare and tightly restricted; the legal threshold for proving corrupt conduct is so narrow that it’s almost impossible to define. Many forms of behaviour that the public would associate with corruption – the high influence of lobbyists, donor access to ministers and political favouritism with certain corporations – doesn’t seem to be classified as corruption under federal law. As a result, conduct that for most people appears to be unethical, improper or damaging to public trust falls outside of the reach of the commission.

The Australian electorate was promised a powerful anti-corruption watchdog but what they’ve received is a body that is reluctant to pursue politically sensitive matters and is constrained in its ability to examine the way influence and power is exercised within federal politics. And in nearly three years since its inception, it hasn’t found one incident of political corruption, even though there are no time limits on how far back it could look.

The danger is not just that the NACC has failed to meet expectations, the fact is that it’s made a severe dent in the confidence of public accountability itself. Anti-corruption bodies don’t exist just to punish those who engage in corruption, but to deter the corruption in the first place, way before it occurs. If a watchdog is perceived to be weak and ineffective, and unwilling to pursue powerful people, that’s not much of a deterrent.

There isn’t an anti-corruption agency anywhere in the world that will completely remove corruption in public institutions. We don’t live in a perfect world, and there will always be the opportunities for corruption: it’s human nature. But the objective for an institution such as the NACC is to minimise corruption, improve transparency and reassure the public that nobody is above the law. The NACC has failed to achieve any of those goals, and it’s missed the mark by a long way.

The resignation of Paul Brereton might be removing one source of controversy, but it doesn’t resolve a far greater problem. The challenge now facing the Albanese government is not just about appointing a new and suitable commissioner, it’s about confronting a more difficult question: whether Australia’s federal anti-corruption framework was designed to expose corruption, or just exists to create the appearance of someone looking for it.

It’s clear that Israel’s war and genocide in Gaza – now rapidly expanding into southern Lebanon and beyond – has revealed the cowardice and complicity of the Albanese government, but it’s a political issue that’s becoming harder to keep hiding away from in the hope that it all just goes away.

Every atrocity and war crime that the Israel Defense Forces have inflicted in the region – whether it be the destruction of entire villages, killing civilians, medical staff or journalists – is waved away as Israel’s right to defend itself, a brief show of concern or serious concern (depending on the gravity of the situation) or, in the case of IDF’s killing of Australian aid worker Zomi Frankcom, a phone call of feigned outrage to the Israeli ambassador. And then, a few days later, it’s back to business as usual: running cover for the state of Israel and the Zionist cause, which seems to be the true purpose of political leaders, not just in Australia, but in the United States and many other Western nations around the world.

The result is the perpetual caution the Albanese government is well known for: expressions of concern, calls for restraint, carefully worded statements about humanitarian suffering, and repeated appeals for diplomacy that no-one seems to listen to, or barely do anything about it. Even when it comes to Australian citizens, the government can be depended on to avoid the issue entirely, and so it came to be when serious allegations of rape and sexual violence were made last week against military personnel from the IDF.

The allegations made by filmmaker and activist Juliet Lamont, following her detention by Israeli authorities after participating in the Global Sumud Flotilla, should change what many leaders in Canberra would prefer to forget about and regard as a distant foreign policy issue, and turn it into a serious domestic political problem. But we just know that it won’t happen: the Australian government is just too compromised by Israeli and Zionist interests to allow this.

Lamont has publicly alleged psychosexual abuse, torture and rape while in Israeli custody. And she’s not the only one – ten other Australian participants in the flotilla have reported beatings, mistreatment and sexual abuse, and have submitted their evidence to the International Criminal Court.

For the Albanese government, this creates a dilemma it has largely avoided, and will do its best to keep avoiding. Supporters will argue that the foreign minister Penny Wong has described the actions as “shocking and unacceptable” and “reinforced the government’s displeasure” to the Israeli ambassador Hillel Newman but, as we saw in case of Zomi Frankcom, there’ll be no follow up and certainly no further action. Wong will wait for the issue to blow over and continue to support Israel and the right to defend itself.

