An OpenAI agent – not an actual person, but a piece of code – gained unauthorised access to the Services Australia portal in June, which includes the Medicare statistics service. OpenAI engineers discovered this breach in August when they performed routine audits of internal logs, but didn’t notify the Australian government until September, issuing a warning that went to a general email address listed on a public government website.

And finally, the public found out what had happened about two weeks later. This isn’t a taste of what’s happening in the future; it’s happening right now – a largely unregulated company is developing increasingly autonomous technology and is allowed to think and decide for itself whether a breach of a critical piece of a government data network is urgent… or not.

It’s not clear at this stage if this genuinely was a “rogue” agent, or perhaps a publicity stunt, but OpenAI says its agent can autonomously run commands, retrieve internal files and determine site passwords, and then go on to write files into that system. While no client or patient records were accessed – or so we are told – it’s hardly an excuse that OpenAI can use. The basic issue is that the public shouldn’t have their medical histories accessed and exposed in this way.

OpenAI has offered a belated apology and begrudgingly said that they could have handled their response in a much better way but, once again, that’s not the point.

Here we have a giant corporation interfering in a government system, and the company took many weeks after discovering the issue to issue the warning, and not even going through the process of ensuring that it reached the right people within the Australian government. We still don’t know why the “rogue” agent was able to access the Medicare system, why OpenAI’s supposed safeguards failed on this occasion, and who within the company decided that informing the government could wait just a little bit longer.

Of course, the answers to these questions will be assessed by the government’s newly created Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence, but it’s unclear whether these are the right people – parliamentarians – to be able to understand and assess these complex technological issues comprehensively.

The bigger issue with this breach is the imbalance of power that exists, especially in the context of an American company that has the full backing of US President Donald Trump, who rejected the idea of global regulations on AI, and specifically targeted Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s push for international AI “guardrails” and digital safety.

The Australian government is now hoping to investigate a technology whose developer knows far more about its own behaviour than any minister or parliamentary committee will ever know or understand. This situation sets up a weak foundation when it comes to accountability, with limited resources and an underwhelming knowledge base in which to launch action that acts in the public interest.

Albanese continues to sell AI as a national opportunity, launching his first policy announcement out of the blue just a few months ago, where he stated that we had to “shape AI rather than be passively shaped by it”, and outlining that his government wants all the productivity gains, the investment and the data centres.

His National AI Plan promises economic growth that supposedly sits next to digital “safety guidelines”, but promises like this are difficult to keep when the industry itself is proceeding as such a rapid speed, that it’s almost impossible for any government to create the correct legislation that will keep up with this pace.

And the Medicare breach is an excellent example of this: while Albanese was making his surprise AI announcement in July, a rogue OpenAI agent was busily hacking into the Medicare backend, with no legislation in place to work out what should happen when such an autonomous agent enters a government system without authorisation, and the company then fails to raise the alarm quickly enough.

This is where Albanese’s approach looks decidedly weak. He talked as though Australia needs to open up its arms to welcome in AI or be left behind, providing an urgency that handed the debate to the tech giants on a platter: if governments move too quickly and demand too many legal safeguards, they’ll lose investment and totally miss the AI boat that might only arrive once in a generation, even if it does end up destroying that generation.

It seemed a bit too clever by half and desperate: a powerful and confident government that understands what it’s dealing with would create the legislative framework first. It’s certainly the case that there are many opportunities within AI and it’s a technology that should be harnessed in the public interest, but the Albanese government forgot to provide the legislative support to deal with this when it all goes wrong, which is what clearly happened with the Medicare breach.

The related issue of data centres is also something that’s going far beyond anything that governments are currently capable of regulating effectively, with the public interest being left behind, in favour of corporate interests. Data centres take up a lot of land, massive amounts of electricity and water, and depend on the infrastructure that communities must also live within and, in many cases, help pay for, and the surreptitious nature of these developments – such as Goodman Groups controversial $1.2 billion “Project Mars” data centre in Lane Cove on Sydney’s lower north shore (which has now been withdrawn due to public resistance) – suggests that governments know that these are not in the best interests of the community.

And even when governments are more open about these data centres, the political conversation is always framed around the value of investment, and all the supposed jobs that will be created. But there has to more to these projects than just trying to hoodwink the public with big numbers. Who receives the profits? Who will carry the burden of local energy resources? What exactly are the commitments and promises that governments are making to these corporations, and how will the public know whether they are getting a fair return on these investments?

Of course, these are questions that should always be asked in a normal functioning democracy, and they are questions that should be answered before any contracts are signed and the first sod is turned by a compromised political leader, who’s only too happy to throw away community wellbeing for the sake of vested interests that will also go on to compromise the data of that community.

In The Wealth of Nations, the economist Adam Smith discussed the “invisible hand” of the free market, but unlike the nefarious nature of neoliberalism, his theories were backed by human empathy, moral foundations and government oversight when needed. AI technology and development – as it stands at the moment – upends that philosophy and, to paraphrase Orwell, is more like an invisible boot stamping on a human face, for ever, without the checks and balances needed to restrain that boot.

It’s an insidious development that is starting to flow into work, into culture and into politics. As we have seen with the Medicare breach, AI is a liar and an impersonator. It reflects the discrimination and unevenness that exists in the world out there, because that’s exactly what it’s been trained to do. It steals the work of writers, artists and journalists, and demands actions in the Courts to argue that these creators don’t deserve a fair payment for this theft.

This is not to suggest that AI – and super intelligence, if it ends up coming to that – should be abandoned, far from it. But it needs to have the guardrails that Albanese argued for at the United Nations, to ensure that it works in the interests of the community, not in the interests of the Altmans, Musks and Zuckerbergs of the corporate world, who would be only too happy to sell off humanity, if it adds yet another trillion dollars or two to their already bulging bank balances.

We can see now that OpenAI’s attack on the Medicare portal was something that was just waiting to happen, intentional or otherwise. The Albanese government can commission yet another review or form another committee with uninformed members of parliament, but it needs to create powerful legislation that doesn’t necessarily stifle the development of AI, but harnesses this powerful technology towards the interests of the public, and not to these undeserving vested interests.

For far too long, the likes of Google and Facebook have forced governments to let them build their platforms first and deal with the consequences later – and, of course, when it’s far too late to do anything much about it. The Medicare incident has shown the cost of government indifference – a smaller cost at this early stage – to these processes, but at least it’s there as a warning sign. The Albanese now has a clear choice: govern this industry with an iron fist that’s in the public interest or, like the unsuspecting seals welcoming the hunters in the Arctic regions, keep opening the door to these great risks that Australians never agreed to take on, which will ultimately, swallow us all up.

Sixteen potential terrorist threats in just nine months sounds absolutely terrifying. But coming from AISO, these extraordinary claims should invite a healthy level of cynicism. And what is meant by a potential threat? A terrorist threat is either real, or it’s not, and for these claims to come from a senior government bureaucrat without providing any substantiation, suggests that it’s a bureaucrat more intent on making himself more relevant than he needs to be, than the main interest of keeping the public safe.

The Director–General of ASIO Mike Burgess – who with his many media appearances seems to be confusing his role as top spy with a celebrity performer and is surely due for an appearance on Dancing With The Stars – says grievance, intolerance and political polarisation are creating an ever growing and dangerous security environment. We know very little about these threats but, surely, it’s the role of Australia’s security agency – and its top spy – to be not seen and not heard and just quietly do its work in the background and get on with it.

And instead of vague self-seeking messages about the unknown threats, why haven’t we heard more about the threats that were known to ASIO? An ASIO informant claims that he warned the agency about the Bondi killers – Naveed and Sajid Akram – all the way back in 2019. Why haven’t we heard more about this, and why wasn’t this claim fully examined by the Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion?

This would be far more valuable to Australian community, rather than the irresponsible propaganda that he spewed out to the radio broadcaster Neil Mitchell, saying that he “wouldn’t rule out the possibility that Iran would want to kill prominent Jewish Australians”, and that it wasn’t because of any immediate threat, but “because of their hatred of Jews”.

Let’s examine this statement: in the infinite world of possibilities, he could also say that he also wouldn’t rule out Nigeria. Or Poland. Or Argentina. Or even the United States. It’s highly unlikely and the chances must be close to zero, but still, you never know: you can’t rule out the possibility.

And then, Burgess also announced there’s no immediate threat, so why the need to bring it up at this point of time?

Also, it needs to be pointed out Iran doesn’t have a specific hatred of Jews as alleged by Burgess; it’s a hatred of the ideology of Zionism and the actions of the state of Israel, which according to many opinion polls, a clear majority of people around the world agree with.

The Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa in 1979 outlining the protection of the Jewish community in Iran from violence and be granted fair treatment, stating at the time that “we recognize our Jews as separate from those godless, bloodsucking Zionists”. Sure, we can see that there are institutional barriers to Jewish people participating fully in Iranian life, for example, not able to hold senior government positions, serve as judges or receive compensation in legal disputes – and let’s not kid ourselves that Iran is a model of excellence for the 20,000 Jewish people who do live in the country – but the issue Iran has is with Zionism and Israel, and not specifically with Jewish people.

So, what is driving the commentary of Burgess, and why does he feel the need to impose this commentary on the public at such regular intervals? Is it relevance deprivation? Or is it the need to place more pressure on the government to boost funding for ASIO, yet again?

Since Burgess took on the leadership of ASIO in 2019, its funding has increased from $555 million, to $1.1 billion, and an overall funding increase of $3.4 billion for all National Intelligence Community agencies. Yet within this overall funding increase, budget allocations toward counter-terrorism programs – programs that could have prevented the Bondi attacks – have dropped from 23 per cent of the budget, down to 16 per cent.

Burgess did testify at the Royal Commission in May about this drop for counter-terrorism funding, but was essentially protected by the Albanese government when they claimed Public Interest Immunity to block the Commissioner from accessing specific ASIO documents, even though the Prime Minster explicitly promised investigators would have “full access to all material” and that the government would “cooperate fully with the review and provide assistance in the form of documents, data, material and meetings”.

Security agencies need to operate within a high level of secrecy – that’s the nature of their business – but there’s also a need for the community to have full confidence in their operations and understand that they are always acting in the public interest. However, it’s not actually clear in whose interests Burgess is acting in.

Without being overly cynical and invoking the spirit of Yes Minister too much, the primary role of any government department is to sustain itself and ensure that it can operate well into the future. In that sense, Burgess has done well in doubling the budget for ASIO, but how can the public know that this represents value for money, the same value many other departments need to prove to the government?

This quest for departmental sustainability helps to explain why Burgess felt the need to make the claims about disrupting 16 potential threats, in the wake of failing to disrupt the one real threat in December 2025 that ASIO had been informed about seven years ago. During this time, ASIO has prioritised counter-espionage and foreign interference, primarily China, Russia and Iran, and placed homegrown terror on a much lower priority. It also explains why ASIO investigated the Akrams but decided they posed no threat to the Australian community, and why they decided to hold information about the Dural Hoax in January 2025 as “highly classified” until March, even though they knew within hours that it was a fake bomb plot.

How does this represent value for money for the Australian public? Failing to reveal the Dural Hoax immediately prolonged fear within the community, and allowed the claims of an imminent antisemitic attack to go unchallenged for almost two months. Deprioritising homegrown terror and giving the all-clear on the Akrams resulted in the violent deaths of 15 civilians and injuries to 40 other people. How did these actions protect the public, which we’d assume would be the primary role of ASIO?

For too long, Burgess has played the political game in his role at ASIO: a carefully planted story here, a National Press Club address there, going on to speak on a right-wing podcast to amplify his messages of fear and terror coming any time soon, but failing to stop the real fear and terror when it actually arrives. Holding a secret and undisclosed meeting with the Israeli President Isaac Herzog, surely a severe compromise of Australia’s intelligence and security, which was only revealed after intense questioning by Senator David Pocock, three weeks after the meeting occurred. Does this represent value for money?

The bigger question is why the Albanese government has tolerated such an incompetent head of ASIO, who has clearly failed to act in the public interest and protect the community. Sure, even if we can accept that there were 16 potential threats disrupted, it’s the real threats that were missed that we have to be concerned about.

If Burgess wants the Australian public to accept his claims, he needs to explain the many failures of ASIO, including the warnings it failed to act upon and the information it withheld from the community, and why this occurred despite the doubling of its budget over the past seven years. Any other public servant with a comparable record would have been long gone and put out to retirement, and it’s now up to government to explain why he is still there and whether his role is to protect the public, or protect ASIO and his own position within it.

Zionist groups aggressively deny suggestions that they exert excessive influence over politics, media and cultural institutions, yet when prominent people speak out against Israel or in support of Palestine, those same groups will cancel people, force them into long-winded litigations, damage their reputations and proceed to ruin them commercially. Not bad for a group who claim they have little power or influence in society, and are quick to make accusations of antisemitism – usually followed up with even more litigation – when this excessive influence is pointed out to them.

The experiences of former SBS journalist Mary Kostakidis in Australia and the musician Macklemore in the United States are the two most recent examples – different circumstances for sure, but both are examples of how quickly the criticisms of Israel will have severe ramifications for those making the claim.

For Kostakidis, it began with ‘liking’ two social media posts about Gaza and resulted in almost two years of legal proceedings against her. For Macklemore it began with the words of “free Palestine” inside a US stadium and ended up with his removal from the remainder of Ed Sheeran’s American tour.

Kostakidis had shared part of a speech by the late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in early 2024, adding her own condemnation of the Israeli government and describing its actions in Gaza as a genocide, confirming what most of the world seems to accept and can see with their own eyes.

Alon Cassuto, the chief executive of the Zionist Federation of Australia, alleged that these posts breached the Racial Discrimination Act as likely to “offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate” Australian Jews, and also claimed they were “antisemitic”, without ever explaining how this would be the case.

This dispute then progressed from the Australian Human Rights Commission into the Federal Court, and Kostakidis had spent almost two years preparing her defence before the proceedings were eventually dropped by the Zionist Federation, without any legal finding that she had breached that Act, or any other act, for that matter.

Cassuto went on to claim that he agreed to drop the case because Kostakidis had apologised for the hurt and harm (there’s that word again) experienced by Jewish and Israeli Australians and, as a result, his objectives had been “substantially achieved”. But the apology was made some time ago: why did the legal action continue for so long, if Cassuto claims his objectives had already been “substantially achieved”? How are his actions different to any other vexatious or frivolous litigant?

The issue in this case wasn’t so much about who won or lost – it was clear that Kostakidis was going to win the case – or the fact that the case was ultimately dropped, but how this power is used to silence the critics of Israel, and the more prominent the person is, the more likely this type of punishment is going to meted out. Kostakidis wasn’t accused by an individual with limited resources, but by the peak body of the Australian Zionist movement, representing more than 200 organisations and connected financially and institutionally to the international Zionist movement.

This is an important factor, because the claims about Zionist influence within society are always denied and often reduced to the question of whether somebody can prove the existence of centralised or coercive control. But that’s not how most political influence works. These types of networks don’t need somebody at command central issuing the instructions: all they require is the money, access, organisation, relationships and the motivations to mobilise those resources when an issue arises – which is what the Zionist movement has readily available to it – and can then force considerable damage for the person at the receiving end, in this case, Kostakidis.

