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

The federal Budget and Labor’s reform agenda

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

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

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

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

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

Housing affordability and negative gearing

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

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

The rise of One Nation and right-wing populism

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

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

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

The eternal cost-of-living pressures

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The ANZAC Day culture wars continue

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Australia drifting towards another round of futile defence spending

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

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

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

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

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

The slogan police in Queensland and NSW

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

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

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

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

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

Trump’s continuing crisis

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

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

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

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

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

One Nation meets the limits of outrage

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

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

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

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

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

This week’s briefing outlines the big issues to look out for: the collapse of US–Iran talks… volatile oil markets and Australia’s continuing fuel insecurity… growing questions over foreign policy… freedom of speech curtailed on campus… the Roberts-Smith case… and the Greens push to become a serious political force.

Peace talks collapse, the profits of war rise

The collapse of the talks between the United States and Iran in Islamabad is being presented as a diplomatic failure – but that’s only half the story. While a fragile ceasefire had been agreed to – if the continuing bombing of Lebanon by Israel and the killing of thousands of civilians can actually be called a ceasefire – the Strait of Hormuz is still clogged up, physically and geopolitically, the global oil markets are still highly volatile and will continue like this for some time to come. For Australia, this translates into the usual vulnerabilities: exposure to volatile energy prices because we haven’t guarded our own reserves, more security panic, and a government that continues to behave like an outpost of the United States.

US President Donald Trump is manipulating the global markets with a conductor’s baton in one hand, with a yo-yo in the other and, one day, we’ll realise that this is exactly what he’s doing. The oil barons and the warlords managing the military corporations all around the world will be the ones to benefit from these manipulations, and it seems like the rest of the world will just have to put up with it until these guys – and they are mainly guys – have accumulated enough profits, which will surely find their way into the pockets of the Republican Party, and Donald Trump himself.

Australia has limited autonomy in this situation, yet bears real economic and political costs – from fuel prices to domestic electoral unrest. The public scepticism keeps growing, and questions will continue to be asked about whose interests our foreign policy is actually serving. Diplomacy may have failed in Islamabad – and perhaps that was the real purpose of the visit by Vice-President J.D. Vance – but the mechanisms of the conflict continue to spin around, and Australia will continue to suffer, along with the rest of the world.

Silencing the voices of Palestine on campus

The University of Sydney’s low-key rollout of a dedicated antisemitism advisor and “trainer” raises more questions than it answers, especially about the processes involves, the power behind the scenes, and the precedent that it sets. Appointing the academic Michael Abrahams-Sprod to the role before formal approval, then disclosing it only after the fact, is the sign of a university that’s more concerned about managing its reputation and unrepresentative powerbrokers, than maintaining academic and administrative transparency.

But the deeper issue lies in what this role of Abrahams-Sprod is supposed to do. His role includes implementing training programs targeting HR, security and senior staff on what antisemitism is, and how complaints are to be interpreted, how the university responds to incidents – presumably determined by Abrahams-Sprod – and, ultimately, how freedom of speech is defined on campus. Abrahams-Sprod is a senior member of the pro-Israel Australian Academic Alliance Against Antisemitism (5A), which considers Palestine activism as antisemitic, has co-ordinated attacks on university staff who hold pro-Palestine positions, and was behind the debacle of the Bendigo Writer’s Festival, targeting the academic Dr. Randa Abdel-Fattah and causing the mass boycott of the festival by 50 writers.

This is being forced upon the University of Sydney by Zionist groups in Sydney, and once these systems are in place, they are rarely wound back. And, of course, it’s only a matter of time before this program of severely curtailing academic freedom is implemented at many other universities around Australia, a further dumbing down of our educational institutions, just at a time when they need to be smartening up.

Running on empty: Australia’s fuel reality

Australia’s fuel insecurity is no longer something that exists in theory – it’s a significant weakness that’s exposed every time there’s global tensions anywhere in the world. The collapse of the US–Iran talks and pressure on the Strait of Hormuz off the coast of Iran have highlighted this situation yet again, and despite many years of warnings, Australia still operates with fuel reserves of around 29 days – well below the recommended level of 90 days – and this will barely sustain the country through a disruption that’s likely to be a lengthy one. Governments have talked up this idea of stockpiles and energy “resilience”, but much of that capacity sits offshore or remains incomplete – and seems to be more about political management, rather than actually doing something to rectify the problem.

There’s also an uncomfortable contradiction at play here. Australia positions itself as a stable, resource-rich nation, yet depends heavily on imported refined fuel with minimal domestic backup. We’re not suggesting the odious “drill baby drill” approach of Donald Trump, Gina Rinehart or Pauline Hanson but the question needs to be asked about why a wealthy, energy-exporting country has failed to secure something as basic as its own fuel supply, or at the least, look at alternative energy sources at a comprehensive level.

No more heroes

The arrest and impending prosecution of Ben Roberts-Smith has become more than a legal case – it’s also a question of how certain political figures on the right view the rule of law, and how entertained they are by the myths of war, and the continuing Anzac legend. For decades, the Anzac tradition has been treated almost like a sacred event, shielding soldiers from scrutiny under the banner of sacrifice and service. But allegations of war crimes don’t fit neatly into that story, and the instinct is to protect this sacred legend, even if it means sidelining the truth and ignoring the rule of law.

This isn’t just about the one individual – it’s about whether Australia is willing to confront the more sordid parts of its military history. The allegations against Roberts-Smith concern the killing of five Afghani civilians, and a court of law will determine if this constitutes murder and, therefore, war crimes. And murder, irrespective of where in the world it happens, is still murder. If five Australian civilians had been murdered in Kabul at the hands of Taliban fighters, would we suggest this is a “fog of war event” and just ignore the calls for justice?

A form of accountability that’s selective and decided by a panel of conservative politicians, mining magnates and media proprietors, is not worth hanging onto. Let the courts decide if Roberts-Smith is guilty or innocent, not the barrackers who are shouting too loudly from the sidelines and don’t know any better.

