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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Australia drifting towards another round of futile defence spending

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

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

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

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

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

The slogan police in Queensland and NSW

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

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

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

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

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

Trump’s continuing crisis

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

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

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

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

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

One Nation meets the limits of outrage

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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We also explore how Australia already has a de facto values-based immigration system, and why proposals to monitor migrants’ social media raise serious concerns about civil liberties, surveillance, political bias and freedom of expression. There’s also contradictions in Liberal Party messaging on “Australian values” like fairness, equality and the rule of law, and questions who gets to define these values in a multicultural democracy. This is a political strategy of targeting Muslim communities, pro-Palestinian voices and migrants from non-European backgrounds, including the dog-whistle politics around English language requirements and cultural integration.

With analysis of recent election results, including the South Australian election where the Liberal Party fell behind Labor and One Nation, we assess whether attempts to outflank Pauline Hanson and One Nation on immigration will only legitimise fringe politics and further splinter the conservative vote.

Ultimately, voters are increasingly rejecting fear-driven politics and culture war distractions, demanding instead real solutions to complex economic and social challenges. As global examples show, from the declining appeal of Trump-style politics to electoral shifts in Europe, the strategy of copying fringe movements may not only fail but accelerate political decline. For the Liberal Party, the message is clear: solve problems, don’t create them – or risk becoming irrelevant in a rapidly changing political landscape.

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A temporary ceasefire in the escalating conflict involving the United States, Israel, and Iran, has created somewhat of a lull – although the United States has blockaded the Strait of Hormuz after the calls by Donald Trump for many weeks for Iran to open it up, threatening to “bomb Iran back to the stone age” and “obliterate” if it didn’t – but at least it gives us just enough time to ask the question that’s always buried beneath the spin and noise of a US President throwing his toys out of the cot: who actually benefits from war?

While governments try to frame these conflicts in terms of defence, deterrence and geopolitical considerations, the economic signals will always tell you a different story, where rising share prices, the surging energy markets, and a well-established system of instability is monetised and promoted by corrupt leaders such as Trump.

The global reaction to the Iran conflict still continues, affecting trade routes, energy supplies and national economies, including that of Australia, and the scramble for oil, the volatility in shipping lanes, and the knock-on effects in fuel prices have hit ordinary people the most. Relief at the petrol pump has been marginal at best, while the diesel costs that are critical to freight and supply chains, continue to push up the price of goods across the board. For households and small businesses – the ones who suffer the most at these times – the impact has a tangible effect and will linger long after this conflict is over, if that can even be achieved. But for a different class of players – the defence contractors, the oil barons, energy corporations and institutional investors – these conditions have actually delivered significant gains.

Historically, war has always had an economic dimension, but in the modern era, that relationship has become more corporatised and technocratic. Defence companies such as Lockheed Martin and Raytheon Technologies have seen substantial increases in their market value since the start of this conflict – 12 per cent and 50 per cent respectively – reflecting investor confidence in continuing demand for military hardware and services. War kills people, but it’s also good for business. Energy giants like ExxonMobil similarly benefit from these supply disruptions and rising oil prices, translating into billions of dollars flowing through to shareholders, most of whom are large institutional corporations, rather than the small “mums-and-dads” investors.

This isn’t the result of a conspiracy, but the predictable outcome of a system that’s built around incentives. War drives demand, and demand drives profit. The profit attracts more capital and capital, in turn, exerts influence on those decision-makers and war mongers – through lobbying and political donations. Over time, this creates a feedback loop where the machinery of conflict and the machinery of profit become increasingly mixed up and, quite often, it’s hard to tell the difference. The so-called “military-industrial complex” isn’t just a phrase used by radical activists – it’s a structure that links governments, corporations and financial institutions in ways that are often murky, but of great consequence to humanity.

In the United States, where defence spending is both massive and politically entrenched, these relationships are far more obvious. Political figures and parties receive substantial backing from the industries that stand to benefit from military engagement. The incentives are clear, even if the mechanisms are a little more obtuse. It’s not a case where executives from Blackrock will pick up the phone to the White House and order a war, but rather that the system as a whole is finely calibrated to reward the conditions that a war creates. When conflict breaks out, markets respond instantly – and those positioned to capitalise on that response will do so with remarkable efficiency.

Ordinary citizens – whether it be in the United States, in Australia or West Asia – don’t experience war as an economic opportunity. Their experience is based around rising living costs, the uncertainty, and in many cases in the Middle East, a direct exposure to violence or the threat of it. The benefits, meanwhile, are accumulated elsewhere – in the boardrooms of Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, ExxonMobil and Blackrock – those who have the capital and connections to profit from the chaos.

The Iran conflict also highlights the fragility of the global systems that depend on security and political stability. The Strait of Hormuz, a critical part of the global oil supply, is the more obvious point of global tension at the moment, but even minor disruptions will result in significant economic consequences – and create the pressures that flow through the global economy, affecting everything from energy prices to food supply chains.

Political leadership in these times also becomes crucial. The decisions made in Washington, Tel Aviv or Tehran will go far beyond their own borders, shaping not only the direction of this conflict but determining the economic conditions that will follow. The true role of political leadership is to navigate these complex situations with restraint and with some intellectual gravitas, but when that leadership is erratic or driven by corruption and short-term calculations, the risks become massive, not just for those directly involved, but for peace in the region and the entire global order.

There’s also that question of the political narrative – how wars are explained by political leaders, how they are justified and how they are remembered. Unlike conflicts with clearly defined ideological stakes, such as the struggle against fascism and Nazism in the mid-20th century, modern wars initiated by the United States are lacking a coherent public rationale. Although the excuses were pathetic and sold under the banner of the weapons of mass destruction that never existed, at least the invasion of Iraq in 2003 went through the process of attempting to seek approval from a reluctant international community, even if the entire process was a sham.

These days, the United States has given up with the pretences. Instead, we have a US President who changes his mind about the military actions in the Strait of Hormuz as often as he changes pads, and spends his time insulting the Pope and releasing AI generated images depicting himself either as God, or as Jesus Christ, mainly as distractions from the main event of funnelling war profits and oil revenues into the pockets of his corporate backers and supporters. It will take immense efforts to explain to future generations how a creature such as Trump managed to survive in the political system with such corrupt and infantile behaviour, let alone how he managed to reach the position of such political power, not just the once, but twice.