Of course, a journalist can remain free to criticise Israel in whichever way they wish to – which Kostakidis has continued to do since the allegations against her were first made – but spending almost two years defending that criticism through expensive proceedings sends a message that goes far beyond that one journalist, especially when other writers, broadcasters and academics can see the exact personal cost for themselves.

The Macklemore controversy in the US is an even clearer example of this, because the transition from political commentary made on a stage, to the material and severe consequences for him, happened within a matter of days.

Macklemore has been speaking publicly about Palestine for several years, but his comments during two appearances supporting Sheeran in New Jersey last week suddenly reached an audience on a far greater scale, and that’s the issue for the Zionist movement. Macklemore condemned Israel’s actions in Gaza, displayed images of Palestinian destruction and told this massive audience that he wanted people in Gaza and the occupied West Bank to hear two words: “Free Palestine”.

He also addressed Jewish members of the audience directly, making clear that his criticism is directed at the state of Israel for its actions of apartheid and genocide inflicted upon the people of Palestine, and not a criticism of Jewish people. But providing these explanations didn’t stop the mobilisation of an immediate campaign from Zionist billionaires against him. Zionists destroyed the life and career of Michael Jackson, and it’s obvious they’re prepared to do it again to any performer who speaks up in support of Palestine.

The Israeli American Council called for Macklemore to be removed from Sheeran’s tour, the Stop Antisemitism group attacked his performance, and Robert Kraft, the billionaire owner of the New England Patriots and a major stadium near Boston, confirmed that he wouldn’t allow Macklemore to perform there, referring to his recent appearances and a broader history of commentary that Kraft considered offensive to the Jewish community.

And the next steps showed exactly how this power and influence works, without anyone needing the authority of government to support them. Kraft quickly rallied other stadium owners and told the tour promoter they wouldn’t accept Macklemore on the bill, putting in jeopardy concerts that has already sold hundreds of thousands of tickets. Sheeran – who, along with Pink, has lost so much credibility over this issue – claimed that “he doesn’t take sides” in politics (even though he’s strongly supported the Ukraine resistance against Russian invasion), and agreed to drop Macklemore from the rest of the tour.

Thanks to the actions of Kraft and Sheeran, the person who wants to support a free Palestine and speaking out against a genocide has lost access to the platforms from which he was speaking on. And this is how the supporters of Zionism act to shut down criticisms of Israel and the supporters of Palestine.

There’s also a clear contradiction here as well. One of the venues that has banned Macklemore – the Raymond James Stadium in Tampa – hosted Kanye West and his 150,000 fans earlier this year, despite his extensive history of explicitly antisemitic statements, including support for Adolf Hitler, denying the Holocaust, and selling T-shirts emblazoned with swastikas. At the time, the owners of the stadium resisted the criticism of West’s appearance and claimed they were defending the principle of “free speech” and were legally and contractually tied to hosting the event.

So, what’s the difference between West and Macklemore? Of course, it’s all about Palestine.

West has refused to support Palestine, or even talk about it, stating that he was “scared to talk up against the Zionists again” for fear of having his tours and concerts cancelled. We can see that Zionists will accept Holocaust denial, swastikas, support for Hitler – under the banner of free speech and assorted legalities – but all of that is thrown out the window when Palestine is mentioned, or when Israel is called out for its clear acts of genocide and apartheid. That’s the difference.

Although these incidents have occurred in different countries and are different types of incidents, when taken together, Kostakidis and Macklemore show a far more important issue than the endless argument over whether Zionist organisations possess “control”, which, of course, they do.

Real political power is usually more oblique and a lot more sophisticated. It exists when Zionist billionaires and organisations can mobilise resources against whoever they see as their opponent, gain the attention of decision-makers, create reputational damage, initiate expensive legal processes or create the commercial consequences that are powerful enough to send a message to everyone else who dares to speak out. It’s exactly what happens in Australia, and in the US.

The result of this is that a news article that’s scathing of Israel and supportive of Palestine will be softened up before publication or even removed; the academic who thinks twice before claiming Israel has committed genocide; the musician who decides that Palestine is not worth jeopardising a tour – just like Sheeran; a broadcaster who decides avoiding the subject altogether will create fewer problems for them; or the politician who understands that speaking forcefully about Israel will create a backlash against them or their family, that very few other foreign-policy areas seem to produce.

Kostakidis had her legal battle end without a finding against her, while Macklemore will always be capable of performing elsewhere and continuing to advocate for Palestine. But where is he going to perform?

This is how the Zionists and pro-Israel supporters operate and use their power so ruthlessly to achieve their political goals. In Australia, it was a coordinated and vexatious legal process against a well-known journalist; in the US, it was the commercial pressure and heavy-handed tactic – drop this guy, or else – but the message received by everyone else is pretty much the same: you’ll always be free to speak about Israel and Palestine, but if you do, there are severe consequences for doing so.

It’s a message Sheeran has understood very clearly, even if he has lost all his credibility in the process. It’s something for him to consider when he performs Thinking Out Loud at his next American appearance.

It’s coming up to a year since Australia recognised an independent and sovereign Palestine, ostensibly to “support the aspirations of the Palestinian people”, and “advance prospects for peace and stability in the region”. Of course, this was a momentous decision, and signalled a shift in diplomatic thinking but what, if anything, has changed?

It didn’t change Australia’s relationship with Israel – not one bit – and this is from a Labor government which continues to facilitate the illegal occupation, violent colonisation and settlement of the West Bank, where the military partnerships with Israel have actually become stronger, humanitarian access to Gaza is still blocked, and no action has been taken to force the Netanyahu government to retreat.

Almost a year after recognition, the disconnect between the symbolic and the substantive is already proving to be very embarrassing for this Australian government.

Still no justice for Zomi Frankcom

Nothing highlights this more than the case of Zomi Frankcom. As we’ve reported before, her killing and those of her six colleagues were committed with impunity, despite Israel’s initial admission that the incident occurred while the aid workers were in an official convoy under the protection of the IDF.

Their convoy was repeatedly targeted by Israeli drones while attempting to transfer from one vehicle to another, and Israel’s military responded by suspending two officers and taking disciplinary action against others. But Israel’s military advocate general then ruled in August 2026 that there wouldn’t be any criminal prosecution and this is where the matter would end.

The Australian government responded by saying that was “far too lenient”, with Wong and Albanese taking umbrage at the lack of accountability, but once again Australia’s diplomatic protests failed to produce results, and they always will fail to produce results until the government decides to support these words of condemnation, with meaningful action against Israel.

The issue was then further exacerbated during the week when former IDF reservist Nochi Mendel – the one who gave the order to strike Frankcom’s convoy – told the ABC that he had no regrets and would make the same decision again if he had the chance. He also accused Frankcom and her colleagues of being Hamas agents, which was the purported reason for the attack, and, of course, there’s no evidence to support this claim.

And people such as Mendel are so vile, that they can’t even be bothered to go to the effort of public relations and attempting to hide their offensive actions and attitudes. They’re showing us exactly who they are, yet the Australian government continues to accept these standards.

The recognition of Palestine didn’t produce an independent Australian inquiry into the killing of Zomi Frankcom. It didn’t result in targeted sanctions against Israel, nor did it result in the expulsion of its ambassador or a reciprocal recall of the Israeli ambassador to Australia. And above all, it hasn’t affected Australia’s broader strategic and military relationship with Israel: in fact, it seems to have strengthened it.

Military assistance and illegal settlements

While officially denying direct military assistance to Israel, Australia’s government position hides a far more complicated reality.

Australia is currently in possession of an unusually high number of F-35s planes, when compared to other countries in its region, and Israel has unrestricted access to the joint production and support network for these aircraft. Reports tabled during Senate estimates named at least 68 deliveries of F-35 parts to Israel from Australia between October 2023 and September 2025, and there’s no doubt that there would have been many more over the past year.

Despite repeated calls for them to do so, the Australian government has stopped well short of officially restricting this trade, arguing that these are military parts, not armaments. But this totally misses the point. If Australia manufactures components for F-35 jets that are used by Israel to strike Gaza and kill civilians, how can this be described as anything but military support? The government’s position is also evasive when it comes to Israel’s illegal settlements in the West Bank, which of course, is in the heart of the Palestine that Australia recognised last year as an “independent and sovereign” nation.

After Britain announced its intentions to impose direct trade restrictions on Israel, including bans on the import of goods and services from illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank, former Labor minister Ed Husic called on Australia to follow suit.

Minister Wong then responded by announcing that Australia is “not at this time pursuing a blanket-style import ban” on these illegal settlements, claiming that would hurt Australian business interests (somehow), but suggested that she would take further steps to restrict the expansion of settlements and the violence directed against Palestinians, which we can assume would be more words of outrage.

If Australia regards illegal Israeli settlements as inherently unlawful, why should trade with them not also be banned? By continuing to allow imports from these settlements, Australia accepts Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and facilitates this through trade and technology. If most other people can recognise this contradiction, why not Wong?

It’s a policy of insufficient consequences, and it has damaging implications for Australia’s diplomatic and moral credibility, especially when the minister speaks so easily from both sides of the mouth. And once again, the question has to be asked: how have the minister’s actions changed in the year since Palestine was recognised as an independent state?

“Voluntary” exodus and forced displacement

Israel’s latest proposals for Gaza provide us with a further insight into why its military and political leaders believe they are entitled to treat Palestinians in this horrendous way.

These draconian measures – which most of the world would consider to be ethnic cleansing and further evidence of Israeli war crimes – have been pushed by far-right minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who has proposed a “voluntary” evacuation of Gaza, beginning with 250,000 Palestinians in the first year and eventually removing the entire Palestinian population, not even hiding these fascist Zionist intentions.

And it’s not just Ben-Gvir: with a general election just around the corner, many other Israeli MPs and officials have advocated the forced removal of Palestinians from Gaza, actions which violate a range of international laws.

The logical response to such policies would be for Australia to take stronger diplomatic and economic action. Instead, Australia finds itself in the same position as before: recognising the right of Palestinians to self-determination while supporting policies that facilitate the ethnically cleansing of Gaza. How does that equate to “support the aspirations of the Palestinian people”? Clearly, it doesn’t.

Antisemitism, anti-Zionism, and criticism

While the government’s attitude towards Palestine has been duplicitous and reprehensible, there have been no such problems when it comes to supporting the state of Israel and Zionist interests within Australia. Whatever is asked for from Australia, the government will give, and there’s certainly been no shortage on this.

The Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion, has an annual operating budget of $131.1 million and over the next four years, the government will provide $604 million as part of the “Bondi response” package of ongoing safety, education, and counter-terrorism measures, and it’s safe to say that most of this “education” component will be used to gaslight the public about the virtues of the state of Israel, produce even more pro-Zionist propaganda and close down any debate of the perspectives that might be contrary to this.

Already, there have been demands from pro-Israel and Zionist groups to extend the position of the Special Envoy for Antisemitism, Jillian Segal, past the July 2027 expiry date of her tenure – and we assume that it would be for more time to bed down the contentious International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working definition of antisemitism – which threatens to conflate antisemitism with anti-Zionism – implement her recommendations of conditional university funding, cultural spending reviews and monitor ABC/SBS broadcasts, with the grand aim of eliminating the legitimate criticism of Israel.

At the time, Albanese did claim that the recognition of Palestine was to “advance prospects for peace and stability in the region”, which would then further the prospects for domestic stability and result in equal treatment for all communities within Australia, but so far, he’s provided everything that’s been asked for by pro-Israel and Zionist groups in Australia – whether it be reasonable or not – but for the Palestinian community, it’s been the total opposite.

Since 2023, Australia has rejected 7,111 visa applications to Palestinians but only rejected 235 Israeli applications during the same time. Australia created a special three-year humanitarian visa for thousands of Ukranians following the invasion by Russia in 2022, but no such program was created for Palestinian refugees, and the very few who managed to arrive in Australia had to seek accommodation, food, transport and legal support through mosques, charities and community organisations.

Family reunifications for Palestinians were made exceptionally difficult, were subject to intense security and character checks, and ad hoc cancellations of visas were made on spurious grounds, usually at the last minute. And, suffice to say, none of the green light processes that were applied to the 39 former IDF soldiers which allowed them to run in the Sydney Marathon a few weekends ago, have been applied to Palestinians.

The recognition of an independent state must have meaning

Australia’s recognition of Palestine wasn’t totally meaningless. We can see now that it hasn’t changed anything at all, but at least it broke the policy inertia that has afflicted Australia for many decades, and sent a small signal to the international community that Australia was willing to take some kind of principled stand on an issue of global strategic importance, even if it did only move the dial by a few millimetres and is barely perceptible.

But if recognition doesn’t serve to force Australia’s policy hand on sanctions, trade with illegal and violent settlements and colonisation, or affect the military trade of F-35 parts that are being used to kill Palestinian civilians, then it will ultimately amount to nothing more than a symbolic gesture that created an impression that something meaningful was being done for a people that have suffered for far too long at the hands of a brutal Israeli government when, in fact, it was just going to be more of the same and nothing much has changed at all.

We know that it’s no longer a question of whether Albanese and Wong will take action against Israel – they simply won’t, for as long as the pro-Israel and Zionist groups funnel massive donations into the coffers of the Labor Party – but how long can they kid themselves that Israel is acting in Australia’s best interests? And how long will they continue to accept Israel as a trusted ally, while the illegal occupation, ethnic cleansing and the murder of Palestinian people continues?

Recognition should mean accepting the existence of Palestine – what else does it mean – that its people are entitled to their own country, and that those rights should be delivered without exception or qualification. Like an insecure child, Israel always asks others to confirm that question of whether it has the right to exist but it never bothers to consider whether Palestine also has that right, even though 157 of the 193 UN member states agree that yes; Palestine does have a right to exist.

Australia is one of those 157 countries, but in our case, it’s all lip service and unprincipled: the recognition of Palestine has been written down on an official piece of paper held somewhere in Canberra, but the recognition won’t mean anything at all until the government starts to match its rhetoric with action. Unfortunately, we may be waiting for that moment for some time to come.

The weekend saw something disturbing on the streets of Sydney, when 39 Israeli soldiers and military veterans – many of whom had been involved in the military campaigns in Gaza, West Bank and Lebanon – were granted visas to enter Australia and allowed to run in the Sydney Marathon.

The Australian Centre for International Justice had provided information to the federal government indicating that some members of this group may have been involved in war crimes, crimes against humanity, torture and genocide, and argued that instead of granting them visas, these people should have been referred to the Australian Federal Police. Yet the Department of Home Affairs ignored this information and proceeded to grant visas to the group, a decision that was widely criticised by many people within the Australian community.

There were also reports that Roy Oryon, a former lieutenant in the infamous Golani Brigade, was a member of this group, which had been involved in an incident where 15 paramedics and rescue workers were deliberately targeted and killed in Gaza last year, as well as involvement in many other military operations since October 2023.