The Greens are starting to realise they need to get serious

The relaunch of the Green Institute with the former MP Max Chandler-Mather as the CEO, isn’t just another juggling exercise – it’s a sign that the Australian Greens are done waiting for right political or electoral moments, and are now trying to force these moments and create them.

The Greens had a big electoral reality check in 2025, when they lost three of their four seats in the lower house – including the leader, Adam Bandt – and it seems that they are moving to a more populist model that’s currently being used successfully by the Green Party in Britain, under the leadership of Zac Polanski. The new model seems to be much clearer: build a permanent campaigning process that operates all year-round – and not around election time – shapes the narratives, build a base of activists, and develop policies that can build a wider electoral base.

One Nation has become a populist movement on the right of politics, and it’s clear that the Greens want to replicate the splintering of the right, and apply that to the centre-left of politics. It’s surprising that it’s taken them so long to come to this realisation: every major political party eventually had to build a strong institutional backbone – a research centre, a discipline on their messaging, and an analysis of electoral voting patterns in a far more coherent way. And the policies.

It seems to be a highly ambitious change, and it doesn’t seem to be about poking Labor from the sidelines anymore and being a minor irritant; it seems to be about replacing them. And this means appealing not just to the disillusionment that exists in the community, but developing a stronger sense of economic credibility, and working towards becoming a party of government, not just a party of dissent. It will take a great deal of work, but it can be done.

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This week’s briefing outlines the big issues to look out for: a global conflict hitting the hip pocket… gambling policy shaped by vested interests than the public… and a government with unprecedented power but reluctant to use it.

The US and Israeli war against Iran has quickly transitioned from a faraway geopolitical crisis into something far more tangible for Australians: the price shock delivered at the petrol bowser. Donald Trump’s maniacal foreign policy – coming from a belligerent and abusive fool who sounds like he’s the last drunken sod left in a Texan saloon bar at dawn – has become an economic and political domestic problem for Australia, with rising fuel prices showing just how exposed Australia is at times of global volatility. The federal government’s response – cutting fuel excise by 32 cents per litre and releasing some reserves – might lessen the immediate impact, but it’s a sign of a more concerning reality: Australia is still too dependent on forces way beyond its control, despite years of rhetoric about security of domestic energy supplies.

There’s also an uncomfortable balancing act going on – while leaders such as Anthony Albanese and Penny Wong keep talking up stability and commitment to the US alliance, public sentiment appears to be fracturing and becoming more resistant to Australia’s involvement in this conflict. The gap between what is coming out of the mouths of politicians and the instincts of the electorate seems to be widening, raising questions about how much this strong alignment with the United States is actually in Australia’s national interest. Meanwhile, the economic pain is being globalised – absorbed by many households and small businesses not just in Australia but all around the world – while the broader strategic goals of the US, and Australia’s involvement, remain unresolved and still unclear.

An imported crisis, with local consequences

It’s not so much a case of cost-of-living issues returning – these issues have never really gone away. But, of course, there will always an explanation that can be offered. Where inflation was once pinned on wages, supply chains or the aftereffects of the Covid pandemic, this pressure is now being blamed on global conflict. Fuel prices, transport costs, and food supply disruptions are all being reframed as the unavoidable consequences of the events that are far beyond Australia’s control. Of course, these are all valid reasons, but they are being used to mask over a lot of problems within the economy that successive governments have ignored for far too long.

While this global instability is real, the degree to which it translates into household pain is still shaped by domestic policy choices: the domestic energy supply, market concentration and oligarchies, an inequitable taxation system, and the very thin margins for error that exist in the economy. Years of neoliberalism, privatisation and the reliance on global markets have left Australia exposed to the vicissitudes of unbridled capitalism, and that’s what we’re feeling at the moment. The war is just making a bad problem far worse.

Governments will always argue they are managing a crisis that’s not of their making, and taking into account the volatility and instability of the US President, there is an element of truth to this – one more time: Open the Fuckin‘ Strait, you crazy bastards. But for the electorate, the distinction doesn’t really matter, or how far a potty-mouthed US President throws out the bile, or his cot toys. A government is there to lessen the impact of external events when they do arise, not just panicking into grabbing the low hanging fruit of fuel excise and avoiding the harder task of making the Australian economy far more resilient and equitable than it is at the moment.

The house always wins

Gambling reform has landed in federal politics with that very familiar sound: a big outrage, a careful compromise that Anthony Albanese is now well-known for, and a policy that seems designed to offend everyone just enough (except for the gambling lobby, of course) but which avoids addressing the problem in a serious manner.

The government’s proposal to limit advertising – capped placements, restricted hours, and the removal of logos from sports jerseys – has been framed as a serious step forward, yet it falls short of the sweeping ban recommended by its own inquiry that came about from the passionate lobbying of the late Labor MP, Peta Murphy. This all raises another obvious question: if the evidence presented at the inquiry – and the final recommendations – was so clear and succinct, why the hesitation?

Of course, much of the answer lies in the structures that have grown around gambling revenue. Commercial television, professional sport and community sports are all financially enmeshed with gambling companies, as well as the political donations and largesse provided to federal ministers. And that’s even before we get to the massive amounts of government revenue from gambling – that governments themselves are now addicted to.

Pull this funding away too quickly, and the entire business model falls apart. But leave it in place, and the social costs of addiction, financial stress, and the normalisation of gambling, will continue to grow. The federal government is trying to balance these two factors, but its actions will always favour the gambling companies, which often means preserving existing arrangements with some tinkering at the margins. The house will always win.

The federal government often speaks of harm minimisation, but they’ve done very little to confront the very activity that they claim to be regulating. They’re shallow words, of course. The debate should now be about how to force governments to address this serious issue because, so far, there’s been absolutely no will or backbone to end this dependency on the gambling industry.