During the case of Brittany Higgins – who was sexually assaulted in Parliament in 2019 by Bruce Lehrmann – Anthony Albanese said in Parliament that “women who come forward should be believed… I encourage women to speak out”. And this always has to be the case. But here we have at least 11 Australian’s who have made the claims of sexual violence and abuse by Israeli military personnel, and the Australian government doesn’t have too much to say about it. It’s obvious that for Albanese and Wong too, wearing the keffiyeh or supporting the cause of Palestine nullifies that right for women to be believed or the right to speak out and be heard.

This issue is no longer just about Gaza. It’s about whether Australia’s leaders are prepared to apply the same standards of human rights, justice and accountability to the state of Israel as they routinely apply to their adversaries. Israel is continuing its terrorist campaign into southern Lebanon and beyond – overnight, the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu issued an instruction for Israel to attack the capital Beirut as well – and the world, including Australia, is just standing by and allowing these crimes against humanity to continue.

The search for accountability

The Global Sumud Flotilla was a humanitarian mission where more than 400 activists from around the world attempted to deliver much-needed food, medicine and baby formula to Gaza by sea, and were hoping to break Israel’s naval blockade of the occupied territory. This ended on 18 May when Israeli forces violently and illegally intercepted the flotilla in international waters and detained those on board.

According to those submissions lodged with the International Criminal Court, the activists have alleged war crimes, crimes against humanity, torture and other violations of international law perpetrated against them. Several of these people have publicly described physical assaults, degrading treatment and sexual abuse during their detention, and there are other statements from the flotilla organisers which claim dozens of participants suffered injuries severe enough to require hospital treatment, with some requiring further hospitalisation after their release.

Of course, Israeli officials have categorically denied these allegations, which is what they always do because Israel, apparently, has the most moral army in the world. But whether Israel disputes the evidence or not is immaterial: what matters the most is whether governments are prepared to treat such allegations seriously enough to warrant an independent investigation.

The involvement of the ICC changes this significantly, and substantial documentation to support these allegations has been provided to the Court. It’s up to the ICC to make a determination about these actions but we know that irrespective of how well and independently the Court proceeds with its work, Israel will always deny the charges – if it comes to that – and fabricate material on the background of judges involved in the case, or any other legal personnel who worked to support the allegations. Why? Because this is what Israel always does, and it abides by different rules, as adjudicated by itself and by the United States.

For the Australian government, the question is whether it intends to support those processes when they involve an ally, if, indeed, that’s what Israel is. Albanese and Wong have routinely been the grand champions of the international “rules-based order”, the authority of international courts and the importance of human rights protections and now is the time to show whether they really mean this or not.

The problem of double standards and hypocrisy

Since the onset of the #MeToo movement in the late 2010s and the sexual abuse committed against Brittany Higgins in 2019, many political leaders have rightly pointed out the importance of taking allegations of sexual violence seriously; that victims need to be heard, and that allegations need to be investigated, rather than dismissing out of hand, which, historically, institutions in Australia have tended to do. These principles have become embedded within public debate, although there has been predictable resistance from the right, most notably the free speech warriors over at News Corporation.

But the double standards have become particularly acute when it comes to Israel and Gaza. If these actions of sexual violence and rape had been committed by the militaries of Russia, China, Iran or another geopolitical adversary, the responses by the Australian government would have been swift, and the respective ambassadors would have been expelled before day’s end.

But for Israel there are no such issues: a quick phone call from Wong to the Israeli ambassador to reinforce the government’s displeasure, probably ending with a confirmation of dinner for two at the Water’s Edge on the foreshore of Lake Burley Griffin, just to make sure the Australia–Israel relationship is solid and the delivery of F-35 parts and explosives to Tel Aviv will continue according to schedule.

This is what our Australian government is supporting: silence on war crimes and sexual violence committed by Israel; silence on the supply of military parts and explosives to Israel that are then used to bomb civilians in Gaza (yes, a ceasefire is in place; but no, it’s not a real ceasefire), Lebanon and Iran. And who knows where there will end: Israel has made no secret of its Greater Israel project based on the biblical claims from 3,000 years ago that most normal and mature countries have grown out of. How much of Lebanon will Israel invade and annexe? When will they invade Iraq and continue up to the Euphrates? Or invade parts of Egypt?

According to the old proverb, possession is nine points of the law and once these territories are seized and ethnically cleansed, it’s very difficult to return those lands, especially when the international community is almost inactive to stop it from happening in the first place. Who will stop the government of Israel acting this way, the most aggressive, racist and maniacal government in the world, when it has its general elections coming up over the next few months?