The timing of this event made the government’s lack of concern even more galling because, only eleven days before the marathon, Israel Defense Forces announced that no-one was going to be charged over the April 2024 attack that killed Zomi Frankcom and six other World Central Kitchen workers. These aid workers had been travelling in clearly identified vehicles after delivering food to a warehouse in Gaza, when they were repeatedly struck by Israeli drones.

Israel has long accepted that this was a serious operational failure, its initial investigation found breaches of orders and operating procedures, and senior officers were disciplined. But now the IDF is saying that the decisions of the commanders did not create a reasonable suspicion of criminal misconduct and, as a result, no further investigations will be forthcoming.

What’s made this decision even more unacceptable is the officer responsible for the attack – Colonel Nochi Mendel, who had been removed from his position for breaches of rules of engagement and ignoring standard operating procedures – had the gall to appear on Australian national television and almost gloat about it: “I’m the commander”, he said, “and I’m the one who gave the order to carry out the operation. I didn’t run away from the situation … I gave the order; don’t look for anyone else.” And to add further insult to injury, Mendel went on to say “I’m not sorry for what I did.”

It’s not clear if anyone in the federal government watched this exchange – after all, according to foreign minister Penny Wong, it is difficult to “judge from afar” – but here was an Israeli commander acknowledging that he had ordered the operation that killed an Australian citizen and six other humanitarian workers. On national television.

His own military had concluded that serious operational failures occurred, and he lost his position as a consequence, yet more than two years later, nobody is going to face criminal charges, while the commander responsible is telling an Australian audience that he had no regrets about his actions.

Wong did describe Mendel’s comments as “utterly disgraceful” and said the Frankcom family deserves accountability, but accountability is not something that magically appears from the ether – it’s something that has to be forced. Her response, which has ultimately achieved nothing and certainly not the accountability that she’s been calling for, also exposed the central problem with Australia’s policy towards Israel: words of outrage have become a substitute for action, and the government has no intention at all of holding Israel to account.

The Albanese government has repeatedly expressed “concern”, demanded explanations and called for accountability throughout the Gaza war, but when Israel’s own processes produce no criminal prosecution over the illegal killing of an Australian citizen, nothing meaningful occurs. And if there’s no consequence, the same actions by Israel will be repeated, as we have seen time and again.

The Frankcom case is especially concerning because these types of incidents can remove the excuses that are normally available to governments when needing to confront the atrocities that occur in other countries. Zomi Frankcom was not an anonymous victim like the over 71,000 names in Gaza the government can easily forget about: she was Australian citizen, working for a major international humanitarian organisation, and her movements were in a zone that was meant to be open so the desperately needed food supplies could be delivered to a starving population. When the Israeli military is so in the wrong, this is the moment that the Australian government can actually do something.

Israel accepted that its forces killed her and accepted that serious failures occurred, yet there’s still no prosecution. The Australian government can continue to tell the Frankcom family that it’s seeking answers, but after more than two years, the course of action is no longer about asking Israel for explanations, it’s about implementing actions that will force an adequate response – such as expelling the Israeli ambassador, Hillel Newman.

This is what makes this Sydney Marathon controversy far more than a long run around the city, or even the participation of military personnel in an international event. It’s the duplicity in what the Australian government decides to scrutinise, who it allows into the country, and how it treats these allegations of international war crimes. And Australia has got a very uncomfortable history when it comes to acceptance of war criminals, alleged or otherwise.

Journalist and author Mark Aarons documented much of that history in War Criminals Welcome: Australia, a Sanctuary for Fugitive War Criminals Since 1945, outlining how many people implicated in Nazi atrocities entered Australia after World War II, while government after government failed to investigate them properly, even when they had clear knowledge and information about these atrocities, and exactly where to locate these people.

Some of this was due to political indifference, but in other cases, people with known extremist or violent backgrounds were considered useful to Western intelligence agencies during the Cold War because of their anti-communist stances – Nazis, for example – while in the post-war era, war criminals connected with the Khmer Rouge, Afghan, Chilean, Argentinian security forces were also tolerated.

The historical circumstances are obviously different, but the parallels are exactly the same: Australia has a strong reluctance to investigate suspected war crimes when it’s politically inconvenient to do so, and rarely calls them to account anyway.

Israel also has form when it comes to protecting its own when it comes to disputed killings and investigations in Palestine. The Israeli human rights organisation Yesh Din recently produced research that indicated that the chances of a member of the Israel Defense Forces being prosecuted for unlawfully killing a Palestinian is around 0.4 per cent, if not less.

The most notorious of these incidents in recent times was the killing of five-year-old Hind Rajab in January 2024, where she was trapped inside a car containing members of her dead family while desperately communicating with Palestinian emergency workers. Two Palestine Red Crescent paramedics were dispatched to rescue her after their route had been coordinated through Israeli authorities, but they too were deliberately targeted and killed.

Despite the ample evidence of satellite imagery, audio recordings, physical and forensic evidence that confirmed that the three were killed by Israeli tanks, Israel Defense Forces denied responsibility. Two years later, the Israeli military finally acknowledged that its troops had actually opened fire on the vehicle and announced a criminal investigation into the incident, but we can see that whenever Israel investigates itself, nothing of note will ever come out of it.

And if it’s not bad enough for Palestinian civilians, it’s even worse for foreign nationals: historically, no Israeli solider has ever been jailed for the unlawful killing of a Western citizen, and any investigation follows the same process: an initial denial, then claims of “accidental misidentification” and even in those rare occasions where military personnel are found to be responsible, it results in a reprimand, rather than a criminal charge.

Given this history of the total lack of accountability when Israel investigates its own, the Australian government faces the choice that it has avoided for much of the Gaza genocide. It can continue treating Israel as an exceptional case – the very chosen people – condemning serious incidents with ineffective words of outrage, while protecting the broader relationship with Israel, or it can finally stand up for itself – and its citizens – and apply the standards it claims to support under international law.

Until then, Australia will continue to behave like a weakling on the world stage, a pissant that no-one will take seriously, because it’s not even serious enough to stand up for its own citizens. And this is all because of the shameful behaviour of this Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, Foreign Minister Wong, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke – in fact, the entire Cabinet – who will go down in the history books as the people who had the opportunities to stand for something meaningful when it mattered the most but ended up standing for nothing at all.

The Netanyahu government is heading towards an election in October against the background of the Gaza war, the occupation of the West Bank, attacking almost every country in the West Asia region, and within an increasingly polarised Israeli political system.

Of course, Australia can’t control Israeli politics, but it can control Australian policy – or, at least, we think it can – and decide what standards it will apply within its diplomatic relationships, and apply a lot more pressure on Israel than just the selective use of a few meaningless angry words of outrage.

This is ultimately why the issue of the killing of Zomi Frankcom is so important. Her death is not just another footnote in the enormous list of casualties in Israel’s unjust war on Gaza; it’s yet another test of whether citizenship means anything when an Australian is killed by the military of a state that Australia – for some strange reason – regards as a friend and an ally.

The Albanese government will continue to say that it wants accountability and Wong will shout at the clouds and insist that she’s outraged, but more than two years after Frankcom’s death, Israel says nobody will be prosecuted, the commander who ordered the operation says he’s not sorry, and Australian policy towards Israel continues to be largely intact. And then, to top it all off, the Australian government opens the door and allows Israeli military personnel and veterans run through the streets of Sydney, as if everything is normal and nothing untoward has occurred. It’s really rubbing shit in our faces.

The government will be hoping that the Frankcom case will soon be forgotten about and recedes from the public view – and if it ever does resurface, it will have its vast lexicon of weasel words that it can use to attack the government of Israel. But the Australian public won’t forget – it’s an incident that will long reside in the pantheon of Australian diplomatic cowardice – and the question will always be not just about why Zomi Frankcom was killed, but why the Australia was prepared to do nothing about it.

Senator Nick McKim is not the first Australian politician to challenge the pro-Israel or Zionist influence in Australian politics, and he probably won’t be the last, but his comments made in the Senate and subsequent refusal to apologise to a prominent member of a pro-Zionist organisation might be a crossing of the Rubicon that might be difficult to turn back from.

This began from a relatively innocuous exchange in the Senate last week, where McKim was questioning new powers being granted to ASIO – an organisation that has not covered itself in glory in recent years – which includes secret questioning of people who have not been accused of committing a crime. He continued to argue that these laws were coming from a Labor Party that had “completely lost its way, captured by fossil-fuel interests, captured by Zionist interests, captured by the Five Eyes security establishment”.

Predictably, the president of the Zionist Federation of Australia, Jeremy Leibler, turned this parliamentary debate into a public fight, where Leibler published an open letter demanding that McKim must withdraw the allegation and apologise unreservedly to the Australian Jewish community.

In his letter, Leibler argued that accusing a government of being “captured by Zionist interests” was an antisemitic trope of Jewish people secretly manipulating governments and public institutions, making a spurious link to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Nazi propaganda, the Holocaust, the Bondi attack and the growth of antisemitism in Australia.

In response, McKim condemned the Bondi attack and denounced antisemitism, but rejected Leibler’s argument that criticism of Zionism is inherently directed against Jewish people – which is the legally and morally correct position – going to say that “conflating ‘Zionist’ with ‘Jew’, as the Zionist Federation does, is fundamentally dishonest”.

As many other people also argue, McKim went on to say that Zionism is a political ideology and that the organisations that are pushing a pro-Israel agenda are legitimate subjects of political debate, in the same way as fossil-fuel companies, pharmaceuticals, or any other lobby group should be.

And these are important points. Opinions about Israel within the Jewish community are wide and disparate, and not all Jewish Australians identify as Zionists, and there some Jewish organisations who publicly oppose Israeli government policy, such as the Jewish Council of Australia. The AIJAC and Zionist Federation are obviously political advocates, but neither can claim to represent every Jewish person in Australia.

McKim has made these claims now, but he’s not the first. Former Labor MP Julia Irwin was one of the earliest federal politicians to speak about the Zionist influence within the Labor Party and in 2005, she criticised Israeli policies of “ethnic cleansing” and accused it of holding Gaza as a concentration camp, supported the rights of Palestinian people and suggested that debates about Israel within the Labor Party were restricted by organised pressure and funds coming in from the Zionist lobby in Australia.

Former NSW Premier and federal Senator Bob Carr is perhaps the most prominent politician to have spoken about this issue. After leaving Parliament in 2013, Carr said the pro-Israel lobby had exercised “extraordinary” and “unhealthy” influence over the prime minister at the time, Julia Gillard, outlining his frustration at the government’s reluctance to issue even a small amount of criticism of the illegal construction of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, settlements that are continuing to grow today – illegally.

Current Australian Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi has also provided similar critiques in the past – in 2022, she said the “Israel lobby is in overdrive” in response to the inordinate amount of federal parliamentarians who had received sponsored trips to Israel, as part of the so-called “study tours” which are primarily designed to remove criticism of the state of Israel within Australian politics.

So we can see that McKim is not the first parliamentarian to call this out, but he is the first to make the allegation of political capture, and then explicitly refuse to apologise when it was demanded by a Zionist organisation.

The political capture in full view

If McKim is alleging that much of Australian politics is captured by pro-Israel and Zionist interests, what does this actually look like? Of course, the most visible form of this is the access to politicians.

The AIJAC is a public-affairs organisation and is very open about its contact with politicians, journalists, officials, advisers, academics and a wide range of community leaders. Its signature program is the Rambam Israel Fellowship, which it uses to target specific current or aspiring leaders in a wide range of fields, and provides them with access to Israeli politicians, military and security officials, commentators and journalists. It’s not the riff-raff or the people who they believe don’t have the influence – that would be a waste of time and energy – it’s only the people within society that they feel have enough leverage for them to spread this information to a wider audience, or to enforce it upon the minions of the organisation that they lead.

This is then reinforced or “topped up” after they return from these “study tours” – follow up meetings with ministers and opposition leaders, private briefings, political functions, media commentary, submissions to inquiries and campaigns against the recognition of Palestine, influencing university policies, school curricula and monitoring the news coverage by the ABC or SBS.

The money flowing into political parties from pro-Israel and Zionist groups is difficult to trace and substantiate, and there’s no evidence to suggest that the AIJAC or the Zionist Federation are direct donors to the Labor Party or to the Coalition. But there is so much money flowing into politics that is unaccounted for that makes it difficult to rule it out.

Australian current donations laws provide a flood of anonymous funding from those groups who have the resources and coordination to keep it that way and maintain their political influence. The current federal disclosure threshold is $17,300 and a small group of well-funded individuals – for example, ten people – could easily create a coordinated campaign to fund a political party through nine federal, state and territory divisions, and there you have it – $1.5 million, no questions asked, but certainly a conversation that can be brought up at the next private meeting with the prime minister.

And that’s just through undisclosed donations – there’s fundraising dinners, there’s access to senior politicians and another anomaly which is classified as “other receipts” – whatever that might be – but the upshot is that the public has no way of knowing where this money is coming from, who’s behind it, and what type of political influence is gained through this.

In 2025, $138 million was made in undisclosed donations – “dark money” – and this is roughly a third of all political donations. Taking these large sums of money into account, it would be possible for political operatives – or a political advocacy group – to make considerable donations while flying completely under the radar of donations laws and remaining completely anonymous. That’s not to suggest that it would only be coming in from pro-Israel or Zionist interests but given human nature and the political structures and behaviours as they exist at the moment, it would not be surprising at all, if this was actually the case.

This funding then produces a circular process – acceptance of money influences preselection issues in both major parties, dependent on which faction is accepting the money; it affects the messages that political parties put out and, ultimately, politicians quickly learn which positions on Israel provide them with promotions – for example, NSW Premier Chris Minns and Foreign Minister Penny Wong – and which positions will make them languish on the backbench and never to be promoted again – for example, Labor Party backbencher and former minister, Ed Husic.

How the flow of dark money affects political parties

The Labor Party faces many internal problems over its parliamentary stance on Israel and Gaza. Most of its membership and voter base has become highly critical of Israel, while its senior leadership is all in with the US alliance, defence matters and the relationships with pro-Israel organisations which, is anathema to Labor’s membership and contradicts the national Labor Platform. And it’s very clear that any Labor MP who challenges any of these positions is not going to be promoted or heard from any time soon, and possibly facing a preselection challenge at the next election.

For the Liberal Party, the internal issues might be different but it ends up with the same result: a clear alignment with United States policy and pro-Israel influence through the politics of national security, conservative media and evangelical Christianity. Any unlikely challenging of this position coming from a backbencher is guaranteed to end in political isolation, although a bigger question would be how they ever became a member of the Liberal Party in the first place.

The Australian Greens are far less restricted in what they can say: their members and supporter based are far more critical of the state of Israel, far more supportive of Palestinian rights, and the hostility coming from the conservative mainstream media and pro-Israel groups is already to be expected.

And their perspectives are more closely aligned to mainstream opinions about Israel – the often quoted research from the Pew Research Center suggests that 79 per cent of Australian hold an unfavourable view of the state of Israel, and this is a consistent number in the 36 other countries that Pew included in their survey.

McKim has opened up a political debate that has existed for many years but has usually been conducted on the quiet in hushed whispering tones, in private, or when a politician has left office. It’s just a question of whether this represents a genuine turning point and others will muster up the courage to join him, or if he’s silenced in other ways and his colleagues decide that standing up to these powerful interests is just a bridge too far.