The complacency of leadership

The Prime Minister’s response to developing issues – the conflict in Western Asia, rising fuel costs, and domestic reform – has been tightly controlled, procedural and managerial, culminating in a bizarre national address last week which, when stripped down, was sending out a message of please use less petrol and catch public transport.

Sure, it was only three minutes in length, but it probably would have been more effective to produce a government advertising campaign – Albanese attempted to assure the nation of stability at a time of instability, but all he did was send the nation to sleep set and himself up for ridicule.

Governments will often default to language about stability when the underlying choices that they have in front of them are politically uncomfortable or unpalatable: aligning too closely with an unstable and deranged US ally will create public unease; not being close enough invites the accusations of weakness which, as we know and expect, will always be made by the conservative legacy media and the Sky-After-Dark brigade. Which then extends into debates about the economy: too much intervention is communism™ and poor fiscal discipline; not enough is the sign of weakness and political inaction. The result for Albanese is a kind of ambiguity that satisfies no one, but still, an ambiguity that Albanese seems to specialise in.

Contemporary political leadership always has to involve risk management – risks do have to be taken by governments, but it’s a process of avoiding mistakes, minimise the volatility, and trying to stay true to the values of the government. But a crisis like this one, provides a different type of reward for a leader if they can provide a strong and clear sense of direction.

The danger for the Prime Minister and his government is that it appears too wimpy and cautious at a time when the events are moving so quickly. And in politics, perceptions can set like concrete at a far greater speed if decisions are delayed, and are poor and weak decisions when they are finally made.

All the power, but not the will

Australian politics is entering a strange phase: a government that is in an incredibly powerful position, but led by a Prime Minister who is unprepared to use that power in a meaningful way, aside from the business-as-usual approach. The gambling debate is an excellent example of this.

Pressure for stronger action has come not from within the government – even though there are some backbenchers who were trying to force change, without success – but from independents and minor parties, forcing a response that was determined by parliamentary numbers, rather than any sort of conviction on policy. The same dynamic is emerging in foreign policy and economic debates, where other voices are not heard within parliament and there’s not much pressure on the federal government to change tack on the many key issues that do need to change.

Yes, there is a quieter shift underway, as we can see in opinion polls, where voters are fragmenting from the major parties because they no longer see themselves reflected in the broader party platforms, but these are opinion polls – at this stage – and we’ll have to wait until the 2028 federal election to see if this shift translates into change. At the moment, we have a political environment where influence from unelected lobby groups is far too strong, accountability is concentrated, and the gap between community expectations and delivery by government continues to widen.

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This week’s briefing outlines the big issues to look out for: the blame game on fuel… silencing dissent and “river to the sea”… neoliberalism coming to an end… and Penny Wong putting Australia last but America First.

Fuel scarcity and the blame game

Australia’s emerging fuel crisis is slowly exposing some long-standing vulnerabilities – falling oil reserves, a heavy dependence on imports, and a political class that’s more interested in managing the optics of politics than managing the risk. The disruptions linked to wars in the Western Asia/Middle East and the Strait of Hormuz have resulted in this complacency from governments of all persuasions being smashed by global instability.

The political responses so far are reading from a very familiar script that we’ve all seen before. The government has been quick to float around ideas of the short-term relief – the possibility of a tweak to fuel excise, anti-price gouging legislation, emergency diesel guarantees – while carefully avoiding the bigger questions about why Australia is so exposed on its energy supplies in the first place.

Blame is likely to be apportioned quite liberally by the critics but the Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, has done himself no favours by placing himself too closely to the creator of this global chaos, Donald Trump. Most of the electorate is starting to blame Albanese for high fuel prices, but he could have put himself on the front foot immediately by calling out the United States for this foolish war, and saying that Australia could not support this action against Iran. Instead, Albanese was one of the first leaders to commend the attacks by the United States and Israel, even sending Australian personnel and an E-7A Wedgetail surveillance aircraft to show he was going all the way with Donald J. Trump.

A more politically astute politician would have been able to play both sides of the political fence – like Mark Carney in Canada – get the best of both worlds and inoculate himself from this damage, but it’s further evidence that “astute” and “Albanese” are words that do not fit so easily together. Albanese will receive all the blame and opprobrium for the rising fuel prices and, once again, he’s showing great skill in getting the worst of all worlds, not the best.

Meanwhile, the Liberal–National opposition seems determined to treat the crisis as a political opportunity, rather than a challenge to themselves to offer something decent and adult-like to the electorate. Calls for increased domestic production and reserve capacity are hardly new – and are at least five years away – but their sudden urgency carries a whiff of convenience and hypocrisy, having had many refineries close under their watch, and being in office for 20 out of 26 years between 1996 to 2022 but never feeling that there was a need to do anything about this issue. Nothing, until today.

But this is a risky strategy for the Liberal Party – the voters who are facing rising prices and shortages tend to have limited patience for political opportunists who offer nothing more than slogans and photo-opportunities at the petrol bowser, while demanding the Labor government do all the things they never had time for when they were in office.

However, underneath this political noise lies a far more uncomfortable truth: Australia’s energy insecurity and weak levels of reserves – 29 days at the moment – is the product of bipartisan neglect and the constant worship of neoliberalist policies. The real question isn’t so much about who is to blame for these price spikes – they all are – but why successive governments have allowed the system to remain so fragile. Until this issue is confronted, the cycle of crisis and blame is likely to continue for some time to come.

The new world of policing dissent

“From the river to the sea” now sits at the centre of a bigger debate about protest, political identity, and the limits of what we are allowed to say in Australia. The police order to remove a public mural from the streets of Brisbane – using lyrics from a John Farnham song written in 1988 – shows how quickly cultural expression has become a political threat when it becomes inconvenient to a select and powerful group of people. And it’s reached the point of the ridiculous, where even news broadcasts were covering over and bleeping out the words “river to the sea”, surely the most egregious overreach by the Zionist movement in Australia, a limit that keeps being expanded.