These issues are becoming more apparent to more voters in many countries in the Western world, even if their political leaders won’t lift a finger to stop Israel and, in the case of the Australian government, actively support Israel’s genocidal actions and war crimes with the supply of military parts and explosives. These are the concerns that are becoming increasingly widespread among younger Australians, progressive voters and many multicultural communities.

And it’s an ongoing pattern: the case of Australian aid worker Zomi Frankcom remains symbolic of these concerns. Frankcom was killed in a deliberate Israeli strike in Gaza in 2024, prompting the expressions of “concern” from the Australian government but no consequence. And now, we have Australians themselves alleging abuse while in Israeli custody, and the same concerns have come up.

If this government believes in accountability, when will it demand it of Israel? There’s no accountability when Israel kills over 70,000 Palestinians, or reduces 80 per cent of Gaza to rubble. There’s no accountability when Israel deliberately targets an Australian aid worker, and then claims it was an accident. And it seems, there won’t be any accountability when Australian citizens allege torture, rape, sexual violence and mistreatment perpetrated by the IDF.

The real question has to be: what would it take for the Australian government to finally speak up against the many crimes of the state of Israel? If international law is worth defending – the so-called “rules-based order” – does that commitment extend to politically inconvenient cases?

Every new allegation, every new report from humanitarian organisations and every new civilian casualty increases pressure on governments to move beyond their rote expressions of “concern” and work towards responses that are far more tangible and meaningful. The longer governments refuse to act, the more their silence reinforces their complicity.

And this issue is becoming more difficult for Anthony Albanese and Penny Wong to keep avoiding. It’s not going to go away, and they have to explain why they’re not prepared to defend Australian citizens when crimes are committed against them by Israel, as well as why they keep supplying the Israel Defense Forces with military parts and explosives that are then used to kill civilians.

They might feel that this is a distant foreign policy issue, but it’s becoming a domestic political test to find out who they really are, and if there’s any skerrick of moral consistency, political courage and credibility that still lives inside them.

This week’s briefing outlines the big issues to look out for: the growing pressure on the Albanese government over Gaza; questions about the future of the teal independents; the AUKUS debacle continues; and the ongoing credibility crisis facing the National Anti-Corruption Commission.

The slow-burn war Albanese and Wong don’t want to talk about

The Gaza conflict is becoming a more politically difficult issue for the Albanese government, not because it’s difficult to understand – everyone else in the world can see what’s going on – but because it’s an issue that is becoming too difficult to keep ignoring.

While the Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, and Foreign Minister Senator Penny Wong continue to carefully word their diplomatic messaging so they don’t offend the government of Israel and their Zionist supporters here in Australia, there have been allegations from the film-maker and activist, Juliet Lamont – who was illegally detained by Israel for attempting to bring aid to Gaza as part of the Global Sumud Flotilla – of psychosexual abuse, torture and rape by members of the Israel Defense Forces.

As if it wasn’t bad enough for the Australian government to constantly ignore all the war crimes, collective punishment and the humanitarian catastrophe inflicted by Israel upon the people in Gaza, it’s obvious that even when the punishment is inflicted upon Australian citizens, the government will continue with the self-imposed blind spot when it comes to Israel.

In the case of Zomi Frankcom, the Australia aid worker who was killed in the targeted attack by the IDF in 2024, Senator Wong expressed some outrage but then went on to say that it’s “hard to judge from afar”, which surely will the included on the Senator’s political epitaph, whenever that’s written up. Thoughts and prayers were also offered at the time by the Senator, that mealy-mouthed response that’s so meaningless that it’s almost offensive – up there with sympathy trolling of I’m sorry you feel that way – that’s offered at those times when there are no witnesses to explain what really happened.

But thoughts and prayers won’t be enough this time around. Lamont’s evidence is a bit more problematic for the government. She’s alive and well – as well as can be after such an ordeal – and well enough to give her accounts of the torture, sexual abuse and rape perpetrated by the IDF. There’s also 10 other Australian citizens who were on the flotilla, who have provided their documentation of the abuse and their allegations to the International Criminal Court, a far more reliable arbiter of these types of crimes than the Australian government will ever be.