To understand Trump’s behaviour and survival, and of modern conflict, it’s not enough to look at the battlefields, the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, the diplomatic statements, or the latest inane and incoherent posting on Truth Social. It just requires following the money, examining the incentives that exist in the political and economic systems, and recognising the ways in which profit and power mingle. War, in this sense, is not just a failure of diplomacy or a continuation of politics by other means – it’s a system that rewards this potent mix.

The temporary ceasefire in Iran may hold, or it may collapse. With Trump, it can never be predicted, but history suggests that it might not matter too much, particularly when the underlying drivers of conflict still remain unaddressed. What is clear, however, is that the consequences of war extend far beyond the immediate theatre, in this case, Iran. They influence economies, politics, and send the wealth upwards in ways that are often hidden from the public view.

In the end, the most uncomfortable truth is also the most important: the world is always at war, not because of fear, ideology or political mistakes, but because it works for the select few and the vested interests.

And as long as war and conflict continues to generate profits for these vested interests and military corporations, which then translate into political influence, the incentives to sustain this vicious circle of doom will continue. The challenge is to break this cycle, and the system that makes these wars continuous: one will end, and then another pops up somewhere else in the world, conveniently placed near United States bases that can then exert influence and domination. It’s also clear that for as long as that cycle remains in place, the question of who benefits from war will always have the same answer.

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The arrest and charging of Ben Roberts-Smith on five counts of war crimes has exposed yet another schism within Australian politics, and it reveals just how quickly the principles of justice can be thrown away when placed against nationalism, power and myth. The response from prominent conservative figures has ignored the seriousness of these allegations – the unlawful killing of Afghan civilians – and has focused on defending the reputation of a decorated soldier, at the expense of the rule of law itself.

Figures such as Pauline Hanson and Gina Rinehart – a mining magnate who really should have no role in political life – have publicly questioned and condemned the charges, while media proprietor Kerry Stokes – who financially backed Roberts-Smith’s failed defamation cases to the tune of $30 million – is using his substantial media assets to push for his innocence. What’s emerging from these responses is not a careful assessment of the available evidence, but a knee-jerk defence of Australia’s war symbolism and jingoism.

The legal reality of this case should be very straightforward: Roberts-Smith, like any other accused person, is entitled to the presumption of innocence and a fair trial, and that’s exactly what he’ll receive. The charges against him will be tested in a criminal court, where the burden of proof will be high and the consequences will be announced by a judge, if he’s found guilty. In other words, it will just like any other case that runs through the Australian courts, every single day.

The nature of these allegations is also important. It’s not a question of split-second decisions made in the chaos of combat – the so-called “fog of war” – where tragic mistakes can occur. Instead, the list of accusations includes deliberate acts of violence, including the alleged execution of detainees and the practice known as “blooding”, where junior soldiers are ordered by their superiors to kill prisoners. These claims, supported by testimony from fellow soldiers, go to the heart of military ethics and discipline: all is not fair in love and war, and murder – by any other name – is still murder, irrespective of where it might happen in the world.

The fact that members of Roberts-Smith’s own regiment came forward is particularly significant in a culture that’s often characterised by loyalty, silence and subservience to rank, suggesting a level of concern that goes far beyond what could be assumed to be internal disagreements or personality conflicts.

The political defence of Roberts-Smith by conservative figures also reveals a deeper issue with accountability. For some, the idea that a recipient of the Victoria Cross – the nation’s highest military honour – could be implicated in war crimes is simply inconceivable, especially when placed next to that Anzac narrative that has come to dominate Australian identity for well over 100 years.

This narrative, propped up by Bob Hawke in the 1980s, and supercharged during the Howard era, has elevated military service to an unrealistic level of national virtue. To then acknowledge any form of wrongdoing within this narrative is regarded as sacrosanct by conservatives and is seen as a huge blow to national pride. Yet this is precisely why accountability in this case matters: if the law is not going to be applied equally, then it stops functioning as the law.

There are also the usual racist undertones in this reaction from conservatives, particularly in the indifference shown towards the victims. The Afghan civilians at the centre of these charges are totally absent from the rhetoric of the defenders of Roberts-Smith, always navigating back to his status as a “war hero” and national figure. And they are so absent that we’ve barely heard their names before: they are Ali Jan, a farmer and father from the village of Darwan; Ahmadullah, a man with a prosthetic leg – the same leg Roberts-Smith used as a trophy to drink alcohol from; Mohammed Essa, the father of Ahmadullah; an unnamed elderly man; and another unnamed detainee in Chinartu.

It also sets up that partition between whose lives are really valued – our own Anglo-heroes – and whose suffering is deemed irrelevant and easily ignored – barely known people on the other side of the world, with a different coloured skin, culture and language.

What should also not be forgotten in this case is the profound contradiction in the Australian justice system. David McBride, the former military lawyer whose disclosures helped bring allegations of war crimes committed by Roberts-Smith to light, is currently serving a five-year prison sentence for leaking classified information, despite acting in what he has consistently argued was in the public interest.

His relatively quick prosecution – and Australia’s constant pursuit of whistleblowers – is in contrast to the slow process of holding alleged perpetrators of war crimes to account. The message this sends should be highly concerning to the Australian community: exposing wrongdoing is punished more swiftly and severely than actually committing the wrongdoing. There’s also that long tradition of Australia glossing over war crimes and accepting war criminals, as was so clearly documented in Mark Aaron’s concise publication on this issue, War Criminals Welcome: Australia, a Sanctuary for Fugitive War Criminals Since 1945.

The role of government in this situation should also not be ignored. The Attorney-General at the time, Mark Dreyfus, had the authority to intervene in cases like McBride’s, but declined to do so, an action continued by his successor, Michelle Rowland. This reluctance reflects a broader pattern where national security considerations – however flimsy – are prioritised over transparency and accountability, even when the serious allegations of misconduct are involved, and it’s a position that risks undermining public trust in both the legal system and democratic institutions.