The dispute over “river to the sea” itself is a well-rehearsed one by the Zionists and is now bordering on the cliché: everything, apparently, is antisemitism. But the more revealing issue here is how our politicians and institutions are responding. In Sydney, a Polish bagel house had a barely visible swastika lightly etched into its window and appears to be about two centimetres in size. Most people would clear it off and get on with life but within minutes of their report, three police officers were swiftly dispatched to inspect the scene of the crime and assess its gravity: yes officer, this window is antisemitic, guilty as charged. It would be interesting to see how this compares to the response times of rape, domestic violence, robbery or theft, especially when the victim is an Aboriginal or Islamic person.

Governments and police, especially those in New South Wales and Queensland – have moved decisively toward restricting cultural expression and free speech, tightening protest laws, increasing penalties, and showing a lower tolerance for any form of dissent. These measures are being framed by Premiers David Crisafulli and Chris Minns as the standard tools of public order, yet it’s obvious that their application is targeted towards particular causes: Palestine, climate activism and anti-war demonstrations.

Crisafulli and Minns are weak and pusillanimous leaders who have succumbed to the pressures from the Zionist groups in Australia, and they have this tendency to frame these issues around “public safety”. The risk here is not just the overreach but the selectivity of these issues, where some forms of protest are treated as legitimate expression – neo-Nazis protesting in front of NSW Parliament House, for example, is okay – while others are legislated and criminalised beyond the boundaries of what is acceptable.

Australia is not unique in this pathway of appeasing right-wing Zionist groups – the British Labour Government was humiliated when it enacted legislation banning the words “Palestine Action”, only to be saved from itself by the UK High Court which deemed the legislation to be unlawful – and there is likely to be a quick move here. Legal challenges to these restrictions seem almost inevitable, primarily because they are so ridiculous and disproportionate, but the bigger question is why these laws are being introduced and what the political transaction is – and financial – between these lobby groups, and Australian governments actually are.

Budget games in an age of scarcity

The fuel price rises have arrived just in time for the federal Budget cycle, and we’ll soon find out whether the Albanese government will act decisively in a crisis, or hide behind the language of “discipline” and incrementalism, the Prime Minister’s favourite pastimes.

Rising energy costs are feeding directly into concerns about inflation, interest rates and a recession – yet the policy noise that’s coming out remains cautious, almost to the point of inertia. Of course, governments hold their cards close to the chest in the lead-up to a Budget, but it also might be a case of no news at this stage is not good news.

There’s no shortage of budgetary options that could be on the table. A domestic gas reserve, tighter controls on exports, or windfall taxes on energy producers would all generate revenues for the government coffers, while easing pressure on households. None of these ideas are especially radical in international terms, yet they continue to be treated as hazardous in Australian politics, and if anything that resembles a reform to capital gains tax, or negative gearing or – the shock of horror, mining taxes – the entire sky will collapse and pestilence will arrive to eat away at everything that’s left over.

What makes this moment awkward is the rhetoric that’s taking place on the other side of politics. When Liberal Party MP Andrew Hastie says “no one’s going to reward us [the Liberal Party] for a final last stand on neoliberal politics”, and openly questions the legacy of market-based orthodoxy, it feels like it’s the Labor government that’s being left behind, wedded to the altar of neoliberalism, when even its main proponents are signalling that it be a time to rethink this commitment to a failing ideology that has left most people behind. Start listening Labor, it’s time for a change: neoliberalism is dead, and no-one is mourning.

America First, Australia last

The war and rising tensions in Western Asia/Middle East are following a familiar pattern in Australia: a tightening up of national security issues, quickly followed by a narrowing down of political debate. The prospect of a wider conflict – the United States, Israel attacking Iran and Lebanon, and now with the Houthis joining the wars – has heightened public anxiety, but it has also shown how reactive and conservative the Australian government is with its support of the United States.

We had to clear out our ears and listen to this over again, just to make sure we heard correctly, but the Foreign Minister Penny Wong – fresh from condemning Iran after Iran was attacked by the United States – said “the relationship with the United States matters more than some domestic political issues about environmental reform”.

While we have always suspected it, just at that moment, we were given a clear idea of where the priorities in foreign policy are for this Labor government – with the United States and Israel – and as with Crisafulli and Minns, it would be worth finding out the value of the Faustian pact Wong has made, surely a substantial one, considering how much of her ethics and principles she has discarded since October 2023.

The AUKUS agreement must be sitting at the centre

of this unprincipled support of the United States. We know so little about this deal but it’s becoming clearer – without it every being stated – that Australia has signed away its military independence to the United States, because no-one in their right mind would behave the way Albanese and Wong have, without having straightjacketed and pushed so hard into such a tight corner where they couldn’t respond in any other way. There’s no other explanation.

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This week’s briefing outlines the big issues to look out for: the fallout from Labor’s massive victory in South Australia… cost-of-living and fuel prices… Australia pays the price for being too close to the US… and retail politics of immigration.

The collapse of the Liberal Party and the take-up by One Nation

The South Australian election result has revealed something far more than just a bad night for the Liberal Party – winning only 19 per cent of the primary vote and just four seats – it reflects the continuing crisis on the conservative side of politics. What we are seeing is not just voter anger, but a fracturing of the identity of the centre-right in Australian politics. The Liberal Party is increasingly being caught between its traditional base – economically liberal but socially conservative – and a more volatile, grievance-driven electorate now drifting toward One Nation. Which of course, makes sense: One Nation offers a culture of complaint but not much else, except for more doom and gloom for the Liberal Party.

Collectively, the Liberal Party and One Nation gained 41 per cent of the primary vote, but so far have only won five seats out of the 47 on offer. There are still nine seats in doubt, but this is an awful result for both Liberal Party and One Nation, in contrast to the way the mainstream presented this election as a “surge” for One Nation. Although coming second in the primary vote seems impressive, elections are based on the number of seats won, and having one seat in a general election is actually a poor result, even if One Nation might end up winning several more seats by the time counting is completed.