If they do find the courage, it could result in a long-overdue inquiry – perhaps another royal commission to compete with the farce of the current inquiry into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion – and find out who exactly it is that influences Australia’s foreign policy matters and how far up the chain it extends.

That’s why this exchange between McKim and Leibler could be a critical point where the Australian political system – and the rest of society – starts asking the questions about where everyone’s loyalties lay, the questions that should have been asked many years ago.

The Liberal Party is no longer going through a short-term and cyclical downturn – it’s facing a continuing crisis of political identity, it’s lacking organisation skills which makes it more susceptible to extremist interest groups and, most importantly, its relevance is fading within the electorate. Despite losing two consecutive federal elections – badly – it’s still unable to decide whether a turnaround in its electoral fortunes will need moving closer to the centre of mainstream voters, or going further into the right-wing ideological pipe hole that has driven them away.

Recent opinion polling has the Coalition’s primary vote hovering between 17–24 per cent, with Newspoll currently showing 18 per cent, after a record low of 17 per cent in the previous month. This compares with its 41 per cent primary vote recorded at the 2019 federal election, just over seven years ago.

If a political party doesn’t offer anything meaningful to the public, it’s obvious that the public will start looking somewhere else and, even on this most basic level, the party hasn’t managed to work this out yet. One Nation has replaced the Coalition within the conservative part of the electorate, while Labor, the Greens and community independents have been able to take votes from the metropolitan seats that were previously held by the Liberal Party, and it’s unlikely that these seats will be returning any time soon.

There’s also leadership issues. Angus Taylor was installed as the Liberal leader in February this year, with the task of rebuilding the Coalition after its second consecutive federal defeat. Six months later, there’s almost no evidence that he’s established a viable political identity for himself or gained much traction with the national debate.

His personal ratings have been poor for a relatively new opposition leader, with the most recent Newspoll suggesting 34 per cent of the electorate approves of his performance, while 46 per cent disapprove. Prime Minister Albanese’s net satisfaction ratings are actually worse, but the problem for Taylor is that the dissatisfaction with the government hasn’t translated into support for the Coalition. And it also shows that voters can be both unhappy with the Labor government, while also knowing that the Liberal Party is failing to offer a credible alternative.

The current political environment should be providing the opposition with many opportunities. Housing affordability is still a big problem, cost-of-living issues are continuing, productivity is weak and public confidence in the government seems to be lukewarm, at best. Despite this, the Liberal Party is indulging itself in the internal factional battles and culture-war debates that very few people are interested in and engaging in facile arguments about issues that have little in common with the immediate concerns that are facing most people.

And this is on top of all the organisational problems that it’s currently going through. The relationship between the Liberals and Nationals continues to be strained, and their state divisions are divided between moderates, conservatives and an increasingly extremist religious right.

In South Australia, Senator Alex Antic’s right-wing campaign for the state presidency has become a battle over embracing a more populist and unhinged brand of populism that is trying to appeal to the people who have left the scene and defected over to One Nation. And here in New South Wales, the federal party has intervened in a chronically dysfunctional division which is now also being examined for possible corruption.

The corruption for the NSW Liberals keeps on going

The NSW ICAC, through Operation Rosny, is investigating allegations of corruption involving people associated with the NSW Liberal Party, former Catholic Schools NSW chief executive Dallas McInerney, property developer Jean Nassif, hotelier Michael O’Hara, and several Strathfield councillors – among others – for possible breaches of electoral funding laws, including whether prohibited or undisclosed donations were channelled through to the Liberal Party.

Although Angus Taylor is not a subject of the investigation, he’s been drawn into the purview of the inquiry through the conservative Christian faction known as the Reformers, a group which is attempt to take over the control of the Liberal Party in New South Wales.

Evidence that has been aired during the hearings is likely to create a substantial political problem for Taylor, with messages sent between Reformers figures suggesting that Taylor had agreed to an initial contribution of $15,000, followed by payments of $3,000 a month.

Taylor has categorically denied that he paid any money, and others at the inquiry have suggested that the claims were part of internal Liberal Party bravado and exaggeration but, whatever the case is, it’s the politics of that matter that’s critical for Taylor, even if there isn’t a legal consequence at all.

Even if Taylor does survive, the bigger problem is how to deal with this Reformers faction, because their ambitions go far beyond fundraising efforts for the Liberal Party. It’s a group that’s recruiting large numbers of conservative Christians into the party, attempting to gain control of branches and state council positions, influence preselections and move the NSW division further to the right on the issues of abortion, voluntary assisted dying, transgender rights and same-sex marriage, issues which most people in the community would assume had been decided some time ago.

The problem for the Liberal Party isn’t just this situation of conservative religious activists wanting to move it further to the right – that is a big problem in itself – but the fact that too many Liberal figures continue to firmly believe that the pathway back to government lies in attracting these kinds of groups to the party and fighting the same cultural battles that have caused then to lose election after election.

Pro-business, anti-low income people

Even when the Liberal Party turns to an issue of immediate public concern, it continues to remind voters why they rejected it. Housing in its current state all around Australia should be one of its biggest opportunities for a political party – it’s the link between the pressures of population growth, migration, intergenerational inequality, construction costs, insecure renting and the broader cost-of-living issue.

Yet shadow housing minister Andrew Bragg used a major National Press Club address to propose reducing the National Construction Code from more than 2,000 pages to an 80-page “Basic Australian Standard”, as the solution to the problem, and then going on to suggest that people on lower incomes will need to accept “substandard” housing.

This, of course, means that developers gain the up-front benefit, while the purchaser of the house – the low-income purchaser – then has to deal with the longer-term costs associated with an energy inefficient house, something that needs regular repairs as it ages, primarily because standards that would have improved its quality, have been removed. It’s a false economy, but it’s in tune with modern-day Liberal Party philosophy: deregulation that supports big business and slams the consumer, especially those on lower incomes.

It’s this type of ideology that has cost the Liberal Party electorally – as well as an ideology that’s being shunned by the public – but one that the party keeps returning to and insists that it’s the correct formula that will bring electoral success.

And it didn’t end there: Bragg then went on to say that compulsory superannuation is a “repressive system” based on “communism” and “neo-Marxist” Labor policies, a system that is under the “control of unions” – even though there are no superannuation funds legally owned or controlled by trade unions. But why spoil a good story with the facts…

Bragg is from the Liberal Party’s moderate and liberal wing, but it shows how far backwards the party has gone when he espouses this sort of nonsense, and imports Trumpian rhetoric and conspiracies from the US Republicans that most Australians would have no clue about.

The Liberal Party continues to be squeezed from several directions at once – One Nation is taking its support from its populist right; community independents have captured parts of its former metropolitan moderate base; its state divisions are consumed by factional battles; the relationship with the Nationals is unstable; and senior frontbenchers continue to behave like an undisciplined rabble, instead of presenting themselves as an alternative government.

The danger for the party isn’t just another election defeat – federally at least – but becoming incapable of assembling a broader coalition of voters that they need, first of all, to win elections, and then, gaining the skills that are required to govern Australia.

The state of Victoria is considered to offer the Liberal Party the next best chance of winning an election, with recent polling putting Coalition ahead of Labor in the lead up to the November election, on a 55–45 per cent two-party-preferred lead. But even there, there’s no guarantee of an election win – the party needs to win 17 seats, is led by an inexperienced leader in Jess Wilson, and is still strongly influenced by a cabal of religious extremists.

It seems that everyone knows the trouble the Liberal Party is in – except for the Liberal Party itself. If they feel that reducing regulations is the solution to housing and social issues, or every problem in society can be resolved by making accusations that everything is “communism” or “neo-Marxism”, then there is no hope for the party.

It really needs to decide who it intends to represent in the electorate, what practical problems it intends to solve, and whether it wants to be a broad party of government, or just a rabble of aggrieved and combative ideological factions, better suited to an isolated debating club that no-one really wants to attend.

Until it answers those questions, every scandal, inquiry, factional takeover and frontbench gaffe will reinforce the same public conclusion: the Liberal Party has learned remarkably little from its many defeats and is still not fit to govern.

The former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull’s latest offerings in the AUKUS debate have once again revealed the big contradiction within Australia’s most expensive defence project ever: we are committing hundreds of billions of dollars to an ethereal submarine program which essentially will remain outside of Australian control and create a pathway for more US intervention in our military and political affairs.

Appearing before an independent public inquiry into AUKUS – established by a group of former MPs, retired military and naval officers, leading strategists and academics, human rights lawyers and union leaders, primarily because the deal continues to be shrouded in secrecy despite the incredibly high stakes and massive cost – Turnbull described the agreement as a “colossal mistake” and warned that it could leave Australia without an effective submarine capability during the 2030s.

His criticisms weren’t just directed at the extraordinary cost of the project – $368 billion – but the assumption that the United States and Britain will have the capacity and political will to deliver what Australia has been promised.

Under this deal, Australia is expected to operate eight nuclear-powered submarines by the 2050s, but this will depend on an unlikely sequence of events: first of all, extending the life of the ageing Collins-class fleet, training Australian personnel on allied submarines, acquiring American Virginia-class submarines at some point during the 2030s, and eventually constructing the British-designed SSN–AUKUS submarines in Adelaide.

Each of these stages has its own risks, but the immediate problem is the capacity of American production. The US needs its own shipyards to produce an average of 2.3 submarines each year to replace its own fleet but its current output is around 1.3 boats, a shortfall of one boat.

Also, US law requires its president to authorise that the transfer of submarines to Australia won’t affect America’s capabilities. This essentially means that the Australian delivery of its own submarines isn’t guaranteed just because our government has signed an agreement and began transferring copious amounts of money in 2022. If the US decides that its own operational requirements are the priority – and why wouldn’t they – Australia will end up waiting indefinitely for submarines that will never arrive.

The Albanese government’s decision to acquire three in-service Virginia-class submarines, rather than the proposed combination of two used boats and one newly built vessel, is essentially an acknowledgement of those constraints, although no one in government is prepared to admit to this, with Defence Minister Richard Marles presenting the change as a “good news” story – a far simpler arrangement that should reduce costs and ease pressure on American shipyards.

Yet it also means that all three of Australia’s initial nuclear-powered submarines will have already been used by the US Navy – and who knows for how long – which means that their age, remaining operational life and eventual maintenance requirements will depend totally on decisions made in the White House, and at the whim of a future US President.

Supporters of AUKUS argue – and most of those are within government – that focusing on today’s production rate ignores the billions of dollars being invested in American shipyards and the time available before the first transfer, currently expected in the early 2030s.

Australia has already committed US$3 billion towards the US submarine industrial base, while Australian personnel are already training inside the American military. Sure, there’s a chance that production may improve significantly before the submarine transfers are due, but that’s not a guarantee, and Australia has limited power to enforce an outcome in its favour anyway. The revised arrangement might end up making the delivery easier, but it doesn’t remove that condition that American military requirements will always come first at every single occasion.

Turnbull has also raised serious doubts about Britain’s capacity to deliver the SSN–AUKUS design on which Australia’s longer-term fleet depends. Describing British naval shipbuilding as an “industry in disarray”, he argued that Britain may struggle to produce enough submarines for its own navy, let alone sustain a joint program that’s also meant to supply Australia.

Critics of Turnbull are suggesting that his criticisms are based around the cancellation of the French submarines deal that he set up while he was Prime Minister – and that might be one of his driving motivations – but with hindsight, we can already see that the deal with France and the Naval Group was far superior, cheaper, and had more certainty attached to it.

A silent US invasion

Even if the promised submarines do eventually arrive – and that is a big if – AUKUS is already producing something far more politically significant than any issue related to submarines: an ongoing American military presence in Australia, and that’s something that the public has never been asked about.

From 2027, the Submarine Rotational Force–West program is expected to bring up to five foreign submarines to HMAS Stirling on Garden Island, just off the coast of Perth. Different ministers keep emphasising that these vessels will rotate through an Australian-owned base rather than be permanently stationed there, but it’s an argument that doesn’t hold much substance when we look at all the administrative structures, human resources, and the services are being developed to remain on a more permanent basis.

In May this year, the US Navy formally established Naval Support Activity Stirling in Perth, stating that this exists to support “the fleet, family and fighter”, and its relocation material provides information for American military personnel and civilian employees moving to Western Australia, including where to find the best local schools, support for housing, healthcare and recreation facilities for a “positive family life”. That doesn’t seem to be a temporary arrangement, as the government keeps insisting.

By around 2030 – just four years away – the American presence associated with submarine operations will include up to 2,300 service members, civilian employees, contractors and dependants. This isn’t just to support an occasional naval visit: it’s the development of a substantial American military community with the administrative system that required to sustain it for a long-term or permanent time.

Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy briefly added to the confusion last week – deliberate double-speak or otherwise – by calling the arrangement only a “five-year commitment”, before also suggesting it would be an “enduring element” of AUKUS. It’s either one or the other – it can’t be both – but the government is using a wide range of weasel words – “rotation”, “access”, “support activity” and “enduring presence” – to avoid the more politically unpalatable description of what is actually taking place here.

Of course, the government is correct when it says that HMAS Stirling remains Australian territory and it will be an Australian naval base. But that doesn’t mean that the United States won’t have de facto control over these operations, in the same way that it controls bases in Cuba, Denmark, the Pacific and Indian Ocean regions, and Pine Gap in Central Australia.

And these are the question ministers continue to avoid. Who will have the real control over this base? Could Australia realistically deny American submarines access to HMAS Stirling during a future conflict that it does not support? Could it refuse the use of Australian maintenance, communications or intelligence infrastructure for these purposes? What if Australia takes a different position to the US over a confrontation with Taiwan or other country within the South China Sea region?

Before suggestions are made that it could never come to this, Australia should look to Okinawa islands in Japan for an indication of where this could all be headed: for sure, Western Australia is not under American occupation – although some might like to dispute this – and the scale, history and concentration of US bases in Okinawa are vastly different.

However, the experience of Okinawa shows how a foreign military presence initially justified by a post-war strategy can become deeply entrenched and extraordinarily difficult for local communities – or even a national government – to change. Residents in Okinawa have spent decades dealing with aircraft noise, military accidents, environmental contamination, unauthorised land use and crimes committed by US military personnel. Could these same issues be experienced by the people of Perth? There’s no guarantee that they would but if they ever did, there’d be very little that local communities could do about it.

The surrounding areas of HMAS Stirling – Rockingham and Safety Bay – will be expected to absorb all the additional demand for housing, schools, roads, healthcare and other public services. Some local businesses – mainly hotels and restaurants – might benefit from the increased defence spending and presence, but experience shows that those gains are rarely distributed evenly. There are many legitimate concerns about infrastructure, safety and environmental issues that any community should be entitled to ask before a large and enduring foreign military presence arrives on this level, but it’s almost as though governments have forgotten to ask or don’t even care about, because it’s all a forgone conclusion.

We also have to remember that AUKUS is not occurring in isolation. It’s building on the joint intelligence facility at Pine Gap, expanded access for US aircraft across northern Australia, the deployment of US Marines in Darwin, and a higher level of integrated military planning.