Beyond the immediate legal and political implications, the Roberts-Smith case should also force a stronger debate about Australia’s broader military engagements and whose interests they serve. From Vietnam in the 1960s, to Iraq and Afghanistan in the 21st century, Australia has repeatedly aligned itself with United States-led conflicts, often with limited public debate and without much scrutiny.

The consequences of these decisions include lives lost in other countries, communities destroyed and, as the case of Roberts-Smith suggests, potential war crimes and violations of international law. The question is not only about whether individual soldiers should be held to account, but whether the political decisions that place them in these situations are themselves subject to adequate scrutiny. That’s not to excuse the allegations against Roberts-Smith but, perhaps, he shouldn’t have been in Afghanistan in the first place.

Then, there is the question of national character. A mature democracy doesn’t try to shield itself from the uncomfortable truth; it confronts it head on. That willingness to investigate, prosecute and, if necessary, convict those accused of serious crimes – even when they are celebrated figures – shouldn’t be seen as a sign of weakness, but a sign of strength. It reaffirms that the rule of law doesn’t depend on the medallions that someone pins on their chest, but is applied equally, and that no individual is above it.

The outcome of Roberts-Smith’s criminal trial will ultimately be determined in court – and we assume, a jury chosen from the public – and this is as it should be. But there’s a greater test that’s already going on in the background. It lies in whether Australia chooses to uphold the principles it claims to defend, or whether it allows myth, power and political expediency to override justice. So far, it’s upholding those principles when it comes to Roberts-Smith – if not to David McBride – but the case itself will be test of how far Australia is prepared to hold itself to account.

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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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We also explore the role of whistleblower David McBride, whose imprisonment raises serious questions about transparency, accountability and whether exposing wrongdoing is being punished more harshly than the alleged crimes themselves.

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In this episode, we explore the economics of war, the role of the military-industrial complex, and how defence contractors, energy companies and institutional investors profit from instability across the West Asia. As tensions build in Lebanon, Iran and global oil markets, we examine how share prices for major defence companies like Lockheed Martin and Raytheon surged during the conflict, before strategic sell-offs locked in massive gains – revealing how war is a highly lucrative business model.

These political narratives around security and defence often obscure the financial incentives driving prolonged conflict, and following the money – from military expos in Australia to lobbying networks in Washington – paints a very different picture of modern warfare. With the nefarious Donald Trump looming, there are many questions around corruption, insider trading and the exploitation of global instability for political and financial gain.

Back home, Australia’s energy security crisis exposes decades of policy failure, with the country holding some of the lowest fuel reserves in the OECD despite being one of the world’s most resource-rich nations. We break down Anthony Albanese’s scramble to secure oil supplies from Singapore, the strategic implications of deteriorating diplomatic relations with Iran, and the long-term consequences of relying on volatile global energy markets. As oil prices surge and supply chains tighten, the conversation shifts to the urgent need for a renewable energy transition, the rise of electric vehicles, and whether Australia can finally become the “renewable energy superpower” as promised by the Labor government.

From peak oil projections and gas export deals to the political inertia that continues to delay meaningful reform, this episode connects the dots between war, markets, energy policy and political power. At a time when global conflict is increasingly intertwined with economic gain, we ask whether this is simply business as usual – or a system that rewards chaos at the expense of stability.

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America and Israel’s war on Iran and other parts of Western Asia has moved into a dangerous and uncertain stage, and it’s one that’s still defying an easy-to-define narrative or follow a quick conclusion. What was supposed to be a limited and calculated attack initiated by the US and Israel on Iran, has now become a far more complex and volatile conflict. Iran has also proven to be a far more resilient adversary than many anticipated, including the US President Donald Trump, and the longer this conflict drags on, the more it threatens to reorganise not just the regional balance of power but the broader structure of global politics.

History has seen these types of actions play out before: great powers, when stretched across too many fronts and driven by a sense of urgency, often panic and overreach. The United States, already managing extensive global military installations all around the world, as well as too many domestic economic pressures, now finds itself caught up in yet another high-stakes conflict with very uncertain objectives and no clear exit strategy.

It’s not an isolated incident either, but it’s part of a longer timeframe in which American foreign policy has repeatedly been at the centre of almost every geopolitical crisis – in Cuba, South America, Central America, Africa, Southeast Asia and the Middle East – as well as many other countries where it interferes in their domestic politics. Whether the attacks on Iran are seen as the claimed “necessary” intervention or the usual overreach by the United States, the overall effect can’t be denied: the burden of maintaining global dominance in the way that it might have been up until the end of the Cold War in 1989, is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain.

What makes the current situation particularly important is the potential for the realignment of global politics. This is a conflict that’s exposing the limits of American hegemonic influence, under the watch of a foolish and increasingly deranged President, and other nations are watching closely and reassessing their alliances both with each other, and with the United States.

Emerging and regional powers are likely to seek new partnerships, and are already creating new frameworks – BRICS, for example – that can and will operate independently of American influence. This is how geopolitics has shifted throughout history – not just because of the one single event, but through a gradual erosion of the old frameworks and the steady creation of new ones. If this process accelerates because of this war on Iran – which, incidentally, is already a member of BRICS – then, the United States will no longer be at the centre of global affairs and, perhaps this is what it fears the most.

There are risks here for Australia too. The country’s longstanding alignment with the United States has been a key feature of its foreign policy for many decades, but it’s been a handbrake on Australia’s independence. When the dynamics of global politics begins to shift, nations that are too tightly tied to a single power – such as Australia with the US – can find themselves excluded from these new global alliances.

This was precisely the conundrum that former Prime Minister Paul Keating was seeking to address in the 1990s, when he argued that Australia should not see Asia as some kind of distant frontier, but as a strategic partner in its immediate neighbourhood, a country embedded in this region, and economically and diplomatically engaged with its closest neighbours. But that approach was ridiculed by his conservative opponents at the time, reset by his successor, John Howard, who firmly guided Australia in the direction of the United States, a situation that remains in place to this day.

Today, the consequences of those choices from the late 1990s are becoming very clear. As these new alliances begin to take shape now – particularly across Asia and the Middle East –Australia risks being left on the outer – not through choice – but by having been too closely integrated with the United States, especially when it comes to the military relationships it’s been so eager to create and maintain, such as AUKUS.