For years, radical elements within the Liberal Party – federally and within South Australia – have flirted with the culture wars, empty flag-waving nationalism, and anti-establishment politics, partially because there the members such as Senator Alex Antic who want to drag the party in this direction, and partially to neutralise threats from the right. But the election results show that this strategy is backfiring. Voters on the right, when given an option, are opting for the “real thing” rather than a softer version of the far-right. The rise of One Nation is less about coherent policy and more about an expression of discontent, from the parts of the electorate that are feeling economically insecure, culturally anxious, and are politically disengaged.

Yet One Nation’s 22 per cent of primary vote that resulted in just one seat – at this stage of the counting – is a reminder of the limits of this style of protest politics within Australia’s electoral system, but also the limitations within the preferencing system. Without a broad and sensible appeal or better political strategies, One Nation will remaining loud but ineffective. That might change over time, but as the Queensland electorate found out in 1998, when One Nation won 11 seats, but was shown to be a disorganised rabble – which is a consistent factor in its electoral history – the politics of grievance and complaint can only take you so far.

And in case people didn’t realise because of the media’s focus on the Liberal Party and One Nation – two parties that won five seats between them on the night – the Labor government was returned with 38 per cent of the primary vote, and 33 seats, with an estimate 65 per cent share of the two-party preferred vote.

However, despite the crushing victory, Labor also has to understand that political fortunes can change very quickly, remembering that just four years ago, the Liberal Party held government federally, and in South Australia, they’ve gone from holding 25 seats, down to four. Historically, the Labor Party has found itself in this situation before, and while looking at the political horizon at this moment might makes this suggestion seem implausible, events in politics can change very quickly, and when they are least expected. It seems that volatility is the key defining feature of Australian politics and what is now afflicting the centre-right of politics, can easily start to affect the centre-left.

The increasing cost-of-living and fuel prices

The global fuel shock which is linked to the war caused by the United States and Israel in the Middle East is now affecting Australia’s economy. The warnings from Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Energy Minister Chris Bowen about supply disruptions and rising prices are, on one level, to be expected from political leaders, who are always keen to make that link between economic pressures and external events they have no control over, but it seems to be a prudent way of letting the public know the likely effects of this futile war on Australia.

The bigger issue is that it does show that not much structural resilience has been built into the economy by successive governments over the past few decades. Encouraging people to work from home and use public transport to ease fuel demand is a sensible course of action, but it also sounds like that familiar shifting of responsibility, from governments and markets over onto individuals.

As we keeping point out, many of these issues are the product of decades of market liberalisation, privatisation, and an ideological commitment to treating energy as a commodity and geopolitical tool rather than a public good, not just in Australia, but all around the world.

We’re at the endpoint of neoliberalism, and with the United States led by President Donald Trump – who is also the end product of this market liberalisation – it’s like the thrashing about of a violent beast on its last legs, using its remaining energy to fight the wars that it’s never going to win, rather than conserving its power to stabilise itself, save itself, and accept that it’s no longer the king of the jungle. But that would require political wisdom, and this is a commodity that’s in short supply in the United States at the moment.

Politically, perception will be everything. Even if fuel shortages don’t fully materialise in Australia, the psychology of scarcity – the panic buying, rising transport costs, creeping inflation – will dominate local headlines and influence voter sentiment. The opposition will inevitably frame this as a failure of long-term planning, but that’s a critique that will need to be very short and selective, remembering that the current Liberal Party leader, Angus Taylor, decided to store Australian oil reserves in the United States in 2020. While this oil was released or sold off in 2022 by the Labor government, there’s no prizes in guessing what would have happened to that oil if it were still in the United States under the current regime.

Australia and the Iran conflict: Are we at war or not?

Australia’s involvement in the United States and Israel’s war on Iran is slowly becoming one of the more consequential, but least clearly explained, military developments in recent years. The Australian Defence Force has made a deployment of reconnaissance aircraft and military personnel to the Middle East, yet the Albanese Government continues to avoid describing the situation as a “war.”

If Australia is participating in a conflict, even in this limited capacity, then questions of parliamentary oversight and democratic accountability need to be cleared up, and this risks making the same mistakes of the past, where the language of avoidance resulted in incremental military involvement, such as Iraq and Afghanistan, and governments keep obfuscating the truth to obscure the reality of these engagements. Anthony Albanese and Penny Wong are showing that on this issue, they are up there with the likes of Scott Morrison and John Howard when it comes to distortions of reality.

On the weekend, Chris Bowen announced the cancellation of six fuel shipments that were destined for Australia, and it seems that more cancellations will continue to occur. If the disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz continues to affect Australia in this way, we need to start re-evaluating that close relationship with the United States and, more specifically, Donald Trump, to see whether becoming a part of war that’s been initiated by American and Israel is really in our interests.

The Iranian government has suggested that nations that are not a part of the hostilities against Iran will be allowed safe passage of ships destined for their countries, but it seems that even if the Australian government is not going to frank with the public, Iran will decide for us: yes, we are at war. Australia has assisted the United States in a war against Iran, as well as expelling the Iranian ambassador to Australia on spurious grounds, that seemed to be at the behest of Israel. The question for the Prime Minister and the Australian government is: has this support for the United States and Israel been worth it, when all it’s doing is creating damage to its own people and the Australian economy?

Immigration and the retail politics that leads us nowhere

Immigration keeps appearing as a political issue, and is likely to keep coming up as certain parts of the electorate keep looking for a scapegoat for the deeper anxieties about identity, national security and belonging.

The remarks by One Nation’s Barnaby Joyce comparing migration to “buying cattle” soon after he was asked if his party is racist, were not just offensive, but revealed the true character of Joyce. Reducing people to cargo animals and stripping them of dignity, their history, or understanding the social complexity of immigration, is a classic example of the retail politics of Joyce, and the views that he wishes to represent: again, it’s the culture of complaint, and the politics of no solutions. It might rile people up and get them to vote for One Nation, but where does it leave us all?