Of course, Australia has hosted these US forces and facilities for decades – Pine Gap was opened up in 1970 – but this AUKUS deal takes the relationship into a new phase by making Australia’s most important future military capacities dependent on high-level integration with the United States, as though the two military forces will be indistinguishable. And this is all taking place with almost no parliamentary debate. This is the price Australia pays for a bipartisan understanding between Labor and the Coalition, which has insulated Parliament from any form of scrutiny on these decisions, and left the public in the dark.

The submarines – whether they arrive or not – are almost irrelevant, as is the large sums of money that are being wasted here. The even bigger danger is that AUKUS is slowly and silently reorganising Australian territory, infrastructure and strategic policy around the needs of the United States way before the public has been given an honest account of what the consequences are.

By the time Australians are finally able to see the full effects of AUKUS, most of it will be too deeply embedded to change anything at all – just ask the people of Okinawa – and that’s why every political leader who has been involved with the charade of AUKUS should be condemned and hounded out of office.

The Royal Commission on Antisemitism and Social Cohesion commenced as an examination of prejudice and “social cohesion” – the Prime Minister’s most favourite phrase – but is now developing into an attempt to hijack Australian educational institutions and redefine acceptable political debate, according to the diktats of a very small, powerful and influence group.

The Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism, Jillian Segal, is pushing for antisemitism educational curricular of a particular kind to be introduced into early childhood programs, all the way through to higher education. It’s an outrageous overreach and should be resisted at every opportunity.

In response to the Bondi Beach shootings in December 2025, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced the Antisemitism Education Taskforce to be chaired by David Gonski. It’s unclear how an education taskforce was meant to deter radicalised and potential shooters in the future, but it covers every level of the education sector: early childhood education and care, primary and secondary schools, universities and the wider higher-education sector.

This was the first part of access to the educational system, but the reach of this is extraordinary – curriculum, teacher training, school regulation and university policy within a national structure, essentially dedicating itself to one specific form of discrimination, and ignoring all the others.

Segal has also announced the establishment of the National Centre for Education Against Antisemitism, an organisation that will be independent of government, but able to influence government and education departments, and will deliver training and educational materials to governments, schools, businesses, law-enforcement agencies and not-for-profit organisations.

In quite an audacious statement, Segal told the Royal Commission that education needs to reach younger age groups because younger children are more open to changing their views, while university-aged students were more likely to be fixed in their opinions. This is really troubling, and sounds more like an adventure in proselytising: children’s willingness to absorb new ideas should be based on a balanced education and the ability to develop critical thinking, not force-fed with the ideas coming in from Zionist zealots, who are intolerant of any criticisms of the state of Israel.

While this curriculum hasn’t been developed and is yet to be implemented, the real question is why this is being allowed to proceed without any serious political or public scrutiny.

The problem of political advocacy within education

It could be argued that all state-based education and curriculum verges on propaganda, as it defines the acceptable behaviours and thinking for future generations, based on what our educational leaders believe is in their best interests and that of society. But at least in modern educational settings, critical thinking has replaced the style of old-fashioned rote learning, enabling students to acquire skills that will allow them to become more adaptable in an ever-changing world. Segal’s proposals would do the opposite.

Holocaust education already has a place in Australian schools, mainly within secondary history, particularly in Years 9 and 10, as part of the study of the Second World War, Nazism, racism and genocide, while some schools do include age-appropriate material in Years 5 and 6.

There’s no serious argument being put forward against the teaching of the Holocaust as a major historical event, and there’s no question that students should understand the rise of Nazism, the systematic persecution and murder of millions of Jewish people and the political and institutional conditions that made those crimes possible, to ensure that it never happens again.

But Segal’s proposals go far beyond the historical understandings of the Holocaust: it includes Jewish history and civilisation, the positive contributions of Jewish people to Australia, and what she describes as modern forms of Jew hatred, including anti-Zionism, online conspiracies, and political hostility directed towards Israel.

And it’s at this point where her proposals move from education about discrimination – and only the one form of discrimination – and into the field of propaganda and agitprop. Segal wants to include the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism, which includes making statements that describe Israel as a racist project, comparing Israeli policies as fascist or Nazism, or denouncing Zionism.

The IHRA definition has been criticised by many legal scholars, human-rights organisations, Jewish academics and civil-liberties advocates, precisely because it includes anti-Zionism and criticism of Israel within its definition of antisemitism, and potentially criminalises the act of speaking out against the actions of Israel in Gaza and West Bank, which presumably would include accusing Israel of genocide, apartheid and war crimes.

If this type of framework is embedded in schools, universities and professional training, students and teachers – and even toddlers – could be placed in the position of having to interpret discussion of Israel and Palestine through the lens of educational bodies that are committed explicitly to Zionism and the defence of Israel. This is unacceptable, totally.

Israel is accused of severe breaches of international law in Gaza and the occupied Palestinian territories, and has been for some time. Its government has overseen the devastating genocide, ecocide and scholasticide of Gaza, the displacement of most of its population and restrictions on food, medicine and humanitarian assistance.

Israeli settlements continue to expand across the occupied West Bank – and this has been determined as an illegal act by the world community – while Palestinian communities are displaced, their homes demolished and their land absorbed. This didn’t commence on 7 October 2023: this has been the story of Israel’s behaviour ever since it was formed in 1948, if not before.

These are not just abstract disputes or religious disagreements that date back thousands of years: these are modern-day questions about military power, occupation, dispossession, human rights and American interference. Students and academics – and toddlers in early education settings – should be free to analyse these issues without having to demonstrate that their conclusions comply with a bizarre and ill-defined definition of antisemitism.

There’s also a question of proportionality to this debate. Australia had approximately 4.16 million students across all of its schools in 2025. Jewish students comprise around 0.4 per cent of the national school population, and a substantial proportion of Jewish school-aged children – around 53 per cent – attend Jewish day schools. In most Australian schools, Jewish students represent a very small part of the student population – around 0.2 per cent, or, on average, one student in a school enrolment of 600 students, which is the average size of a school population across Australia.

Before we are accused of antisemitism yet again, this does not mean Jewish children are undeserving of protection, far from it. Every student has the right to attend school without being abused because of their religion, ethnicity or identity, and that goes for all students. But it does raise legitimate questions about why one community’s history, civilisation, social contributions and contemporary political concerns should become the subject of a specialised national program going across every level of education, especially for such a small cohort.

Why should every Australian student be required to undertake dedicated education about Jewish history, civilisation and exceptionalism? If this is the principle we are going to accept, will there be equivalent programs be created for Islamic civilisation, Chinese history, Greek culture, Lebanese migration, Italian, Slavic, Indian history and the contributions of every other community to Australian society?

The curriculum would quickly become a collection of programs designed to satisfy the political and cultural demands of particular organisations, leaving less space for Australian history, Indigenous dispossession, democratic institutions, economics, science and the practical knowledge students already struggle to receive.

The issue is not whether Jewish history is worthy of study (see previous note about accusations of antisemitism) but why should every student across Australian preschools, primary schools and high schools be forced to know this history?

And what would this history involve? Harry Triguboff defacing many Australian cities with his Soviet-style apartment buildings over many decades? Frank Lowy creating the Westfield shopping centres that crippled so many business operators through high rents and unfair bargaining power? Or would it be antisemitic to balance the “positive contributions” with the more deleterious effects?

Would this history also point out that Sir Isaac Isaacs did indeed become one of Australia’s finest Governors–General but that he also warned about the dangers of political Zionism and that recognising Israel at the expense of Palestine would lead to ongoing war and destruction?

This is a real problem. Australia shouldn’t have a specialist organisation acting like a star chamber that decides – at the behest of a government-appointed right-wing envoy – how millions of students across the country will be taught about Jewish identity, Zionism, and the state of Israel.

Protecting a community or restricting political debate?

The latest analysis from the Pew Research Center suggests that 79 per cent of Australians have an “unfavourable view” of the state of Israel (49 per cent very unfavourable; 31 per cent somewhat unfavourable), and this has deteriorated remarkably since their last poll on this issue was performed in 2013, when the figure was 48 per cent unfavourable – still high, but nowhere near the levels of today.

Despite the desires of the Segals of this world to think otherwise, these results can’t just be dismissed as evidence that most Australians have become antisemitic. They haven’t. The figures indicate the widespread opposition to the behaviour of the state of Israel and the Israel Defense Forces, and growing public recognition of the humanitarian catastrophe that has been inflicted upon Palestinians by the state of Israel.

This presents the Albanese government with a big dilemma. At the same time public hostility towards Israel is increasing, his government is creating institutions that want to redefine that expression of hostility as antisemitism. Albanese could just say “no” and rule these outlandish educational proposals out right now, but we know that he won’t, because he wants the favour of everyone within the establishment class, even the extreme Zionists who come knocking on his door. And, as we’ve seen since October 2023, every political leader in Australia is only too happy to throw out the rule book for democracy and acquiesce to the will of these extremists, even if it comes with a high political cost.

When extreme definitions of antisemitism are catapulted into every part of society – schools, universities, workplaces, government agencies and professional bodies – we can see that it’s less about discrimination and more about regulating what people can say about Zionism, Israel and Palestine.

And we can see exactly what the outcome will be: teachers will avoid discussing Gaza because they fear complaints and reprisals. Universities will call in the police and remove protesters, rather than risk the accusation that they failed to provide a “safe environment”. Students will be expelled for using or saying political slogans the antisemitism envoy disapproves of. Employees will say nothing, rather than risk the allegation that their criticism of Israel has created an antisemitic workplace.

No appointed envoy or organisation should be placed in a position where they can determine the educational requirements of the entire country. That is totally unacceptable in a modern democracy, but it’s the path that we’re currently going down and it’s going to be very difficult to turn around.

Yes (and yes, we do have to point this out again and again), antisemitism should be confronted wherever it occurs. Jewish students should be safe at school, at university and be able to participate in public life without being blamed for the actions of a foreign government. But combating antisemitism doesn’t mean keeping the scrutiny away Israel, and treating Zionism as an unquestionable principle.

The danger isn’t just that these proposals will restrict the criticism of Israel: it will weaken the fight against genuine antisemitism, because when everything is antisemitic, then nothing is. Australia doesn’t need a curriculum that approves opinions about Israel. It needs an education system that teaches students to examine history, recognise propaganda, oppose racism and question power – whether it’s coming from our own government, or another one in a faraway location.

A real education teaches students how to think, but an ideological education tells them what they are allowed to think. There’s a key difference. If Segal’s proposals cross that line between the real and the ideological, they’re not going to strengthen Australian democracy or add to “social cohesion”. All it’s going to do is try to protect one community so it can regulate and restrict the political thoughts of everyone else.

Politics is disappointing, but does it always have to be this disappointing? It’s a question that we’re always asked at New Politics and becomes harder to avoid after a week in which the Prime Minister attended an exclusive fundraiser at a Point Piper mansion, Labor members gathered at a national conference to debate policies the parliamentary leadership will end up ignoring, and Victorian Labor descended into another leadership crisis only months before a state election.

These events are not directly linked, but they expose the same failures: political parties that increasingly facilitate access, participation in democracy for the select few, and even leadership as instruments for maintaining power, rather than using it effectively in the public interest.

It would be naïve to imagine there was once a golden age when Australian politics was pure, democratic and untouched by money or vested interests, because those days have never existed. Political influence has always been applied inconsistently, parties have always cultivated and worshiped wealthy supporters, and governments have always attempted to neuter and diminish their party memberships. But democratic government has always depended on the goodwill and sound judgement of the people occupying public office, and if that goodwill can no longer be guaranteed, stronger legislative safeguards need to be implemented.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is facing legitimate questions over his attendance at a fundraiser held at a billionaire’s Point Piper mansion, where guests were encouraged to contribute $10,000 each. The objection isn’t that Albanese shared a meal with wealthy people – prime ministers need to meet with different business leaders, community representatives and citizens from every part of society, even the parts that we might not necessarily agree with.

The problem is that only one class of Australian can afford this special type of political access. A renter struggling with a 20 per cent increase, an exhausted nurse, a disability pensioner or a casual worker can’t pay $10,000 to sit in a magnificent private home and explain their concerns directly to the Prime Minister. Political access shouldn’t be like an auction going to the highest bidder, yet neither major party is willing to demand or implement stronger restrictions on political donations, lobbying and fundraising.

These same barriers were also visible at Labor’s 50th national conference, albeit in a different form. Here we had Labor members invited to travel to Adelaide, debate, negotiate amendments, applaud speeches, and congratulate themselves on their attendance. But it’s primarily a political theatre and pantomime. Members can express their views on Gaza, AUKUS, gambling advertising, gas exports, corporate power and voluntary assisted dying, yet any proposal that flies in the face of the dictatorial parliamentary executive is softened up, deferred, or put into the “for review” bucket, and never seen or heard of again.

A democratic party does need some flexibility when it gets itself into government, and there needs to be a response to changing circumstances – an issue that has a high level of support at this kind of conference and ends up in the Labor Platform might end up being too politically contentious and difficult for a government to achieve. But there has to be a meaningful relationship between the people who sustain a political movement and the government that’s operating in its name. Otherwise, what’s the point?

Another form of detachment from the public is now appearing in Victoria, where the Labor Party has decided that four months before a state election was the best time to remove Premier Jacinta Allan, and create a level of instability that will more than likely seal the fate of the Victoria Labor government in November, despite the poor state of the almost unelectable Liberal Party. Labor should have a good story to tell Victorians, with Melbourne being the third most desirable city in the world to live in, and a massive infrastructure program that will benefit the state in the short-to-medium term.

But there have been many allegations of corruption and organised crime associated with this program, and Allan hasn’t been politically astute enough to manage the crisis or establish an inquiry to resolve them. Instead, the allegations were allowed to fester for almost two years, and that ultimately cost her the leadership.

This is the story of long-term governments in contemporary Australia, and it seems that the timeframe for administrations maintaining their competence is becoming much shorter as time goes on. In previous eras, governments commonly remained in office for long periods: the Coalition governed federally for 23 years between 1949 and 1972, while state governments sometimes lasted for 24, 27 or even 32 years and, more or less, were competent for much of that time, certainly by today’s standards.

The modern era has been different though. The NSW Labor government held office for 16 years between 1995 and 2011, but much of its final eight years was marked by insufferable instability and corruption. The Coalition then went through a similar decline during its 12 years in office: broadly competent in its first half, disastrous in its second. Federally, the Coalition displayed a high degree of incompetence pretty much across all three terms between 2013 and 2022.

Has governing simply become too difficult? Is the best the public can expect is a few years of competent administration before the rot sets in and then a governing party becomes more concerned with its own survival than the public interest? Is that the stage the Albanese government is now entering? Or is our political system no longer sophisticated enough to deal with the complexities of the modern world and the pace of rapidly changing circumstances?