The economic impact of this relationship is already being felt domestically. While the relationship with the United States is not the major factor behind these higher domestic prices – this is being caused primarily because of the war – the energy markets have reacted quickly, with fuel prices rising in response to this instability. Governments do have limited control over international commodity markets, but their political responses to these price rises can influence how the public interprets and apportions the blame for it.

This is where strong domestic leadership is crucial, and at this stage, we can see that there are significant weaknesses. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has found himself navigating a multitude of issues – international conflict, economic problems, and growing public dissatisfaction – but his responses have, so far, taken a long time to arrive and when they do arrive, they’re inadequate. The government’s decision to cut fuel excise will provide short-term relief, but at a significant cost to the budget, and without addressing the underlying drivers of the price surges.

Political leadership, particularly in times of a crisis, is defined not only by the decisions that are made but by the timing. The ability to anticipate events before they become a political problem, to maintain a distance from the cause of the problem – clearly, the United States and Israel – and then to communicate a clear narrative to the public, are absolutely essential. It’s also the true art of politics: achieving your own political goals, and distancing yourself from the problems caused by others.

It’s a skill that Albanese seems to lack, and it’s a balance that is increasingly important in a fragmented global environment that’s only going to become more fragmented, not less. What did Albanese do to address all of our concerns? He provided a three-minute national address on the eve of Easter where, essentially, he told the public to use less petrol, and take public transport. High prices? Well, that’s got nothing to do with me. “We’re an optimistic country” said Albanese, “we will deal with the problems, the Australian way”. Which is code for: we’re not going to deal with these issues, let’s just hope they go away.

Once a government is seen to be politically invested in a conflict – and Australia is invested in this conflict, despite the denials from Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong – it becomes far more difficult to criticise the consequences and causes of the conflict, or even take the time to explain its rationale. And in the absence of a clearly articulated position, the government will eventually bear the political cost, even if the current opinion polls suggest the public at this stage are still blaming the United States government.

It’s clear that Albanese is a good manager of political issues – two consecutive election victories attest to that – but modern political leadership needs more than the manager; it requires the ability to respond to unexpected events with a great deal of flexibility and vision. We can see that Scott Morrison had neither of these skills – management of political problems, or leadership during a crisis – and Albanese has the former, but not the latter. As former British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan famously observed, the greatest challenge in politics is “events” and the unexpected developments that quickly arrive in rapid succession, and the quality of leadership becomes apparent when these events do arise.

The war itself against Iran is showing no immediate signs of resolution, with Trump still threatening that a “whole civilisation will die”, if Iran does not make a deal. Israel is facing mounting pressures – domestically and internationally – and its quest for the Greater Israel project has to be resisted, and that’s exactly one of the issues Iran is fighting against and, far from being subdued, has demonstrated both endurance and ability to fight back against these belligerents.

The United States now needs to manage this complex situation that it has created, and surely the wiser heads within the administration – if there are any left – must be wondering how on earth did they become so deeply embedded within this conflict so quickly, and without a clear exit route.

For Australia, events seem to be moving too quickly for the government to truly reflect upon what it needs to do, but it’s almost a case of needing to put itself way past this event and work out how to reposition itself in a drastically changing world. One wonders how much difference having the Iranian ambassador in Australia would have made today in navigating this changing world, instead of expelling him last year on a false premise and at the behest of Israel – it certainly would have helped in being able to clear the access for oil tankers heading towards Australia through the Strait of Hormuz.

In the end, wars do more than just redraw borders or alter the global balances of power – they reveal the strengths and weaknesses of the systems that produce them, and the political leaders that make up that system. They test not only the military capabilities, but the political judgment of these leaders and, in the case of Trump, he’s been exposed as belligerent and bellicose fool, preferring potty-mouthed insults and vulgarity, rather than clear-headed diplomacy.

Insults aside, it’s becoming increasingly clear that the greatest challenge isn’t in the physical battlefield taking place on the plains of Iran, but in the ability of governments – both in Australia and around the world – to understand there is a new world that is emerging from this conflict, and to act before it ends up being too late.

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In this episode of the New Politics podcast, we look at why this rare critique from within the Liberal Party matters, how it reflects growing public discontent with free-market orthodoxy, and why the response from Angus Taylor to shut down the debate reveals just how entrenched neoliberal economic policy remains across both major parties, including the Labor government.

As Australia grapples with unaffordable housing, declining manufacturing, and structural inequality, we explore whether this moment signals the beginning of the end for neoliberalism, or just another false dawn in political reform. We also examine Hastie’s comments on Australia’s alliance with the United States and criticism of Donald Trump, and why challenging US foreign policy has become a politically safe but strategically significant move.

From the legacy of John Curtin and Australia’s historical realignment towards the United States, to the emerging influence of China and economic blocs like BRICS, this episode connects the dots between global power shifts and domestic economic stagnation. With China poised to reshape the global economic order, and neoliberal capitalism increasingly intertwined with a socialist superpower, we ask whether the future of Australia’s economy lies beyond the current system.

If even conservative voices are now questioning neoliberalism, why is Labor silent, and what does that mean for the future of economic reform, political leadership, and Australia’s place in a rapidly changing world?

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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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Originally published on 9 February 2023.

It was the day before the funeral of Cardinal George Pell, whose body had been shipped from the Vatican to lie in state at St Mary’s Cathedral after his death a couple of weeks earlier.

A friend and I joined others at 7.30am in the forecourt of the Gothic pile in the heart of Sydney’s CBD. It was a vigil to tie ribbons in memory of victim–survivors of abuse. The mood was peaceful but determined. Some shed tears or talked quietly with others. Large bags of ribbons were shared around. All of us were busy lacing the ironwork fence that rings the citadel. Within an hour, there was an extraordinary display of solidarity. Ribbons of every colour of the rainbow, densely packed, animated by the morning breeze as the sun rose higher in the sky, making spectacular shadows across the flagstones. Each and every ribbon was the voice of a victim or survivor, no longer silenced, raised against the atrocities of the clergy in the symbolic house of the perpetrators.

Pell’s carcass was to arrive that morning. We do not even need to go to the question of his personal innocence or otherwise of heinous abuse of children. Read the testimonies of those who spoke out about him: they are compelling.