If the Labor government decided to act against One Nation – and so far, it’s more interested in attacking the Australian Greens – all it would need to do is highlight Joyce’s record in government.

As deputy Prime Minister, leader of the National Party, and as minister for agriculture, water resources and infrastructure, his tenure was marked by a long list of self-serving actions, many of these bordered on corruption, sexual harassment, and inappropriate drunken behaviour. His record offers a clear indication of what life in Australia might look like under a government led by One Nation, so why doesn’t Labor attack this, instead of constantly being fixated on the “Greens Political Party”?

The Labor government is also attempting to walk a careful line – paying lip service to supporting diversity, while tightening migration policy and national security. But it’s a balancing act that’s becoming harder to sustain.

The hostile reaction by the Islamic community to Albanese and Tony Burke appearing at Lakemba to commemorate Eid al-Fitr and the end of Ramadan – which should be a part of Labor’s natural constituency – shows a government that’s struggling to maintain credibility across different communities. Albanese has provided endless and unlimited support to the Jewish community – and based on their own hostile responses to his presence at the Bondi memorials – it has been a support that has provided him with no political benefit at all.

Of course, Albanese should have provided this support to the Jewish communities after the Bondi terror attacks, there’s no question about this. But the neglect of the Islamic community and in some cases, outright hostility, by his government, has resulted in the Prime Minister receiving the worst of all worlds. If only he had decided to do the right thing by all communities, instead of just acquiescing to Israel lobby and Zionist groups, he would have avoided all of this political pain, but we do have to remember that Albanese is a managerial politician who deals with problems when they appear, rather than making sure the problems don’t arrive in the first place.

Meanwhile, the right will continue to weaponise immigration as a cultural wedge, while Labor frames itself as a defender of multiculturalism, however wimpishly it might do this. But unless either side of politics engages honestly with the structural drivers of these issues – housing, wages, the economy and foreign policy – this debate will remain stuck in that endless loop of culture wars, grievance and political opportunism.

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This week’s briefing outlines the big issues to look out for: fuel prices and energy security in the wake of the illegal war waged by United States and Israel… the continuing rise of the minor parties… the reluctance of governments to do very much to reduce Islamophobia… and the upcoming election in South Australia.

Fuel prices and energy security

Energy policy has suddenly become a massive political issue after the federal government released fuel from Australia’s emergency stockpile and temporarily lowered fuel-quality standards to increase supply. It’s a move tied to the instability in Iran – forced upon everyone else by the United States and Israel – with the government allowing additional imports of higher-sulphur fuel for 60 days and releasing six days’ worth of fuel reserves to try and stabilise the fuel market. It indicates how weak Australia’s fuel security is and how it relies too much on global supply chains – like many other countries – although the government will say that this is needed to protect motorists and businesses from price spikes. Perhaps it would have been better to persuade US President Donald Trump to avoid a mindless war, instead of being one of the first countries to support the United States and send military support and personnel to the region?

After decades of refinery closures, market liberalisation and weak energy policy, the country now imports the overwhelming majority of its refined fuel. There’s also emergency reserves stored overseas, supply chains are stretched all over the Indo–Pacific region, and governments are kidding themselves to assume that global trade will function smoothly, even during times of massive geopolitical upheaval, instead of doing something about it. This might stabilise the fuel market in the short term, but it reveals more about the deficiencies of Australia’s resource and energy policy over many decades.

Another energy fight is emerging over the proposal for a domestic gas reservation, which would demand producers set aside a portion of gas for Australian consumers. It’s our gas, so why not? Manufacturing groups are pushing for a reservation system of around 25 per cent of production to reduce gas and electricity costs, while energy companies – the ones who continue to extract the massive profits under a government-sanctioned system – hysterically warn that such an intervention will undermine investment and export contracts.

It’s a debate that reflects that continuing conundrum in Australia: we sit on enormous energy resources, yet households and industry pay top dollar and are always told that cheaper domestic supplies will somehow threaten confidence in the market. The real problem, of course, is a disastrous policy framework – created by the Howard government, supported by the Rudd–Gillard governments and continued by the Albanese government – which prioritises corporate returns and the exports that act in the interests of the wealthy miners, shareholders and political donors, instead of energy security that acts in the national interest.

The continuing rise of minor parties

The resignation of Nationals leader David Littleproud and the election of Matt Canavan as the new leader will continue that uncertainty on the conservative side of politics, and follows months of tensions within the Coalition as well as the many disagreements about the strategies used in the disastrous 2025 election defeat. While there’s certainly more internal divisions within the Liberal Party than the Nationals, the struggles of the Coalition are likely to remain as a key story for some time as the opposition attempts to rebuild its credibility and hold some semblance of unity.

This leadership change – following on quickly from the shift to Angus Taylor for the Liberal Party – also reflects a deeper confusion within conservative politics, still in denial about what went wrong at the last election. Some MPs believe that the Coalition needs to double down on regional grievances and a culture of complaint, and anti-Canberra rhetoric – in otherwords, dialling up the issues reflected in Sky News After Dark – while the moderates believe the Coalition’s problem is that it drifted too far into culture-war politics and alienated many voters in metropolitan seats, who have swung over the teal independents.

Another structural issue shaping politics is the continued rise of minor parties, particularly One Nation, which is now polling at 24 per cent of the primary vote, according to the recent Resolve Poll. That means that one in four people consider Pauline Hanson and Barnaby Joyce to be a voice of reason and offer all the right solutions that are required to solve all the problems in the complex world we live in.

It’s difficult to know whether this is a failure of political leadership in all of the other mainstream politic parties, or a failure of civic education, but it’s probably right to say there’s many people in the electorate who hold low expectations of government and its propensity to change people’s lives in a meaningful way. It’s less about ideology and more about the slow erosion of trust in Australia’s political institutions, who just seem to be careless and disinterested in changing this situation.