The message for many years within the Australian community has been that women have to be believed when it comes to sexual violence but, obviously, there are many asterisks, exclusions, subclauses and other assorted fine print: women are not believed when the actions of sexual violence and rape are committed by the Israel Defense Forces; the likes of Albanese and Wong will make sure of that.

Are the teals independent or a party in disguise?

The discussion about the teal independents forming a political party has been floating around ever since so many of them were elected at the 2022 federal election – and many of them still remain – but it’s becoming more pertinent with the increasingly fragmented political landscape, especially on the centre-right side of politics. In reality, it brings up a question that critics have been asking since the teals first emerged: how independent are the independents? And if they form a party, does it really matter anyway?

The teals – like all other independents – benefit from being able to campaign as the representative of the local community, free from the talking-point discipline and the factions that dominate the major parties. But in the case of the teals, they’ve been able to benefit from a party-like structure, by receiving support primarily from Climate 200, and shared fundraising networks, similar policy ideals, especially on climate, and a similar political brand, although there have been several independents regarded as “teal” who haven’t used the colour teal at all.

The suggestion that they may now formalise those arrangements into a party structure raises the possibility that the distinction was never quite as clear as it was once claimed. But, then again, how much will the voters in these electorates be concerned about whether the successful member for Warringah, Zali Steggall, arrives at the next federal election campaign as the teal independent candidate, or as a member of the Teal Party? Will the idea of the “small-t Teal” become a part of the political vernacular, to replace the “small-l Liberal”?

Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull – who we can easily imagine either handing out leaflets for a prospective Teal Party or, indeed, as a candidate – sees the formation of a party as an opportunity for the teals. With the major parties suffering declining primary votes and public trust continuing to erode – as it has been for many years – there is room for a new force to occupy the political centre ground, to counter the actions of One Nation on the centre-right. Yet creating a party could also destroy much of the teal movement’s unique selling point. Voters who backed local independents in elections past, may not sign up again if they see the teals as just another national political machine. And maybe they just won’t care.

The irony in this case is that the teals emerged as a reaction against the many failures of party politics and the two-party duopoly. If they now become a party themselves, they risk inheriting exactly the problems they once condemned: centralised decision-making, strict “talking points” messaging and discipline, factional disputes and the inevitable gap between grassroots rhetoric and political reality. And wouldn’t that be as boring as the proverbial batshit.

AUKUS: Pay more, get less

The latest adjustment to the AUKUS submarine program has been presented Defence Minister Richard Marles as a “sensible simplification” of an “extraordinarily complex defence project”. But we just have to have a good laugh here: whenever Marles crosses paths with the US Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth – as he did last week at the annual Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore – he always returns with ridiculous gifts that we have to pay for. Last year, Hegseth demanded a lift of defence spending to 3.5 per cent of GDP; this year, Australia quietly lifted defence spending from 2.3 per cent to 3.0 per cent of GDP, with more promised spending coming soon.

This year, Marles has announced that Australia will now purchase three second-hand Virginia-class submarines from the United States rather than the promised newly built vessels. The argument put forward by Marles seems straightforward: fewer submarine classes mean less costs, less complexity and a more manageable transition.

But beneath the bureaucratic language and talking points is the reality that we’re not being told about. After years of announcements, reviews, summits and promises of a “sovereign submarine capability”, Australia appears to be moving closer to becoming a long-term customer of American military hardware – and from the used car junk-yard section in front of the scrap metal division – rather than an independent defence power in its own right.

Take your pick: A Bug’s Life, Seven Samurai, The Magnificent Seven, or the even the Three Amigos!. In our version of the story, Australia is the endless servant of the United States, sending off Australian taxpayers money to Washington, and getting scraps in return. But no-one comes to the rescue: we’re stuck in this endless subservience until at least 2070. And by that stage, we’ll be so embedded in the military architecture of a diminishing American power, that it will be too late to change anything.

Thank you Scott Morrison for signing Australia up to this calamity. And thank you Anthony Albanese, for continuing with this debacle. Future generations will look back and be ashamed of your actions.

The corruption of the anti-corruption commission

The resignation of Commissioner Paul Brereton is a reminder of how quickly one of Australia’s most anticipated integrity bodies has fallen by the wayside and moved so far away from public expectations.