On his watch, members of a ruthless multinational organisation – of which Pell was, in the end, the most senior Australian leader – systematically and criminally abused thousands of the most vulnerable – defenceless children entrusted to church schools and presbyteries. Infant and primary school kids, pre-teens and teens; fondled, penetrated, fellated, forced to perform sex acts, raped, damaged beyond repair, threatened that they must not tell – and blamed if they did tell. They were told they were sinners; that it was their fault; that they deserved it. Children whose sense of personhood and safety – the integrity of their being – was repeatedly violated at a level so profound, so cellular, that it was incompatible with life. Betrayed children who internalised the shame of their violation like a cancer.

The consequences are familiar. Some of us never recovered, and struggled with lifelong trauma and mental injury. Some grew up and drowned their misery in a bottle, or decided their only recourse was to permanently end the pain. My own brother was a clever, sensitive child, who went from dux of a Catholic school, to alcoholic, to junkie, to the disability pension. He contracted hepatitis C and liver cancer, and died early. He had tried to tell but was met with punitive disbelief at his boarding school, which said he was disturbed, a liar and a fantasist who needed reforming.

Pell’s role in the institutional sexual abuse of children in the Catholic church is well documented. To protect the church, pedophile perpetrators were moved from parish to parish like chess pieces in an insidious game. In other words, they were actively enabled to continue to perpetrate, and the children were their helpless pawns. Amongst many, the most notorious of these was Gerald Ridsdale of the Ballarat diocese, the epicentre of clerical sexual abuse in this country. As the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse found, Pell was involved in decisions to move Ridsdale from parish to parish, and aware of Ridsdale’s offending. In his role as Episcopal Vicar for Education, Pell had been alerted to allegations about abuses of children by clergy in Ballarat as early as 1973.

Yet, there was Pell in 1993, steadfast at Ridsdale’s side, acting as support person as Ridsdale entered Court to be tried and convicted. Many of the victims of Ridsdale and others in the diocese did not survive. The Commission was told that of the 33 children in the Grade 4 class of 1974 at St Alipius Ballarat, twelve took their own lives.

In short, the Commission established once and for all, that Pell knew about child abuse and failed to act, rejecting much of his evidence as “implausible” or “inconceivable”.

Survivors who raised the alarm were disbelieved, their claims minimised, their accounts silenced. Pell’s engineering of the egregious Melbourne Response when he was archbishop there is a case in point. This was an aggressive organisational damage-control scheme designed to limit the church’s liability at the expense of victims. People were paid a pittance of $50,000 to shut up and required to sign away any right they may have to a future legal claim against the institution. Survivors have spoken about the harm done by the scheme.

Those who appealed directly to Pell were brutally rebuffed. Chrissie and Anthony Foster’s two daughters were in primary school when they were repeatedly raped by Melbourne priest Kevin O’Donnell. One took her life, the other turned to drinking and is permanently incapacitated after being hit by a car. The Fosters said that Pell, then archbishop of Melbourne, showed a “sociopathic lack of empathy” when they approached him in 1997 – after O’Donnell had been tried and convicted of abusing other children – threatening that they had better be able to prove their allegations in court.

In Sydney, as archbishop, he was a central architect of the Ellis defence, the strategy designed to shirk the church’s responsibility for the clergy’s crimes, and render it immune to liability for compensation by asserting that the church does not exist as a legal entity, and therefore cannot be sued. Perverse legal abuse was, in other words, heaped on sexual abuse. The NSW LNP government found this so unconscionable that it stepped in to make laws allowing survivors to sue the church.

That day, at the ribboning vigil at St Mary’s, Pell’s former stronghold, there was a temporary victory of sorts. During the week prior to Pell’s funeral, church authorities had been removing ribbons placed by survivors. That seemed to be the policy of the archdiocese, unlike, for example, in Ballarat, where the practice of tying ribbons originated. On this day, a church official – a coiffed lady with a clipboard bearing documents with the St Mary’s logo – came to address the victim–survivors. She spoke to Paul, a Ballarat leader and St Alipius survivor who was there to raise his voice on behalf of his brother who took his own life 10 years ago. The functionary said that the dean of the cathedral had agreed that ribbons would be removed only from the side of the church and would remain at the front. Paul, dignified and gracious to a fault, thanked her.

The ribbons remained all day, and drove hundreds of media stories, bearing witness to the record of the man about to be interred.

Later that night of the vigil, my friend and I walked back by the cathedral. All along the fence, front and side, were beefy men in plain clothes, wielding box cutters, hacking off the ribbons and throwing them in garbage bags – self-appointed custodians of, as one told me, “the house of god”, which the ribbons “disrespected”. Some had brought their wives and children, who were also busy removing ribbons. I tried to talk to the men about what the ribbons represented but it was pointless, and the situation was intimidating. I wish I’d had the presence of mind to call the police: it is an offence to carry knives in a public place without a reasonable excuse. By the time their work was done, the ribbons were gone. Every single one.

Pell’s requiem mass went ahead the next day. The faithful attended to honour their man – applauding loudly as eulogist Tony Abbott proclaimed Pell a “saint for our times”, a “soldier of truth” – while members of the LGBTQI+ community gathered across the road to give Pell a rousing send-off to the strains of ‘Highway to Hell’ (Pell remained a virulent homophobe up to his final years). Not even Opus Dei member, NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet, could bring himself to attend, and the Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, and Victorian Premier, Daniel Andrews, were an emphatic no-show (Andrews’ response when asked if he would have a state funeral for Pell brought comfort to many: “I couldn’t think of anything that would be more distressing for victim-survivors than that… I will not do that.”)

Let’s allow the dead man to have the last word. On the church’s duty of care to children, he infamously said that it was no more culpable for priests’ actions than a trucking company would be for a driver who molested a woman. On the Catholic clergy’s sexual crimes against children, he said “abortion is a worse moral scandal than priests abusing young people”. At the Royal Commission, where the catastrophic scale of Catholic priests’ crimes was laid bare in excruciating detail, Pell – this prince of the church, this saint – was asked about Gerald Ridsdale’s offending. His reply drew gasps from the audience and is etched in survivors’ memories: “it was a sad story” he said, but “not of much interest to me”.

These immortal words stand as his epitaph.