Social cohesion and Islamophobia

Questions around racism and social cohesion are again rising in the national debate. While it’s the Jewish community that’s been the focus of much debate since the Bondi shootings in December last year, Australian Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi says that Islamophobia is becoming “dangerously normalised” in Australia, referring to a significant increase in Islamophobic incidents and calling for a stronger response from the Albanese government.

If governments all across Australia are so keen to provide as much support and legislative protection for the Jewish community, why are they reluctant to do very much at all about incidents that are drastically harming the Islamic community?

It’s seven years since the Christchurch mosque shootings – 15 March 2019 – and while these incidents occurred in New Zealand, community tensions within Australia are high, and it seems both the government and opposition aren’t that interested in stronger anti-Islamophobia rhetoric or policy proposals to protect social harmony, aside from the Prime Minister’s weak comments to “turn down the heat”, as though he’s running the side commentary on Masterchef, rather leading an important national debate on social cohesion.

Issues of racism and social cohesion rarely appear in isolation and, indeed, it is up to our political leaders to “turn down the heat”, but it has to be more than soundbites that might sound good on the evening news and are left at that. So many parts of the political and media establishment have spent decades framing cultural differences in ways that legitimise suspicion toward minority communities – Seven West, Nine Media, 10 Network, Sky News and the ABC all specialise in this – and when that rhetoric flows into talkback radio, social media and the tabloids, it shifts the boundaries of what’s considered to be acceptable public discourse.

The uncomfortable question lingering under the surface – and occasionally appearing in full view above the surface – is whether Australia’s political class genuinely wants to resolve these tensions or simply manage them: Albanese is considered to be a manager of issues as they arise, rather than an agent of change, so perhaps we already know what the answer is, and it’s an insipid and weak response.

South Australian state election

The South Australian state election is coming up – 21 March – and will dominate political attention this week, at least within that state. The SA Labor government is widely expected to win comfortably – very comfortably – with opinion polls suggesting Labor has a two-party preferred lead of around 60 per cent or even more.

Meanwhile, the SA Liberal Party faces the possibility of a historic collapse, with its primary vote languishing even behind One Nation. The opposition has experienced leadership turmoil and the control of its branches by ultra conservative Christian groups, culminating in Ashton Hurn becoming leader in late 2025. It’s a very similar situation the WA Liberal Party found itself in during the 2021 state election – a party in turmoil against a confident first-term Labor government, a new young leader appointed several months before the election, resulting in total wipe-out of the party, and reduced to just two seats in a WA Parliament of 59 seats. Much of the focus has been on whether the SA Liberal Party will be reduced to this level, and whether it will hold any seats at all after next Saturday night, remembering that this is a political party that was actually in government in 2022, just four years ago.

From a broader perspective, the likely scale of Labor’s victory says as much about the weakness of the opposition as it does about the popularity of the government. The SA Premier Peter Malinauskas has governed cautiously, positioning himself as a pragmatic, managerial premier rather than an ideological reformer, although he was instrumental in damaging the Adelaide Writer’s Festival to the point of it being recently cancelled, after complaints from the Jewish Community Council of South Australia were received about one of the speakers, Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah.

This was one of the more bizarre interventions from a state Premier – Malinauskas is in such as incredibly powerful position that he didn’t need to act in this way, but perhaps it’s a sign of the compromised hold that Zionists have over many Australian politicians; either way, he wasn’t prepared to take any risks.

For the Liberal Party, this election threatens to expose deeper structural problems. It’s always argued that political issues are unique to each state, but the problems are so evident and so consistent in many of the state divisions – as well as within the federal Liberal Party – that’s it more than just state issues that’s at play here: it’s the Liberal Party itself that’s the problem, and it’s not just in South Australia.

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This week’s briefing outlines the big issues to look out for: the implications of the escalating wars between the United States and Israel, and Iran… the impact of high global oil and gas prices on domestic energy costs and the cost-of-living debate… the continuing argument over migration levels and visa policy… and the ongoing rise of minor parties and the splintering political landscape.

Australia and the escalating conflict in Western Asia

The attacks by the United States and Israel on Iran – and the retaliations – are beginning to weave their way through Australian politics, not because Australia is a central actor in this new war, but because of the reality of its commitments to the alliance. Australia has long tied itself to the United States through the ANZUS Treaty, now further embedded with AUKUS, and successive governments have always offered the defence force to US-led operations across Western Asia, irrespective of what they might be.

That reality became more real after an Iranian drone damaged the Al Minhad air base in the UAE, where Australian personnel have been stationed as part of coalition operations. What will Australia provide in this case? This issue also raises those same old questions about the assumptions within Australia’s foreign policy and strategic interests. For too many years, Australian governments has argued that the participation within US-led military operations is the necessary price of maintaining the alliance, but how is this relevant to Australia’s key interests? This looks like becoming another war that Australia is being dragged into, without considering what the Australian public opinion might be, or even what the merits of this military action are, considering that it seems to be in the interests of the US and Israel alone, and not too many participants.

It also continues that cynical pattern that we all recognise when we see it. Australian governments frequently focus on the alliance and solidarity with the United States during these types of interventions – legal or illegal – while downplaying or ignoring the political case for these overseas deployments in the first place, and a fine example of this was displayed by the Foreign Affairs Minister, Penny Wong, on the ABC’s Insiders this Sunday morning. It’s obvious that decisions made by an out-of-control and maniacal President Donald Trump in Washington, are going to be the same decisions made by governments in Australia. We don’t seem to have a choice.

Energy prices and the return of the 1970s global oil shock

Energy prices are once again being debated in Australian politics (as usual), as war in Western Asia threatens to destabilise the economy and push global oil and gas prices higher. While Australia is physically far away from the conflict, as we found out when the war between Russia and Ukraine commenced in early 2022, international energy markets are highly interconnected, and any disruption affecting major producers such as Iran or the shipping routes through the Strait of Hormuz will quickly flow into commodity markets all around the world.