The incentives against good government

Australia isn’t badly governed in the sense of being unstable, authoritarian or corrupt. Sure, there are pockets of corruption, but it’s not comprehensively corrupt and, eventually, the Eddie Obeids of politics will always be caught out. Elections are generally competitive without too many dramas, compulsory voting produces a high participation rate of around 90 per cent, transfers of power when a government loses office are peaceful, the judiciary is professional, the Senate can place a handbrake on governments, and the public service still has the ability to administer complex programs, in most cases. These are substantial democratic achievements and should never be underestimated or dismissed.

But Australia is badly governed in more infuriating ways. This is a country that has the wealth, institutional history and administrative abilities to solve many of its most persistent problems, but repeatedly chooses the measures that are just small to do this. Governments promise to make housing more affordable, while protecting the tax concessions and rising property values that make it unaffordable.

They promise cheaper energy through useless and expensive rebates, without confronting the energy corporations; a promise of higher wages without addressing the workplace imbalances between employers and employees; a promise to provide better services without raising enough revenue; climate action while continuing to approve fossil-fuel expansion; and gambling reforms while remaining dependent on gambling taxes.

This is currently a system that rewards caution – which Anthony Albanese has taken full advantage of – the management of political messaging, and accommodating vested interests and concentration of power, more than it rewards problem solving. Mining companies, banks, property interests, gambling corporations, consultants, defence contractors and large media organisations don’t need to directly bribe governments, because it’s almost as though they’re a de facto part of government anyway – they have privileged access, the capacity to directly lobbying governments at any time, they can make political donations without any fear of being caught out or compromised, they have control over investment and employment, media influence and the ability to finance campaigns against the policies they don’t like and don’t want to see introduced.

The consequence is not so much the overt corruption but the expectation that governments will obey their instructions, or face the consequences. Governments then understand which proposals will provoke a costly political attack, so any proposal or policy recommendation is diluted well before the public gets to see them. Reform is then reduced to what the vested interests will allow.

Changing the costs of political failure

We’re always ready to identify all the problems that currently exist within politics and because we always bellow about it – possibly too often – it might appear that the entire system is so broken that it’s beyond redemption. But the good news is that the ready-made solutions already exist, if only there was the will to implement them.

As we’ve discussed many times before, the immediate reforms are available right now: real-time disclosure and tighter limits on political donations; comprehensive registration of professional and in-house lobbyists and restrictions for how much access they can gain with ministers; publication of ministerial diaries; enforceable cooling-off periods for former ministers; stronger whistleblower laws and protections for journalists; truth-in-political-advertising, effective and workable Freedom of Information rules and a properly resourced National Anti-Corruption Commission operating with greater transparency than what it has shown over the past three years.

All of these measures currently exist on some level – a weak truth in political advertising Bills was introduced into Parliament in 2024 but not passed – but they’re piecemeal, not backed up with any meaningful legislative powers, and have little or no consequence if they are ever breached.

In the longer-term, there needs to be a change in the distribution of political power, including proportional representation through multi-member electorates, stronger democratic processes within political parties, parliamentary control over war powers and major treaties, citizens’ assemblies, reducing dependence on external consultants and providing sustainable support for independent and public-interest media.

Of course, none of this could ever happen by itself, and it’s not just a matter of finding better politicians: it’s a matter of making the existing politicians perform to a higher standard, if we’re willing to demand it from them.

The objective is, first of all, to change the cost of political failure: to make it more politically costly for governments to ignore renters than property investors; more costly to ignore workers than employers; and more costly to serve donors instead of the public. These should all be self-evident and obvious truths, yet too many politicians act contrary to the public interest.

Change can always happen, but it will take a great deal of organised pressure outside of Parliament, as well as mood for change within. Australia is functioning in a least-worst position politically, because that’s where its leaders want to position the country. Of course, we should be thankful that Australia avoids political violence and dictatorships, but what a depressingly low bar that is to set for such a wealthy, largely peaceful, and highly educated country.

Politics won’t improve because leaders suddenly discover courage in a quiet moment of reflection: it will improve only when citizens rebuild the organisations and democratic institutions that have been allowed to fall by the wayside. Those institutions became weaker because the leaders who benefited from their decline allowed it to happen. Restoring them will require sustained public pressure, stronger civic participation and a willingness to demand more from out political leaders.

Australia could be doing so much better – but only when political timidity and weakness starts to carry a far greater price than implementing meaningful reform. Making that happen is the task that lies ahead for all of us.

One Nation’s support has suffered a drop in opinion polls, although it is too early to tell if it’s already reached its high-water mark and will drop down even further. The latest Roy Morgan poll shows One Nation in third place behind the Coalition, and this fall is consistent with most other polls that have been recently published.

In a Labor–One Nation contest, Labor leads by 55-to-45 per cent after preferences, and between Labor and the Coalition, Labor leads 56-to-44 per cent. Of course, these are only opinion polls, but it suggests the Labor Party would easily win an election – if it were to be held today – and despite the ongoing clamouring and promotion of right-wing causes by the mainstream media, One Nation would be nowhere near the levers of government, and rightly so.

This decline coincides with Pauline Hanson’s extended European junket, during which she addressed two conservative conferences in Britain, appeared with far-right anti-Islam activist and convicted criminal, Tommy Robinson, and was later photographed poolside, lapping it up with mining billionaire Gina Rinehart at the five-star Grand Hotel San Pietro in Italy. Hanson says the trip did not cost taxpayers “one cent” – it’s money or support coming from either Rinehart or Seven West Media – but she refuses to say who, even though she’ll have to inform the Parliamentary Registry of Expenses within 28 days.

At CPAC Great Britain – a conference of conservative has-beens and non-entities who are unhappy that the rest of the world is not championing their collection of insane far-right ideals – Hanson told her small audience that she was “sick of hearing about white privilege”, would “not apologise for being white” (even though no-one has asked her to), and feared for England’s future. Her assessment of the “British decline” was built around those familiar themes of the international populist right: migration, multiculturalism, Muslims, transgender people, net-zero policies and the supposedly malign influence of “globalists”. And, apparently, Australia is next to travel down this same road if it doesn’t watch out.

Let’s leave aside for the time being that many of Britain’s current issues are the results of over 40 years of neoliberalist policies, a continuous circus-act of incompetent governments, and the Brexit decision of 2016 – but it was an odd argument for Hanson to export from a country whose multicultural cities continue to perform highly by international standards. In the Economist Intelligence Unit’s 2026 Global Liveability Index, from the over 4,000 recognised capital cities in the world, Melbourne was ranked third, Sydney was fourth and Adelaide was eighth.

This doesn’t mean that Australia doesn’t have issues that need to be dealt with – housing is increasingly unaffordable, wages have struggled to keep up with the cost of living, public services are constantly under pressure, and governments have repeatedly failed to plan adequately for population growth. But these are issues to do with government competence and economic policy, not evidence of cultural diversity causing the end of civilisation.

The company Hanson chose to keep when she was overseas was also problematic. Among the delegates were the former British 49-day prime minister Liz Truss, the failed Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, and other desperadoes from the international right. Hanson’s separate appearance with Robinson was more even more concerning. Robinson has an extensive criminal record, including convictions for assault, fraud-related offences and ongoing contempt of court. Being interviewed by a controversial criminal might not be inherently terrible, but Hanson appeared as a sympathetic political subject in the same grievance-based world that Robinson lives in.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese criticised Hanson for travelling overseas to “denigrate and talk down Australia”, which is exactly what she did. That’s a justified criticism but it’s also another reminder of the wider hypocrisy within conservative politics. The politicians most likely to describe themselves as “patriots” are increasingly willing to appear in front of foreign audiences and depict Australia as a broken society that’s been captured by hostile influences, even when the evidence suggests otherwise.

Another one of these hypocrites is Nationals Senate leader Bridget McKenzie, who is keen to show the world – literally – that she is not going to be outdone by One Nation. Speaking at the same CPAC event, McKenzie declared that conservatives were “at war” with “leftwing globalists”, mass migration and “woke institutions”, and summoned conservatives across the English-speaking world to mobilise against these people. And if that wasn’t enough, she described Australia as becoming the “most woke” country in the world, before also attacking migration policy, transgender rights and net-zero. It’s pretty insane stuff.

McKenzie’s speech is of more consequence than Hanson’s because it came from the Senate leader of a party that sees itself as part of Australia’s mainstream alternative government. The Coalition’s election defeats in 2022 and 2025 should have prompted serious policy development on housing, insecure work, regional services, energy, climate adaptation and declining living standards – the issues that affect people in a material way every single day – instead, McKenzie – and Hanson – are gallivanting around the world in a self-indulgent talkfest and importing this far-right culture war garbage that believes that behind every policy problem is a mysterious international conspiracy of wokeness.

Developing workable policies that makes people’s lives better requires solid research, negotiations in parliament, trade-offs and an admission that some problems in this world are difficult. But who’s got time for that when there’s a luxurious Italian poolside to swim in or a suave fashion show to attend? All culture-war politics needs is an easily found enemy of hate, inflammatory language based on lies, and a social media campaign to force the issue.

For sure, this all mobilises anger and gets the attention, but how many new houses will be built by destroying the “most woke” country in the world? How many hospital waiting lists will be cut by attacking transgender people? How will engaging in a war against “leftwing globalists” improve schools or deliver infrastructure? Or better still, where do we find these leftwing globalists and when will this war against them commence?

Hanson’s return to Australia produced more of the same. At a leadership breakfast in Perth, she defended her trip, praised Rinehart as a “very proud, patriotic Australian” and said the billionaire supported One Nation because she recognised the same qualities in the party. Hanson presents herself as the friend of “the battlers”, but the battlers are very unlikely to share an Italian holiday resort with the likes of Rinehart, or attend the high-end Dolce & Gabbana fashion show.

Here we have the supposed champion of Australians abandoned by elites, relaxing poolside with a billionaire and mining magnate, while warning that the country was being stolen from under their feet. One Nation keeps telling voters that it’s the privileged establishment and elites that are responsible for their woes, while maintaining close relations with the most powerful economic interests in the country. Migrants, Muslims, climate advocates and transgender people – the other – are always at the centre of Hanson’s political story, while the business-as-usual of the concentration of wealth and corporate influence remains in place. And it’s this big gap in rhetoric that’s beginning to catch up with her.

Ultimately, Hanson is being exposed as just another politician – she said the dismantling of the White Australia policy was when Australia’s immigration system started to go wrong, but then denied she ever called for its return, despite calling for immigration to be stopped from “radical Islamic countries”, Gaza, and countries where women wear the burqa.

This raises obvious questions: would exclusions be based on nationality, religion, birthplace, individual security assessments or the political conduct of a government? Or would it be up to Hanson to decide?

The Department of Home Affairs suggests that a large proportion of overstayers come from China and the United States – not from the Muslim-majority countries that dominate Hanson’s rhetoric. Most of these people arrive lawfully and overstay temporary visas, and the government already has legal procedures for identifying, detaining and removing the very few unlawful non-citizens who exist in Australia. There is no need for a local US-style enforcement agency, because one already exists and there are very few unlawful non-citizens. But none of this matters to Hanson: it’s all about discussing an inflammatory issue, identifying a problem that doesn’t exist, and suggesting an extreme solution to that non-existent problem.

All these inconsistencies and ongoing foolishness doesn’t prove that One Nation’s support will continue to fall. There’s always going to be a receptive audience for this material, and it’s also easier for political figures from the right to manufacturer the outage, than do the hard work of developing policies that will make peoples lives better. During the week, we had a classic “man-bites-dog” story, where One Nation’s Barnaby Joyce appeared on the ABC’s 7.30 program, only to start shouting at one of his dogs mid-sentence, before returning to his endless list of grievances and complaints about the state of the world.

Of course, the media focussed on assessing why Joyce shouted at his dog, and how this became a viral social media moment – but nothing at all about the content of what he said in the interview. That’s why One Nation festers on: an environment where style is valued over substance, and the man barking at his dog is remembered for the bark, and not for his justification for why his party leader – Pauline Hanson – decided to meet with a known criminal in the UK, share a luxury hotel with a billionaire, or would want to bring back the White Australia policy.

But voters eventually expect politics to produce more than imaginary enemies, create endless culture wars, or offer solutions to problems that don’t even exist. One Nation will never be able to turn resentment into a credible policy – and if the Coalition continues following it deeper into an imported culture war – both will end up withering on the vine for a long time to come.

The Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion is – yet again – descending into a forum of “hurt feelings” from anonymous speakers, and advancing the political agendas of Zionist groups in Australia, at the expense of everyone else. The Commission was ostensibly created to address antisemitism in Australia and strengthen that favourite catchphrase of the Prime Minister – “social cohesion” – when, in fact, it seems to be working in the opposite direction, and fewer people understand what this social cohesion is meant to achieve.

As we suggested earlier this week, the latest evidence provided by Special Envoy Jillian Segal is a prime example. Segal has called for an independent body to scrutinise the ABC and SBS over their reporting of Israel and Palestine, arguing that the broadcasters should adopt the IHRA working definition of antisemitism and, by implication, substantially alter their editorial approach to the conflict. More troubling is the suggestion that Australia’s public broadcasters should report more of “the good things Israel does” because their coverage has been “too negative”, as if the media should only operate in an environment where human interest stories and the supposed goodness in the heart of Israel should be presented to the Australian public.

But why should the media go searching for the “positive news” from Israel – under the direction of a body created by Segal – when all it’s going to do is to support a colonial–settler enterprise that’s stolen the land of Palestinians and destroyed so many lives? A state which has killed at least 70,000 people in Gaza – figures which Segal has disputed, even though the state of Israel broadly agrees with the number – and, according to some epidemiological assessments, up to 680,000? Where can this “positive news” be found?

Ironically, Segal’s broader criticism of Australian media is difficult to reconcile with the coverage that has actually been provided. If anything, mainstream reporting has frequently reflected official Israeli perspectives while devoting relatively little attention to the humanitarian consequences of the war in Gaza. Yet even this level of reporting is now regarded as excessively “negative” of the state of Israel.

Segal’s term as Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism expires in July next year, and it’s unfortunate that we’ll have to tolerate her misinformation and the promotion of an extremist ideology for the next 12 months. A better outcome for social cohesion would be achieved if her tenure was terminated immediately, but given the current state of affairs and the Prime Minister’s lack of backbone on anything to do with Israel–Palestine affairs, that’s unlikely to happen.

The other hearings at the Commission have also shown a similar imbalance. Of course, genuine incidents of antisemitism need to careful examined but what exactly are we hearing at the Commission? What legal checks and balances are being used to verify the evidence, given that most of is being revealed under the cloak of anonymity?

Among the evidence presented was the testimony of a UNSW academic, who described four students allegedly performing Nazi salutes towards him during a business class in 2024, before going on to suggest that it wasn’t clear if they knew he was Jewish, or not. How carefully was this evidence scrutinised by counsel assisting? Other students claimed that friendships dropped off when they revealed themselves as Zionists and supporters of the state of Israel – as if, somehow, we’re meant to try really hard to maintain the relationships with those who condone the actions of a state that’s been committing genocide, war crimes and apartheid since at least 1948. Life is not as easy as that.

Of course, if this is what people are feeling and experiencing, that is real and it can’t be denied. But these are feelings and this is a Royal Commission, not an intimate counselling session where the feelings of hurt can be listened to by a paid psychotherapist, remain unexplored and not interrogated in any way.