For Paul J.

AM Jonson is a crumb-free maiden.

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We examine how Albanese’s early and unequivocal support for US military action has left him politically exposed at home, particularly as fuel costs surge and voters begin connecting Australia’s involvement in overseas conflicts with rising cost-of-living pressures. While leaders like Canada’s Mark Carney have leveraged criticism of the United States to manage domestic political fallout, Albanese’s approach has left him unable to deflect blame, forcing a costly $2.6 billion fuel excise cut and a tone-deaf national address that suggests a government under pressure.

There are deeper concerns about Australia’s sovereignty and its long-standing alliance with the United States, reviving John Howard’s “deputy sheriff” mentality and questioning whether Australia risks sacrificing independent decision-making in areas such as defence, environment and health policy. As Australia edges closer to US-style political thinking – on foreign policy, military posture and public discourse – we ask whether this is a temporary shift or a long-term transformation of national identity.

We also explore the growing constraints on free speech and political dissent, particularly around discussions of Israel, Palestine, and broader Middle East policy, including controversial laws, public art censorship, and the proposed adoption of the IHRA definition of antisemitism across the public service. Could this lead to self-censorship within government and undermine frank and fearless policy advice?

Finally, we take a critical look at the role of the media, including the National Press Club’s platforming of the Israeli ambassador while previously cancelling dissenting voices, and what this says about media accountability, propaganda, and journalistic scrutiny in Australia. As global instability intensifies and domestic political pressures mount, we ask a fundamental question: is Australia charting its own course, or drifting toward becoming “Little America” in both policy and identity?

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The recent address by the Israeli Ambassador Hillel Newman at the National Press Club this week was presented as a statement of fact, but a closer inspection reveals something else entirely: a speech based on selective histories, clear disinformation, misinformation and a stretching of the truth to the point of breakage, and a series of claims that don’t withstand scrutiny when placed against the evidence, carefully constructed to veer criticisms away from the state of Israel.

His most egregious assertion was “there was no genocide in Gaza”, and Newman making this assertion so strongly is deeply misleading and offensive. Amnesty International has concluded that Israel is committing genocide; Human Rights Watch has identified acts of genocide; the United Nations has said Israel’s conduct is consistent with the characteristics of genocide; and the International Court of Justice has found the claim plausible enough to order provisional measures against the state of Israel.

It doesn’t matter that Israel disputes these allegations – which is what we’d expect from the perpetrators of a genocide – there are just too many credible organisations, including several within Israel itself, that have made this determination for it to be so easily dismissed. The other salient point here is that none of the journalists present at the National Press Club questioned him on this claim. None.

The Ambassador’s speech is the consistent message always pushed through by the state of Israel. Israel is right, and everyone is wrong: it’s exceptionalism and supremacy of the worst kind. Historical events were misrepresented, legal issues were selectively applied, and outrageous misrepresentations were presented as settled facts, as determined by the state of Israel. In most cases, Newman’s claims were directly contradicted by the available evidence; in other claims, they relied on rhetoric that stretches far beyond any form of credibility.

When a senior diplomat is given a platform by the National Press Club and presents this type of narrative to a national audience on the national broadcaster, there is an expectation that the information presented is accurate and complete – taking into account that political leaders and their representatives will push boundaries and engage in some hyperbole – but reliable evidence needs to be provided to back up the claims.

In this case, that standard was not met, the Australian public was presented with an endless thrust of pro-Israel and Zionist propaganda, akin to Joseph Goebbels taking the podium in the 1930s and lecturing us all on the virtues of Nazism. The National Press Club should be castigated for amplifying the views of someone who is dangerous and presenting factually incorrect material.

Here is a list of the high-level disinformation that we came across – there were too many other inaccuracies to keep track of, but we’ve kept it to the main points:

The 12 big mistruths

Disinformation 1: “Till today, sadly, the majority of the Arab League and Muslim bloc refuse to recognise Israel in any borders.”

Saying they refuse to recognise Israel “in any borders” ignores two major facts: Egypt and Jordan have long had peace treaties with Israel, and the Abraham Accords added the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan. The 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, endorsed by the Arab League, explicitly proposed recognition and normal relations with Israel under stated conditions. Saudi Arabia has also publicly said normalisation depends on a Palestinian state, which again contradicts the claim that recognition is rejected “in any borders”.

Disinformation 2: “There is no other country in the Middle East that upholds the same democratic ideals of Australia as Israel does…”

This is presented as a fact, but is a tired and worn-out political slogan. The Economist Intelligence Unit’s current Democracy Index places Israel in the “flawed democracy” category, not some brilliant beacon of democracy. Human Rights Watch has said Israeli authorities are committing crimes of apartheid and persecution; B’Tselem says the regime across the occupied territories it controls is apartheid; Amnesty reached the same conclusion; and the International Court of Justice July 2024 advisory opinion found unlawful occupation and legally significant separation between settlers and Palestinians in the occupied territories.

Disinformation 3: “It [the new death-penalty law] preserves judicial discretion… did not mandate automatic sentencing… allows an appeal… enables also presidency clemency.”

This is one of the strongest factual inaccuracies in the speech. Reporting on the law says the opposite of what he claimed in several crucial respects. The legislation has been widely reported as making the death penalty the default punishment for Palestinians convicted in military courts of certain deadly attacks, with execution within 90 days, and with no meaningful right to pardon/clemency.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said the law is discriminatory and inconsistent with Israel’s legal obligations, specifically noting the absence of pardon and due-process problems. Reuters also reported that the law makes execution the default penalty, with only vague “special circumstances” exceptions.

Disinformation 4: “The third largest party in the Knesset is the Arab party…”

This is not correct. It is correct that Arab parties are represented in the Knesset, but they are not the third-largest party – Likud is the largest, Yesh Atid is second, and Shas is third. United Arab List and Hadash-Ta’al both have five seats each out of the 120 seats in the Knesset, well below the third listed party.

Disinformation 5: “What began as graffiti and vandalism tragically escalated to bullets on Bondi Beach.”