For Australian households already dealing with persistent cost-of-living pressures and inflation, these higher energy prices always have to be a reminder of politically irresponsible and ridiculous decisions from the past. Australia is one of the world’s largest exporters of liquefied natural gas, yet domestic electricity and gas prices are still heavily influenced by international markets. This is clearly a policy failure, where Australian resources are exported on a large scale to countries such Japan, China and South Korea while domestic consumers pay prices linked to volatile global markets, even buying back Australia gas that was sold to these countries at an exorbitant price.

The expansion of LNG exports over the past two decades has effectively tied east-coast gas prices to international demand, prioritising corporate export profits over long-term energy security for Australian industry and households. The question in times of global instability such as we are experiencing right now is very simple, as it has always been: why should a resource-rich country suffer energy price shocks driven by conflicts on the other side of the world that we have nothing to do with?

An energy crisis will always produce predictable political responses. Governments blame global markets – as Albanese has for cost-of-living issues – the Liberal Party will blame government policy (even though they created the same policies that they are now criticising), and the poor design of Australia’s energy system has rarely had the reform that’s desperately needed, because the politics always gets in the way. And we’ll see it continuing this week –a geopolitical crisis overseas will trigger the same domestic debate at home, without resolving the vulnerabilities in Australia’s energy policy, and consumers will be the ones who will continue to suffer.

Immigration policy and migration levels

Migration is once again returning to the centre of political debate, as the government confirms changes to visa rules and salary thresholds for employer-sponsored migrants, while the Liberal Party has signalled that it will pursue a significantly harsher approach, as part of their proposal for visa appeals to be held outside of Australia, as well as a reduction of the annual migration intake to below 200,000. With net migration currently running above 300,000, this issue sits neatly within housing shortages, labour supply issues, infrastructure, making immigration one of the most politically contentious issues going around in Canberra.

This migration debate is played between those goalposts of economic pragmatism and the theatre of politics, and with those goalposts shifting around quite frequently, it’s difficult to keep an accurate score. Business groups always argue for high levels of migration to address shortages in the labour market and governments of all persuasions in the post-war period, have supported this view, based on supporting economic growth and alleviate the issues that are arising from an ageing workforce.

If immigration is framed around economic issues, it’s always a positive story to tell. But when it veers into empty rhetoric, that’s when the problems arise. The Liberal Party and parties on the right such as One Nation, always look at immigration though the issue of border security, and that idea of protecting our way of life, usually making the specious claim that immigration makes housing more unaffordable, and adds to cost-of-living pressures. Of course, immigration adds some pressure on infrastructure and public services, but blaming the migrant for all the ills of the world is an age-old political tactic from the right, and it’s usually a message that resonates with voters, irrespective of how inaccurate the message is. Who’s got time to explain the benefits of migration, when an easily manufactured mistruth can be blasted out through a megaphone?

This is a dynamic that leaves Australia caught in an endless political debate that leads us nowhere except for the drainpipe, a message readily amplified by the mainstream media. Governments rely on migration to sustain economic expansion, while the right blame migration for the more visible of issues such as housing affordability, infrastructure and… traffic jams.

The continuing fragmentation of politics in Australia

Recent polling suggests that a growing number of voters are open to supporting parties outside Australia’s the traditional two-party system – Labor and the Coalition – including One Nation. Surveys such as the Essential Poll indicate that a substantial number of voters would at least consider voting for the party, reflecting a broader splintering on the right that has been building up for more than a decade. While the major parties such as the Labor Party and the Liberal Party have traditionally been the ones who have been able to form government, their share of the primary vote has eroded in recent times – especially the Liberal Party, which is facing a big litmus test in the upcoming state election in South Australia, and the federal byelection in the seat of Farrer – and this erosion is creating the space for minor parties and independents to influence the national conversation.

Although Labor is in a dominant position federally, it’s not immune from these electoral shifts, and its challenge will be in larger regional and outer-suburban Australia, where economic insecurity and related cultural and “anti-woke” sentiments seem to be on the rise. Historically, these areas have formed Labor’s working-class base, but the general disillusionment with mainstream politics has opened up politics to populist alternatives.

The appeal of figures such as Pauline Hanson doesn’t rely on the details or grand manifestos, but harnessing that grievance that people feel – whether that’s justified or not – challenging political conventions, and giving the messages that people want to hear. This is great retail politics but eventually results in poor governing – Exhibit A: The Abbott government, 2013–2015; Exhibit B: The Morrison government, 2018–2022.

As we’ve seen over the past few months, this political banter from One Nation, and other players on the right, is causing the Liberal Party all sorts of problems. While parties such as One Nation are drawing on support from voters on the right, they are fragmenting the conservative vote and complicating the preference flows, although the preferencing from One Nation to the Coalition has shifted dramatically since the 2022 federal election, up from 64.3 per cent, to 74.5 per cent, according to Anthony Green.

These preference flows will benefit the Coalition electorally, but it means that it’s also forcing the Liberal Party to adopt harsher political positions and rhetoric in order to prevent voters drifting further right, as we’ve seen ever since Angus Taylor became the leader of the opposition last month.

This growth of populist rhetoric isn’t just about ideology but it’s also about certain realities that are happening within the workforce and the economy. Over the past three decades, many voters have experienced stagnant wages, declining job security and rising housing costs, while political elites have often talked about the wonderful state of the economy in terms of gross domestic product, or avoiding recessions. That’s all great, but if people feel like they are not benefiting from governments avoiding recessions, the anti-establishment thinking can become politically powerful, even when the policy responses that are offered lack the detail, are contradictory and, if they were ever implemented, would make problems even worse than they are.

The people who feel excluded from the economy and the social compact that should exist in Australia, are more likely to look elsewhere politically. Whether that leads to a more sustainable support for minor parties such as One Nation – which has always been dogged by incompetence, mismanagement and opportunists – or just continues a broader fragmentation of the two-party system, is currently an unpredictable dynamic in Australian politics.

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