When the National Anti-Corruption Commission was established in 2023 – just three years ago – it was sold by the Albanese government as a powerful watchdog that would restore trust in government after the many years of scandals, questionable procurement decisions and controversies, especially those committed by the Morrison government. Instead, many Australians now see it as an organisation that’s more comfortable managing expectations than investigating actual corruption.

The decision not to pursue any referrals that came out of the Robodebt Royal Commission was perhaps a turning point for NACC. The most egregious cases of deliberate departmental mismanagement and overriding the law in the history of Australia politics was detected within this Commission, but no-one was held accountable for a scheme which ultimately killed over 2,000 people, and cost the Australian taxpayers $2.4 billion. Not one person.

It’s a complete failure, and if an anti-corruption commission can’t pick such low-hanging fruit – and fail to determine such obvious corruption, that was evident to everyone else except for the Commission itself – then there’s not much reason for that commission to exist. Best to start again.

The resignation of National Anti-Corruption Commission commissioner Paul Brereton is a significant moment for one of the Albanese government’s flagship integrity reforms, but it also raises a far deeper issue: Australia’s federal anti-corruption watchdog has failed to meet the expectations placed upon it. Established in 2023 amid widespread public anger over Robodebt, sports rorts, overspending on consultants, ministerial scandals and declining trust in politics, the NACC was presented as a transformative institution that would restore accountability and transparency to government. Nearly three years later, however, many Australians are still waiting for evidence that the commission is willing – or able – to confront the most powerful figures in public life.

In this episode, we examine why the NACC has become a source of frustration for supporters of stronger integrity measures and critics of government alike. Brereton’s tenure was overshadowed by repeated conflict-of-interest concerns, frequent recusals and growing criticism that the commission had become secretive, overly cautious and disconnected from public expectations. While the NACC has secured a small number of convictions – 11 in three years – its focus on lower-level public sector misconduct has left many questioning why major political controversies, including matters arising from the Robodebt Royal Commission, have not resulted in high-profile investigations.

Unlike powerful state-based bodies such as the NSW ICAC, it seems that the federal commission was deliberately designed with significant limitations. Restrictions on public hearings, narrow legal definitions of corruption, limited resources and a highly risk-averse culture have created a watchdog that often appears more concerned with managing legal processes than exposing misconduct. The result is a growing perception that Australia has created an anti-corruption body that looks tough on paper but remains reluctant to challenge entrenched political power.

As Labor begins the search for a new commissioner, the debate is no longer simply about who should lead the NACC – it’s about whether Australia’s anti-corruption framework is capable of delivering the accountability it promised. If public confidence in democratic institutions is to be restored, reforming the watchdog itself may become just as important as the reform that created it.

The teal independents emerged as a political rebellion against the Liberal Party’s shift over into culture-war politics under figures like Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton, offering the more affluent urban voters a politically safer alternative that combined economic conservatism with climate action, integrity in politics and socially progressive values. But as discussion grows about whether the teals should formally become a political party, a major contradiction has emerged: the teal movement succeeded precisely because it was not a party.

In this episode, we examine whether formalising the teal independents into a national political force would strengthen their influence or destroy the independent appeal that made them successful in the first place. With figures like David Pocock linked to discussions about a broader alliance, the debate highlights the growing fragmentation of Australian politics and the collapse of traditional party loyalties.

The Liberal Party’s neglect of moderate urban voters created the conditions for the rise of the teals, beginning with the election of Zali Steggall in 2019. Six years later, the Liberals have been virtually wiped out of many inner-city electorates. But similar warning signs may now be emerging for the Labor government, as rising housing costs, stagnant wages and economic insecurity leave many working and lower-middle-income Australians feeling increasingly politically homeless.

That vacuum is now being exploited by outsider movements like One Nation, which continues to attract protest support while also embracing surprisingly interventionist economic policies including a gas export tax, a sovereign wealth fund and limits on negative gearing. Major parties have increasingly ceded political ground by refusing to pursue ambitious structural reform, particularly when confronted by powerful corporate and mining interests.