Compare this with the material presented by co-convener for Students for Palestine Yasmine Johnson, who was continually questioned by counsel assisting. Johnson said that Israel is a “political project”, and that Zionism is an “ideology which supports the existence of the state of Israel, and that is a racist project”, and every piece of evidence provided by Johnson – who is Jewish – was constantly stalled, interrupted and queried. Of course, this is what a Royal Commission should do, but why is it that the information that runs counter to the narratives supported by Zionist groups is always carefully scrutinised, but no such scrutiny for the endless hurt feelings of Zionists who feel that any opportunity to portray themselves as the victims in their quest for an exclusive supremacist greater Israel project always needs to be taken up?

Nobody should feel that they are being harassed in a university environment – or any environment at all – but we need to get real about this. Although the Royal Commission has tended to focus on evidence of “hurt feelings”, the presence of Johnson – and the testimony provided last week by Sarah Schwartz, human rights lawyer and executive officer at Jewish Council of Australia – shows that there is a broader understanding and different opinions of the Israel–Palestine question within the Jewish community in Australia, than the ones that we are being led to believe through this Royal Commission.

So why do we mainly hear from the extremist elements within the Jewish community? Soon after Schwartz provided her testimony, News Corporation predictably lead the attacks on her, and this follows on from criticism from Zionist lobby groups describing her as “a self-hating Jew”, a “traitor”, as well as distributing memes depicted her as a rat. Why is this behaviour never called out?

And while there’s been a big focus on the hurt feelings on campuses in Australia, not all campus experiences around the world are the same, and these have received very little attention during these proceedings.

Since October 2023, Gaza’s education system has been devastated on a scale without precedent in modern times. Many experts and international human rights organisations have described this destruction as “scholasticide” – the destruction of an entire education system through the killing of students, teachers and academics and the demolition of schools and universities.

During this time, more than 18,000 students, around 780 teachers and education staff, and at least 120 university academics have been killed. Around 97 per cent of school buildings have been damaged, more than 430 school buildings have suffered direct hits from the Israel Defense Forces, and around 92 per cent now require major reconstruction or a complete rebuild. Gaza’s higher education sector has effectively ceased to exist, with 22 of its 38 university campuses completely destroyed, another 14 seriously damaged, and 195 of 206 university buildings are now unusable.

UN experts have also suggested that these attacks will have a devastating long-term impact on the fundamental right to education, culture and freedom of expression for an entire generation of Palestinians, as well as creating long-term trauma. It’s a pattern of destruction that amounts to an intentional effort to erase Palestinian educational and intellectual life altogether, which is one of the clear and internationally recognised definitions of genocide.

But despite this scholasticide perpetrated by the state of Israel, can we still be friends? And please don’t call this out, because something that might have resembled a Nazi salute on campus – can’t be too sure, your honour – really hurt my feelings.

This catastrophe has barely been featured in a Royal Commission ostensibly concerned with social cohesion. The destruction of an entire education system, the deaths of thousands of students and hundreds of academics, and the elimination of Gaza’s universities raise profound questions about human rights and the application of international law. Yet, here in Australia, we have a public forum for some of the most privileged people in society, oblivious to the detrimental and genocidal actions of the state of Israel that they dearly love, complaining that nobody wants to be their friend anymore. It’s absolutely pathetic.

We also heard evidence – if that’s what it can be called – from Professor Josh Keller, representing the Australian Academic Alliance Against Antisemitism (5A), who claimed that using the word “anti-Zionism” with a hyphen is anti-semitic (oops, my mistake – that should be antisemitic) but then failed to explain how this could ever be detected in the spoken language, rather than text on a page.

Yes, we’ve reached the realm of the truly bizarre and insane, where even the innocuous hyphen that has endured without charge since the 1600s, is now apparently guilty of antisemitism. Let’s see what the good professor has in store for the en dash, em dash, and other forms of punctuation, for their alleged crimes against the state of Israel.

This is now extreme overreach – as well as foolish – and the danger is that social cohesion and the opinions that we are told that we need to listen to are gradually being redefined according to the political priorities of particular interest groups, rather than existing as a universal democratic principle. A Royal Commission established to reduce division is now moving towards a situation where criticism of the policies of a foreign government is itself becoming subject to official scrutiny.

Australia’s democratic institutions depend upon free and open independent journalism, open debate and the ability to criticise governments – whether Australian or foreign – without fear of political sanction. If those principles are weakened in the name of “social cohesion”, then the Commission will ultimately reach the opposite of what it was established to achieve.

Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy was right to argue at his National Press Club address that Labor should not surrender patriotism, defence or national security to the conservative side of politics. He was also right that Menzies’ record on appeasement is considerably more complicated than the polished version preserved by the Liberal Party. But once the debate shifted from saying Menzies supported appeasement towards Nazi Germany to describing him as an “appeaser”, and then suggest that he was a “coward”, the historical argument gave way to the standard fare of political theatre. And that’s a distinction that really matters.

Appeasement itself is a judgement about policy. Cowardice is a judgement about character, and in the case of Menzies, it brings up one of the ugliest episodes in Australian parliamentary history.

Conroy’s National Press Club speech wasn’t really about the 1930s, it was meant to be about national security today. By invoking the spirit of Labor leaders from Andrew Fisher to John Curtin, he argued that progressive politics has its own patriotic tradition and that Labor governments have repeatedly defended Australia in moments of crisis. These historical references were intended to strengthen Labor’s contemporary defence credentials, particularly around AUKUS.

That, of course, is a perfectly legitimate political undertaking. But history reconfigured to serve the purposes of current-day politics is often simplified until it becomes a part of a myth. Menzies is particularly vulnerable here, because there are really three versions of him.

Three Menzies, three different legacies

There is the pre-war Menzies: brilliant, ambitious and intellectually formidable, but still finding his political footing. Then there is the post-war Menzies: the founder of the Liberal Party, a builder of modern Australian conservatism and still Australia’s longest-serving prime minister. Then there is the memorial Menzies: the sacred Liberal ancestor, invoked by today’s members whenever the party needs legitimacy or a tradition to lean on.

The third version of Menzies is the one that dominates modern politics, and the Liberal Party is more interested in preserving this part of him, rather than examining his full legacy. But it’s the first Menzies who matters most in this current debate. In 1939, Menzies did support British appeasement towards Nazi Germany – sealed by Conservative Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s so-called “peace in our time” declaration. It doesn’t mean he necessarily admired Hitler or wanted Germany to prevail, but it meant that he shared the assumptions of much of the British political establishment, which believed negotiation might preserve peace while the military preparations continued behind the scenes.

Those assumptions also reflected the trauma of the First World War, the weakness of the League of Nations and the widespread fear of yet another European catastrophe, so soon after the previous one. Australian foreign policy remained deeply tied to Britain, and Menzies naturally viewed Australia’s interests through this imperial perspective.

When Germany invaded Poland and Britain declared war in 1939, Menzies announced that Australia was also at war. His famous broadcast reflected this imperial loyalty that was common at the time, but not sympathy for Nazism.

However, his private correspondence reveals that the appeasement thinking lingered after the war had begun. Writing to Stanley Bruce, Australia’s High Commissioner in London at the time, Menzies speculated about possible German peace proposals and questioned whether Britain and France could sustain a prolonged war over Poland. His remark that “nobody really cares a damn about Poland as such” remains a sore point. So too does his suggestion that Britain should not dictate what form of government Germany ought to have. But these comments don’t make Menzies a Nazi sympathiser, rather they show that he continued trying to understand Hitler through conventional diplomacy when events had already demonstrated that Hitler could not be managed by conventional diplomacy.

That is the real historical criticism. There are other areas where Menzies commentary proved to be controversial – in 1938, as Attorney–General, Menzies went on an extended tour of Europe, suggesting that Hitler was “a dreamer, a man with many good ideas”, and observed that there “is a good deal of a real spiritual quality in the willingness of young Germans to devote themselves to the service and well-being of the state”. He also went on to address audiences in Australia by describing as a positive “the exalted and almost spiritual worship of the state by many Germans”, and that he looked forward to a system of democracy where “we can have real discipline and real efficiency and real cooperation”.

This is where Conroy’s argument is strongest when carefully framed, and weakest when exaggerated. Saying Menzies supported appeasement is historically defensible. Suggesting he remained open to negotiation after the invasion of Poland is also defensible. The more accurate statement is also the stronger argument: Menzies supported appeasement, seriously misjudged Hitler’s intentions and entered the war as the loyal leader of a British dominion. That is serious criticism without descending into caricature.

The word “coward”, however, belongs to an entirely different historical argument. The origins lie in one of the most vicious speeches ever delivered in the Commonwealth Parliament. After Prime Minister Joseph Lyons died in April 1939, Earle Page refused to serve under Menzies and launched a deeply personal attack. Rather than criticising Menzies’ policies, Page questioned why he had not served overseas during the First World War., where Menzies had remained in Australia while his brothers enlisted abroad, a decision made within his family.

Page transformed that private decision into a public accusation, suggesting Menzies lacked the courage necessary to lead Australia in another war. The speech horrified Parliament and even Labor members came to Menzies’ defence. And ironically, Page damaged himself far more than his intended target. Before the speech, Menzies was often regarded as brilliant but aloof. Afterwards, he appeared dignified under attack – Page has unintentionally given Menzies something he had previously lacked: public sympathy.

The lessons modern politics refuses to learn

Today’s Labor Party doesn’t need to question Menzies’ courage, as it already possesses a stronger historical case based on his political record. The greater irony is that the real Menzies is far more interesting that the mythical Menzies. The first Menzies ended his term as Prime Minister as an abject failure, suffering the ignominy of losing government from the floor of parliament rather than through an election, ultimately resigning in 1941. Yet it was these failures that the laid the foundations of his post-war success.

The second Menzies learned from defeat: he realised that anti-Labor politics required more than just parliamentary numbers. It needed institutions, a new form of political language, organisation and a social coalition that could withstand the test of time. His famous “Forgotten People” speeches reflected lessons learned through political failure as much as ideological conviction. His authority and influence over Australian politics arrived not because he had never been wrong, but because he understood why he had failed.

That is the greatest lesson that the modern Liberals have forgotten: learning from their failures.

Today’s Liberal Party invokes Menzies constantly while forgetting the qualities that made him successful. Menzies did the hard work of building institutions, rather than slogans. He understood building coalitions within the community was far more important than the politics of grievance.

However, Labor shouldn’t become complacent on all these issues either – it has its own tendency to transform history into political mythology, and is very good at it. John Curtin was undoubtedly one of Australia’s greatest prime ministers, but he also had many flaws and shouldn’t become just a symbol used to legitimise every contemporary defence policy proposed by Labor.

Curtin’s greatness wasn’t based around patriotic rhetoric but in his willingness to rethink Australia’s strategic position when circumstances demanded it. He broke with old assumptions because Australia’s security at the time required independent judgement.

Conroy is right to argue that Labor possesses a serious national security tradition stretching from Fisher and Curtin, through to Chifley, Evatt, Whitlam, Hawke and Keating. Progressive politics has never been incompatible with patriotism, despite what the conservatives want everyone to believe.

But reclaiming that tradition requires more than invoking names from the pages of history. Placing AUKUS within Curtin’s legacy doesn’t suggest AUKUS itself is strategically wise, affordable or genuinely enhances Australia’s sovereignty. However, the left should claim national security by doing what conservatives too often refuse to do: to think historically.

That means understanding alliances without worshipping them, recognising the threats without abandoning independent judgement – as Curtin did during the Second World War – and treating defence policy as part of a broader democratic national project rather than political symbolism.

Menzies deserves criticism, and a lot of it. He supported appeasement, seriously misread and misjudged Hitler and approached the war primarily as an imperial loyalist rather than the leader of an independent Australian nation.

But that isn’t the whole story: he also rebuilt Australian conservatism after a devastating defeat, created the Liberal Party, developed a political language that shaped Australia for a generation, and managed to transform his personal failure into enduring political success.

To acknowledge those achievements is not to endorse his style of politics or his ideology: it’s really a matter of taking history seriously, through the prism of its unvarnished truth. And that is what Australian politics too often refuses to do.

The current controversy initiated by Conroy serves a useful purpose. It reminds us that “coward” is the wrong word to use in the case of Menzies, because it repeats a discredited personal attack dating back to Earle Page. It reminds us that “appeasement” is a serious historical judgement that requires the correct evidence and context. And it reminds us that history becomes most dangerous when political parties transform it into mythology.

Menzies doesn’t need protection from history, as he becomes a far more interesting character when history is allowed to speak honestly, even if he’s not valued highly from the perspective of the left. What we know is that the first Menzies failed, and the second Menzies learned from that failure. The memorial Menzies teaches us almost nothing. That is the Menzies we are too often prevented from remembering – not because the facts are hidden, but because the myth is politically more useful.

Labor’s task isn’t to replace one myth with another. It’s to do something much rarer in Australian politics: tell the truth carefully.

There are two answers to the question of whether Angus Taylor is finished. The first is the usual Canberra answer, which is the least interesting. No, he’s not finished in the narrow sense: he’s still Liberal leader, and his deputy still backs him, which is what we’d expect him to say, publicly at least. His colleagues haven’t walked into the party room and removed him. Not yet. Politics is filled with leaders who looked terminal one week and indispensable the next, and the Liberal Party is hardly overflowing with alternative leaders capable of uniting its factions, of rebuilding its suburban vote and confronting Pauline Hanson and the threats from One Nation at the same time.

But the second answer is more important. Taylor might not be finished as leader, but he is perilously close to being finished as a plausible alternative prime minister. Opposition leaders can’t just simply survive; they need to define the political contest. To be effective, they must make governments react to them and convince voters that they represent the next government. At the moment, Taylor doesn’t look like that leader. Instead, he appears to lead a once-dominant political movement that has lost both its political argument and its emotional connection with voters, while increasingly finding itself dragged behind One Nation, despite the fact they hold 42 seats in parliament, One Nation with just the two.

The great opposition leaders who became prime minister did more than exploit government fatigue – they redefined Australian politics according to their will. Robert Menzies rebuilt the non-Labor side around security, enterprise and stability after the war. Gough Whitlam modernised Labor around education, cities, culture and national confidence. Kevin Rudd defeated John Howard by making Labor appear competent, moderate and ready to govern.

That is the standard by which Taylor must be judged on. The question is not so much whether he survives another bad poll or another week of internal criticism: it’s whether he’s making the Coalition look like a government-in-waiting. He isn’t and, instead, he leads a diminished party still trying to work out how much of Hanson’s politics it can adopt without admitting they’ve become dependent upon her.

From opposition to political emergency

The latest polling indicates the scale of the crisis. A primary vote in the high teens is not just a bad result; it’s an emergency. Labor remains comfortably ahead, One Nation continues to poll strongly, and Taylor now trails not only Anthony Albanese as preferred prime minister but also Pauline Hanson. That should concern every single Liberal strategist out there. The party that once regarded itself as Australia’s natural party of government is now struggling to remain as the main force on the non-Labor side of politics.