This is an unproven and unsubstantiated causal leap, one that was also made by the Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism, Jillian Segal. The Bondi Beach attack was treated by Australian authorities and major reporting outlets as an Islamist/ISIS-inspired antisemitic terror attack. That is not the same as evidence that local graffiti incidents “escalated” into the shooting as part of one continuous chain. He is rhetorically linking separate events, such as the Sydney Harbour Bridge walk in 2025, without demonstrating the causal connection.

Disinformation 6: “Foreign correspondents covering the Middle East typically choose Israel as their base… because they know that Israel is the safest place that allows them to work freely… Israel has never targeted a journalist just for being a journalist.”

This is not supported by the evidence. Israel may well be where many foreign correspondents choose to base themselves – also, because Israel has barred foreign journalists from entering Gaza – but the broader claim collapses when you include Gaza and Israeli military actions.

The Committee to Protect Journalists reports that Israel was responsible for roughly two-thirds of all journalist/media-worker killings in 2025, and regard this as the deadliest and most deliberate effort to kill and silence journalists in the world. The International Federation of Journalists lists at least 234 journalists that have been killed by Israel in Gaza. This completely demolishes the Ambassador’s outrageous claim that Israel “never targeted” journalists and it’s just a “campaign against Israel” rhetoric.

Disinformation 7: “The majority of all the journalists, so called journalists that were affected were actually activists diguised as journalists.”

He provides no evidence for this extraordinary claim, and when pressed later he admits: “we have no way of knowing the exact amount of journalists who are 100 per cent journalists, who were killed”. He’s undercut his assertion with his own evidence. You cannot credibly claim a majority are fake journalists and then concede you do not know the actual number of real journalists killed.

Independent monitoring organisations are counting these deaths as journalist and media-worker killings, not dismissing a majority as militants in disguise. The CPJ and IFJ continue to track and investigate these cases and have issued repeated calls for transparent investigations rather than adopting the Israeli government’s broad-brush claim.

Disinformation 8: On the Lebanon strike, he says two of the three were Hezbollah operatives disguised as journalists, and implies the third probably was as well because he was with them.

This is not backed up by the publicly available reporting. CPJ reported that the Israel Defense Forces claimed Ali Hassan Shoaib was a member of Hezbollah’s Radwan Force, but that does not validate the ambassador’s broader attempt to recast the whole incident as a strike on fake journalists. In the transcript itself he concedes they were “not sure” about the third person. That is not a firm evidentiary basis for smearing all three. It does not substantiate the ambassador’s larger claim that the broader journalist death toll is mostly fake, nor does it independently confirm his insinuation about all three victims.

Disinformation 9: “You come to a ratio of one to 1.5… In urban warfare, the ratio is usually one to nine.”

This is a classic talking point, but it is not a settled issue or credible benchmark. There is no single accepted “usual” urban–warfare ratio of 9 civilians to 1 combatant. Broad conflict datasets and humanitarian research put civilian shares much lower than that as a general rule, and urban conflict estimates can vary widely. So his use of “usually one to nine” is misleading, and it is then used to make Gaza look exceptionally restrained by comparison.

There is a key Human Security Report from 2021 that challenges the old myth that 90 per cent of wartime deaths are civilians.

Disinformation 10: “We’ve heard from Iranian experts… they believe it’s not true that the school was attacked… You can’t rely on pictures… What we do know is that United States of America has said it itself that they did not target a school.”

This relates to the girls’ school in southern Iran, where over 168 people, including 110 children, were killed by the United States. It’s misleading because the available reporting is far stronger than he suggests. Reuters has reported that U.S. military investigators believed it was likely that U.S. forces were responsible for the strike on the Iranian girls’ school, and later reported that outdated targeting intelligence may have contributed. So the Ambassador’s attempt to wave this away as unverified imagery and chatter from the diaspora was a dishonest representation of what had already been reported.

Disinformation 11: “There was an investigator on behalf of Australia who was given full access… He was given full access at the time to what they had available…”

This is in relation to the killing of Australian aid worker Zomi Frankcom, and it is at minimum incomplete and misleading. The key point raised by some journalists in the room was that the investigator Mark Binskin did not get access to the drone audio, and more recent Australian reporting has focussed on that missing evidence. So claiming “full access” while simultaneously acknowledging that he was not given the audio is internally inconsistent. The Ambassador said that was up to the IDF, not him. That is not what most people would understand by “full access”.

Disinformation 12: “There was no genocide in Gaza…”

A number of highly credible organisations and United Nations bodies have concluded that Israel’s conduct in Gaza either amounts to genocide, includes acts of genocide, or is consistent with the characteristics of genocide.

The UN Special Committee said in November 2024 that Israel’s warfare in Gaza was “consistent with the characteristics of genocide,” and later UN reporting referred to the “ongoing genocide of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.”

The International Court of Justice has not made a final finding that genocide has occurred, but it has found the rights claimed by South Africa under the Genocide Convention is plausible enough to justify provisional measures, including orders that Israel prevent genocidal acts and punish direct and public incitement to genocide.

Amnesty International concluded that “a sufficient basis to conclude that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza,” and describes Israel’s conduct as “ongoing genocide”. Human Rights Watch has reported Israeli authorities are responsible for “acts of genocide” and using starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza, and said Israeli forces have escalated atrocities including “acts of genocide”. It is misleading for the Ambassador to speak as though the allegation of genocide has been definitively disproven, when it clearly has not.

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One month after the United States and Israel attacked Iran, the conflict has expanded far beyond its undefined objectives and into well into the unknown, reshaping the landscape of the Western Asia/Middle East region – perhaps forever – and dismantling the long-standing assumptions about deterrence, control and the regional order. What was being pushed in Washington as a supposedly short-term and limited operation designed to create stability has instead triggered a sustained retaliation by Iran – with Yemen now joining the conflict – and putting the global oil and energy markets under extreme strain.

Iran’s response has been direct and deliberate, and should have been entirely predictable. Thousands of missiles and drones have been launched over the past month, targeting Israeli and U.S.-linked military bases in the region, as well as other critical infrastructure across the Gulf. While missile defence systems have intercepted many of these attacks, a significant number have actually gone through, inflicting material damage and suggesting that there’s a new reality within this region: Iran retains both the capacity and the willingness to escalate this conflict far beyond what Israel and the United States expected and the scale of their response has challenged the assumption – which seemed to be widely held within the U.S. military – that Iran would act with restraint to avoid a broader war, mainly because they didn’t have the capacity to retaliate.