As Australian politics becomes more unstable and fragmented, we ask if new political alliances – whether teal, populist or community-based – could eventually reshape the country’s political landscape. The parties and movements that organise themselves most effectively over the next decade may ultimately inherit an electorate that no longer feels represented by the traditional political system.

The political fallout from the treatment of Gaza flotilla activists by Israeli authorities is becoming a much bigger issue than the actions of one extremist minister posting humiliating videos on social media. What occurred on the Global Sumud flotilla – where civilians were illegally detained in international waters, kneeling with zip ties around their wrists, while Israel’s extremist national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir mocked them publicly – has exposed more openly what Western governments have spent nearly two years defending, or carefully avoiding confrontation with Israel over the destruction of Gaza and the broader collapse of international law.

For leaders such as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong, the problem isn’t just about Ben-Gvir, it’s what he represents. Ben-Gvir is no longer the maverick outlier who can conveniently be dismissed as an embarrassing extremist operating on the fringes of Israeli politics. Whenever Albanese and Wong claim Israel does have a right to defend itself, this is the Israel that they’re also expecting us to defend as well.

What is frequently ignored is that he is a part of the Israeli government and holds enormous influence over Prime Minister Netanyahu’s splintered coalition and represents a growing concern within Israeli politics that’s becoming harder for Western leaders to explain away while still pretending Israel remains a beacon of democracy – the only one in the region, apparently – and supposedly operates within the boundaries of international laws and protocols.

Ben-Gvir’s behaviour is grotesque, but it’s not new: this is who this guy is. Public humiliation, dehumanisation and his theatrical display of dominance have long formed the main part of his political identity, and he humiliates Palestinians in the same way each and every day. Recently, he celebrated his birthday with a cake decorated with a golden noose, after he mandated the death penalty by hanging for Palestinians deemed to be engaged in “acts of terrorism”. And we know that in Israel, “terrorism” could mean anything, even a Palestinian child throwing a stick at a police officer after being arrested for an unknown and concocted criminal charge.

Ben-Gvir is heavily influenced by the banned fascist movement, the Kahanists, who openly advocate Jewish fascism and supremacy, violent nationalism and the expulsion of Palestinians. In 1994, one such Kahanist – Baruch Goldstein – murdered 29 Palestinians at the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron. Ben-Gvir also displays Goldstein’s portrait in a prominent position in his home – an illegal settlement near Hebron – and has constantly lauded and admired him throughout his political career, claiming that “he is my hero”. These are the values Albanese and Wong want Australians to defend when they say Israel does have a right to defend itself.

What makes this difficult for Western governments to continue to ignore is that Ben-Gvir is not irrelevant within Israel, or some kind of fringe activist. Polling over recent years has shown significant levels of support for his rhetoric and actions among the Israeli public – according to Pew Research, 36 per cent of Israelis support his actions – and his party, Otzma Yehudit – Jewish Power (of course) – remains influential because Netanyahu’s government depends upon figures like him to survive. This destroys that convenient fiction frequently used by Western governments that Israel’s maniacal behaviour can simply be blamed on a handful of rogue extremists detached from broader Israeli political culture, when they are actually a central part of it.

Of course, Ben-Gvir has behaved in this way for many years, but the recent incident on the Sumud flotilla has placed a greater focus on his outrageous and unhinged behaviour. The Australians who were a part of the flotilla were stripped naked, assaulted, denied legal access and subjected to psychological humiliation. They were also held at gunpoint, hidden and beaten inside shipping containers, and terrorised after Israeli forces illegally intercepted the flotilla in international waters, just outside of Cyprus.

Israel – as it always does – has denied all allegations and insisted detainees were treated lawfully, while Israel’s ambassador to Australia – Israel’s propagandist-in-chief Hillel Newman, has dismissed all accusations of violence and abuse. Yet these denials are increasingly at odds with the reality of what people can now see directly through videos, the testimonies and the vast volume of independent reporting emerging from the region itself.

Why is it that we are expected to believe every single unsubstantiated word that’s uttered at the Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion – yet dismiss all the documented evidence and statements from over 400 people on the flotilla who were simply trying to bring much-needed aid to the people of Gaza?

We’re not expecting things to change that much – after all, the Australian government, like many others around the world, seems to have an infinite level of tolerance for the many crimes and misdeeds of Israel – but this could develop into a deeper crisis that all governments will need to face up to.