To be fair, Taylor inherited a party already in a steep decline. The Liberals have been losing inner-city moderates to teal independents, younger voters to the Labor Party and the Greens, and many outer-suburban and regional voters to One Nation, and it’s a damage that stretches back well before his leadership commenced. The party never fully recovered from the Morrison years, when political marketing replaced trust, culture wars overshadowed basic competence and political management increasingly lacked any form of imagination at all.

Nor can this be blamed on Tony Abbott, however tempting that might be, who became leader in 2009. In opposition, Abbott engaged in a nihilistic and permanent state of political warfare – extraordinarily effective as an opposition leader, but dragged this behaviour into government, and never really articulated a coherent vision of what Australia could look like. His priorities were ideologically driven, and he struggled any form of trust with the electorate.

The leadership of Malcolm Turnbull offered an opportunity for the Liberal Party to reconnect with a modern and multicultural Australia, yet he also failed to bridge that gap between aspiration and political reality. He understood many of Australia’s long-term challenges but possessed neither the authority nor the determination to carry his party with him. On issues such as climate policy, energy and institutional reform, he appeared trapped between personal conviction, party constraints and political caution that seems to afflict prime ministers once they get to their cherished goal. Scott Morrison ultimately held the Coalition together longer than many expected, but his emphasis on marketing, resentment and permanent campaigning further narrowed the party’s appeal rather than renewing it as a broad and acceptable government.

That’s the crisis that Taylor has inherited and now confronts. He’s attempting to lead a party that has spent years encouraging distrust of moderation, expertise, compromise and institutions and it’s hardly surprising that many conservative voters now decided that if they want the politics of grievance, they may as well go to the original supplier. One Nation doesn’t need to get into government to inflict lasting damage upon the Liberal Party – all it has to do the emotional home of the anti-Labor vote.

To Taylor’s credit, he is totally correct when he says the trust with the electorate needs to be rebuilt. Since the pandemic commenced in early 2020, many conservative voters felt that governments had become too intrusive and dictating how people should live their lives. Some of those concerns might be genuine, others have fallen into the deep hole of conspiracy theories and following the grievances pushed by media, but they are politically significant. Taylor is attempting to speak to these voters without surrendering the agenda of the Liberal Party entirely over to Hanson. It’s an incredibly difficult balancing act and there is no easy path.

The multiculturalism test Taylor couldn’t pass

Leadership is judged not by whether the circumstances are difficult but by whether leaders still understand the country they are seeking to lead. Taylor’s handling of the recent debates over multiculturalism suggests he cannot. Australia’s multicultural makeup is not some kind of abstract slogan that can be sneered at by the far right, but exists as a lived reality: it’s who we are. It’s visible in our schools, in workplaces, businesses, sporting clubs, religious communities and families all across the country. It’s not an optional addition to an older Australia; this is modern Australia itself.

That is why Taylor’s equivocation has proven to be so damaging to his standing. It wasn’t an issue about trying to avoid Labor talking points, it was as issue about whether he can speak comfortably about the country as it exists today. Instead, he appeared trapped – by Hanson, by internal party pressures and by fears that any defence of multiculturalism would be interpreted by sections of the right as a sign of weakness. For a Liberal leader, this is a serious political problem, and the party that once claimed to represent aspiration across all communities now appears uncertain about the social reality of contemporary Australia.

What would a leader of a mainstream political party seek to curry favour with such a dilettante, ignorant and uninformed politician such as Hanson? Her politics is divisive and historically dishonest, yet it remains emotionally coherent, despite it being a patchwork of thinking-out-aloud though processes. People know what she believes, whom she blames and whom she claims to defend. That clarity gives her political strength, even when the story she tells is misleading. Taylor, by contrast, hasn’t offered an equally compelling alternative. Instead, he has assembled his own fragments – removal of “toxic” taxes, smaller government, warnings about spending and cautious cultural messaging – but no broader national story.

This is Taylor’s greatest weakness – it’s a cliché, but he lacks a cohesive narrative. The Albanese government has genuine vulnerabilities, with cost-of-living pressures severe for many people, housing affordability continues to deteriorate, and health, education and aged care all face significant challenges. On top of this, Labor’s caution and timidity on policy frustrates many people in the community. There’s so much material for a strong opposition leader to work with, yet the main political story today is not about Labor’s shortcomings: it’s all about the collapse of the Liberal Party and the rise of One Nation. That reflects poorly on Taylor’s leadership.

Survival is not the same as leadership

“Finished” is a dangerous word in politics. Hanson herself has repeatedly been declared politically dead before returning after an 18-year hiatus from politics. Albanese spent years being underestimated. Even John Howard, who once compared his prospects to “Lazarus with a triple bypass”, eventually became Australia’s second longest-serving prime minister. Politics is dictates by timing, circumstances – Harold Macmillan’s events, dear boy – internal factional movements and the absence of obvious alternatives.

Taylor may survive because there’s no rival who offers a clearly superior difference, in the same way that caused the insufferable survival of Peter Dutton: there is no alternative. Andrew Hastie might energise parts of the conservative base but that could further deepen the same strategic dilemma. A moderate revival might appeal to teal voters while further alienating conservatives drifting over to One Nation. The Liberal Party isn’t choosing between the good and bad options; it’s choosing among different versions of a decline, or the least-worst options. It’s such a bad political position for a party to be in.

That may ultimately be Taylor’s strongest protection – not public enthusiasm (because there is none), political momentum or confidence, but simply the absence of a more convincing option.

So is Angus Taylor really finished? Not yet, despite all the evidence that have been provided to support his removal. But the more significant question is whether he has already failed the essential test of leadership. He hasn’t made the Liberal Party appear ready for government. He hasn’t established himself as the obvious alternative prime minister. He hasn’t contained the rise of Pauline Hanson: if anything, he wants to become Hanson. He hasn’t forced the government onto the defensive. Above all, he hasn’t given disillusioned voters a good reason to return to the Liberal Party fold, rather than continue that slide towards degenerative grievance politics.

Taylor might yet recover. Might. Menzies and Howard are the constant reminders that political comebacks are always possible. But the odds are increasingly against him.

That’s the real danger. Taylor can remain Liberal leader while losing the only authority that ultimately matters: the authority of the electorate. He can retain his title while surrendering the political arguments over to One Nation. He can survive inside the party room while losing the rest of the country. And in doing so, he risks leading the Liberal Party into a vortex that’s becoming larger and deeper: a conservative politics in which One Nation supplies the anger, Labor supplies the government, and the Liberal Party supplies only the mirage.

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.

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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.

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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.

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.

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.

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.

What was meant to be a Royal Commission to examine antisemitism and social cohesion in Australia has quickly become much broader and far more politically dangerous: the attempt to recreate the boundaries of acceptable political debate and dissent surrounding Israel, Zionism and the destruction of Palestine.

While it was established to address allegations of rising antisemitic abuse following the October 7 attacks in Israel and Israel’s subsequent war on Gaza, the inquiry was initially framed as an effort to protect vulnerable communities after the Bondi terror attacks in December 2025. However, it’s now morphed into an attempt to blur that distinction between antisemitism, and criticism of Israel and Zionism.

Much of the testimony presented at the Commission is basically suggesting that any form of solidarity with Palestine is inherently antisemitic. The presence of Palestinian flags, watermelon symbols, university encampments, fundraising drives for children injured by the barbaric actions of the state of Israel, artistic exhibitions and slogans such as “from the river to the sea” are all now being claimed as acts of antisemitism. In this kind of environment, even describing the actions of the Israeli state as “barbaric” risks being interpreted as antisemitism, and the overall effect of this is to create a climate where legitimate critique of a specific nation–state will result in the criminalisation of those making the criticisms.

Much of this is arising from the application of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism, which too easily combines opposition to Israeli government policy or Zionism, with antisemitism. This Royal Commission has adopted the IHRA definition rather than more sensible alternatives such as the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism, which clearly distinguishes between antisemitism and criticism of Israel as a political entity. This is an enormous distinction in a democratic society such as Australia, if that’s what we claim to be. If opposition to nationalism, occupation, military and state violence or extremist ideology can be twisted and re-presented as racial hatred just because Israel is involved, then we may as well give up on that claim and just let legitimate political debate disappear for good.

The inconsistencies are more obvious once we compare the acceptance of the actions of Israel with the treatment of other communities during similar international actions. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, many Australians of Russian background experienced hostility and social stigma, yet few political leaders or media outlets warned against conflating ordinary Russian people with the actions of the Vladimir Putin; in fact, the social stigma seemed to be encouraged. Yet criticism of Israel’s conduct in Gaza and now in southern Lebanon – despite the massive amount of civilian casualties, widespread destruction and mounting international condemnation – is increasingly treated as a unique political situation or brushed off as “Israel’s right to defend itself”, and protected from the scrutiny that’s directed at every other country in similar circumstances.

The bigger danger here is that the Commission risks transforming legitimate concerns about the actions of the state of Israel – which includes war crimes and genocide – and the extremist ideology of Zionism, into a state-sanctioned process for regulating speech, and delegitimising protest and political activism. Democracies ultimately become unstable when institutions decide to protect one group from legitimate criticism of a state they support – or even criticism of their own actions, such as fundraising for the Israel Defense Forces, or supporting Shevet Onnot, a scout’s group in Melbourne that actively recruits and prepares young people to serve in the IDF.

This is something that has already shaped the media commentary surrounding the Commission. Former editor of The Age Michael Gawenda argued in his testimony that many journalists within the mainstream media have become activists who are hostile to Israel and Zionism, and that the incidents of antisemitism have been too easily dismissed by them.

There’s very little evidence to support this. Yes, over 600 journalists signed a letter of solidarity in November 2023 for the many Palestinians journalists who had been killed by the IDF and to condemn Israel for the killing of so many civilians, but almost none of these sentiments – which were registered in their capacity as journalists outraged by so many of their peers being killed – have filtered through to the coverage provided by the mainstream media.

Major outlets such as the ABC, SBS, Seven West, Nine Media and News Corporation have, with very few exceptions, generally framed events that are broadly sympathetic to Israel’s political narratives, almost to the point of regurgitating Israeli propaganda verbatim. In comparison, coverage of Palestinian suffering has often been neutered by more cautious editorial language and suspicion, while pro-Palestinian activists have routinely been portrayed as being socially disruptive or politically suspect – and on occasions, beaten by police or arrested for holding up a “river to the sea” sign at a protest rally.

Yes, there are any many Jewish Australians who have experienced fear and trauma since October 7, and those emotions – whatever they might be – need to be heard and recognised. But what are we actually hearing at this Royal Commission? Complaints about watermelons; feelings of being unsafe after seeing the flag of Palestine – as if seeing the Israeli flag doesn’t cause any discomfort at all for Palestinian communities – complaints of bullying over a Minecraft exchange online; concerns about seeing fundraising activities for victims (which are usually accompanied with the aforementioned offending Palestinian flag); objections to children’s drawings in public spaces (with flag, again).

Many of the testimonies provided at the Royal Commission, such as Gawenda’s, rely heavily on personal commentary and subjective interpretation rather than verifiable evidence, or blanket statements that appear to be at odds with reality. Also, there’s been almost no reference at all to the existence of Palestine, or reference to the brutal actions of Israel, including the occupation of West Bank, genocide in Gaza, the illegal expansion of settlements, or the practice of apartheid.

Of course, these issues will never be mentioned because it undermines the narrative that Israel wants to present of itself at the perfect and “most moral” state, and cover over the extreme ethno-nationalism that is subjugating and attempting to remove an entire group of people from their homes. Best to limit the conversations to Minecraft, or offensive comments that might have been made at a netball game in the eastern suburbs of Sydney.

The musician Deborah Conway also complained to the Commission about being excluded and “cancelled” from performances and venues, but failed to mention that it’s the result of extreme Zionist views and callously suggesting in an ABC interview in 2024 that the Palestinian children killed by the state of Israel were not even children, and “depends on what you call kids”.

The Commission has become – at this stage at least – a one-sided receptacle for every perceived slight against Zionists and supporters of Israel in Australia, with the ultimate intention of making these slights – real or perceived – punishable in the court of law. The Royal Commission was created as a result of the Bondi terror attacks – and to explore the issues of antisemitism – but the victims of these attacks seem to have been forgotten about, and the social cohesion that it was meant create, is as far away as it has ever been.

While the Royal Commission continues to hear the one-sided evidence and perspectives, others who have been left out are using other ways to have their voices heard. At Sydney Town Hall last Friday night, pro-Palestine supporters gathered to mark 78 years after the Nakba – the other holocaust that never gets mentioned and Israel doesn’t like to talk about, where over 700,000 Palestinians were violently removed and displaced by the infamous and brutal Zionist paramilitary group, the Stern Gang – an event that is a key cause of the generational trauma that exists until today.

One of speakers was 87-year-old Fouad Shriedy, displaced from northern Palestine as a child during the 1948 Nakba, and he provided a lived historical memory that rarely fits within Australia’s discussions about “social cohesion”. “The Palestinian dream will never die… my heart is still in Palestine,” he said. “The Nakba did not end in 1948, it is still happening today, and the genocide is still going on in Gaza. We will never forget Palestine and one day, Palestine will be free.” Palestine will be free. Is that now deemed to be antisemitic as well?

Voices such as Shriedy’s are entirely absent from mainstream discussions surrounding the Royal Commission. The Australia Palestine Advocacy Network requested leave to appear, but was refused on the grounds that it didn’t have a “direct and substantial” interest in the public hearings, even though the Commission is ostensibly about social cohesion.

Why can’t we recognise the perspectives of Fouad Shriedy or from the representatives of the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network? If the goal is to achieve “social cohesion”, we should be hearing from as many people as possible, even if it is to give the Commission a veneer of credibility – and to avoid the accusations of just being another avenue to entrench the viewpoints of a privileged group of people who already have strong connections to the existing power structures in society.

So, what will become of this Royal Commission? Perhaps it has already done its work through the release of its interim report, and its activities from this point onwards are to allow people to vent their frustrations, experiences and perceptions about how they feel the rest of the world is against them, while the incidents of real antisemitism will slip by.

None of this is to deny the existence of antisemitism in Australia. As a child growing up in a working class migrant family in a dysfunctional, predominantly white-Anglo lower socio-economic and angry outer suburb in Perth, I’m not going to deny whatever people might be feeling, because I’ve felt it myself, and so many times.

It’s not just the fuck off and go back to where you came from – so much of racism and discrimination doesn’t always reveal itself in obvious ways, and even when it is overt and obvious, if there’s no one there to record it or report it, it’s as though it never occurred in the first place.

These testimonies should be heard, even if we’re not quite sure what we’re listening to. Jewish Australians, like all all other minority communities, deserve safety, dignity and protection from abuse, harassment and violence. And when an event such as the Bondi terror attack occurs, we need to work out ways of reducing the chances of this ever happening again, and improve protections for all peoples.

Australia does face challenges in addressing these concerns at a time when the nationalistic far right is gaining a foothold in many parts of the community. But if the solutions end up suppressing hard-fought political rights and are used to protect the state of Israel from criticisms of its war crimes and genocidal actions, then Australia will be trashing the same democratic freedoms that it claims to be defending.