For decades, almost every Western leader has managed the domestic perceptions of conflicts within Israel–Palestine through lugubrious and slippery diplomatic language, massaging the media messaging and deliberately making it all seem too ambiguous for anyone to understand. And haven’t Albanese and Wong – along with so many others in Australia – been the masters of this, with different messages flying out from each side of the mouth on every occasion, with the key words filtering through to the leaders of Zionist lobby groups, because they are the ones who all of this language is directed towards.

Public outrage is softened through carefully crafted talking points about “both sides”, “security concerns”, “complex regional dynamics”, “difficult to judge”, and the classic go-to talking point: “Israel does have a right to defend itself”, a concept that isn’t afforded to many other countries in the region, and certainly not for the state of Palestine.

But as much as they will continue to show their weaknesses with these tactics, Israel’s actions Gaza and now in southern Lebanon have shattered that strategy and makes it more difficult to sustain. Social media, independent journalism and the unprecedented scale of destruction in the region have made that method of influencing public perception far more difficult, particularly among younger audiences who increasingly distrust mainstream political institutions and corporate media narratives. And because of this, the Albanese government now finds itself trapped inside this political balancing act that is becoming more unstable with each and every week.

Australia’s strategic alliance with the United States and longstanding diplomatic support for Israel sits on one side, but that’s becoming increasingly unpopular. On the other is the mounting public anger over the actions of the United States and Israel, a public that increasingly sees Western responses to the conflict, including Australia’s, as morally bankrupt and hypocritical.

This is why the situation in Gaza, southern Lebanon and now Iran has evolved into something far larger than a foreign policy issue, even if most people can’t fully comprehend these conflicts. It’s now cutting directly through to Australia’s domestic politics: universities, the media, arts organisations, sporting bodies, councils and workplaces are increasingly being drawn into a battleground over Palestine, protest rights, censorship, with the usual accusations of antisemitism and political intimidation.

That erosion of Australia’s legitimacy on these matters also carries enormous long-term consequences for the body politic, which seems to be so easily discarded by many countries around the world, in their quest to support the rouge and out-of-control state of Israel which, essentially is being governed by the likes of Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, who are the modern day versions of Himmler, Rosenberg and the brownshirts from the Nazi era.

Once domestic populations begin to realise that governments are applying human rights, democracy and international law selectively rather than universally – bearing in mind that all politics involves a certain level of duplicity and double-speak – the damage to the body politic doesn’t end up being restricted just to the field of foreign affairs. That collapse of trust then begins to permeate through to other areas – if this hasn’t already been breached – the media, political parties, universities, courts and democracy itself.

That’s what makes the flotilla incident so significant in Australia. It wasn’t just about a few hundred activists who were illegally intercepted at sea, it’s a symbolic representation of the clash between two versions of events, and only one of those is being believed. In one version, Albanese and Wong – and others – will continue speaking the concocted language of diplomacy, alliances and restraint (i.e. the outrageous lies) primarily because they’re close to hopeless and know nothing better.

In the other version, millions of ordinary people are watching graphic evidence of war, occupation, starvation and humiliation – not just of Palestinians and Lebanese people, but of their own citizens – in real time while political leaders insist the situation remains too “complex” and “far away” for them to offer any kind of meaningful and moral position.

The danger for Western governments is that the old language of diplomacy that’s been in use since the 1800s no longer works. It’s all high-level bullshit and people can see this for themselves. Every new image from the region, every viral video of humiliation by extremists such as Ben-Gvir, every allegation of abuse followed up with even more evasive statements and denials just keeps chipping away at the credibility of the political establishment, if there’s any left at all.

The issue is no longer about whether governments support Israel: they obviously do, and will continue do so, despite everyone’s protestations. There must be some serious-level kompromat being held on all these political leaders – or threats being made to their family members or other types of blackmail – because no leader in their right mind would support the actions and activities of the state of Israel, especially taking into account the actions of Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, unless these types of threats against them are being made.

And it’s also obvious that large sections of the public no longer support the state of Israel, and its behaviours in the region. For the Australian government, that’s the real political crisis that it’s facing – not just the collapse of faith in Israel, but the slow collapse of faith in the entire Western political and moral framework that protected it for so long. The real question is why it has come to this.