As we’ve seen, the major issue to arise from this conflict has been Iran’s effective disruption of the Strait of Hormuz, which has created chaos through global energy markets. And it’s also difficult to accept that the United States could not have seen that this would be the logical action for Iran to take on, unless it’s part of a longer-term agenda that not even the United States seems to be aware of.

Around one-fifth of the world’s oil supply goes through the Strait of Hormuz, and this level of disruption has driven up insurance costs, clogged up the shipping lanes, and created volatility with global energy pricing. While the strait has not been formally “closed” in a legal sense – strictly speaking, it’s not in international waters, as the 12 nautical mile zone for both Oman and Iran intersect each other at the 21-mile width of the strait – the practical effect has been the same: an increased risk and a clear demonstration of the type of leverage Iran does have over the global economy.

Across the Gulf states, the conflict has led to many flight cancellations, displacing thousands of passengers and complicating the movement of labour forces that support the economies in the region. Missile strikes have also targeted areas hosting foreign personnel and military infrastructure, especially those facilities that are linked to U.S. operations.

Despite this, the Gulf states haven’t responded with direct military retaliation against Iran and their responses have instead called for diplomatic solutions. Publicly, these governments have condemned Iran’s actions as violations of international law and threats to regional stability but privately, they’re furious with the United States for undertaking this war, and undertaking it without any warning, and leaving their states vulnerable.

For decades, the presence of American military bases across the Gulf has been framed as a guarantee of security in a volatile area but, essentially, they’re primarily about the U.S. keeping that strong control in the region, even if it is mainly using Israel as its proxy. Also under consideration is the situation that these Gulf states are now bearing the costs of decisions made by the United States – and not having any guarantee of security – and if that’s the case, what is the purpose on these long-standing alliances?

Four weeks into the conflict, the severity of attacks has diminished, but the frequency hasn’t. Iran has almost played out a textbook asymmetric war game here, and the United States has been caught with its pants down, figuratively speaking, although with Trump, you’re never quite sure, and it could literary be the case.

But what has emerged during this first month is the short and sharp conflict the United States promised has failed to materialise and, instead, a widening crisis has exposed the limits of U.S. military planning and an underestimation of the motivations of the government of Iran. The United States and Israel initiated this confrontation, but it’s no longer theirs to control, and this is where the dangers lay for them.

The cost of following Washington into the abyss

Locally, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has been exposed politically on this issue, not because of the war itself, but because of the way he responded when the United States and Israel first attacked Iran. By aligning himself too closely, and too quickly, with Trump in the early stages of these attacks, Albanese gave up the opportunity to create an independent political narrative at home, an approach that would have insulated him and the Labor government from domestic criticism and the subsequent and costly policy responses on fuel excise.

The initial decision to back U.S. strikes and commit Australian military personnel and resources to the region, of course, is a familiar bipartisan pattern in Australian foreign policy: the quick action to support the United States in these circumstances, without having the foresight to think about how it might affect domestic politics. And in this case, Albanese has made a serious misjudgement.

Rather than drawing a clear distinction between Australia’s national interest and the actions of the United States, Albanese tied himself to a radically changing and often strange U.S. strategy. His recent calls for “greater certainty” around American objectives further highlighted the foolishness of his quick jump to side of Trump and raised the obvious question: why did Albanese not demand this greater certainty before Australia offered its support?

This is in contrast with someone like Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney – who has demonstrated a willingness to publicly push back against unpredictability of Trump, even going on to win an election based around this – just highlights the political advantage Albanese chose not to take. In a climate where voters often reward strength and assertiveness, the Prime Minister appears reactive and weak, asking the pertinent questions way after the consequences had begun to appear.

Those consequences are now not just rhetorical. The government’s decision to halve the fuel excise for three months – at an estimated cost of around $2.6 billion in foregone revenue – represents a first direct response to rising fuel prices linked to the U.S. attacks on Iran. While such a measure might provide short-term relief to households, it also exposes the Budget to additional strain at a time when structural pressures on spending and revenue are already quite significant. Aside from this, Albanese seems to excel at implementing plans that benefit the public, without getting a political win: consumers will save 26 cents per litre, but no one will thank him for it, and the government will lose $2.6 billion in forgone revenue.

By failing to establish a clear and independent position early, when he should have attacked Trump and apportioned all blame onto him – as Carney did in Canada – Albanese has reduced the political space for him to move around in. The fuel excise cut, while politically expedient, can be seen as the cost of his earlier hesitation – a reactive policy designed to manage domestic fallout rather than a proactive strategy grounded in defined national objectives and principle.

In the end, the issue is not simply whether Australia should support its allies, but how and when that support is given. Leadership in such moments requires more than saying “yes” to everything the United States wants; it requires clear thinking, clever timing, and an ability to anticipate the domestic consequences of international decisions.

On all three fronts, Albanese’s approach has left his government carrying both the political burden and a multi-billion-dollar hit to the Budget. It would have better for him to listen to what the former Labor leader Simon Crean said to U.S. President George W. Bush in 2003, that “on occasions, friends disagree… but, such is the strength of our shared values, interests and principles, those differences can enrich rather than diminish, strengthen rather than weaken, our partnership… friends must be honest with each other.” And it would appear that aren’t many votes lost in attacking Trump, as Mark Carney has already discovered, but, it appears, Albanese has not.

Toward an uncertain future: The limits of American power

How this conflict ends is still an open question, but the shape of a resolution is beginning to form – and it won’t be through a decisive military victory, but through a gradual reworking of the regional alignments and careful mediation. It’s obvious that the belligerents in this case, the United States and Israel, won’t be capable of offering mediation as a solution.

The war has also exposed not only the vulnerabilities of American bases in the region, but also the political limits of these regional alliances, which now appear to be fraying at the edges, and certainly not helped by Trump suggesting that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman “didn’t think he’d be kissing my ass”.

One critical consideration for the Gulf states is whether this alignment with the United States – which also means an alignment with Israel – enhances their security or increases their risk, and it’s been clearly shown that the promises of American protection have not come to fruition.

This has prompted a quiet but significant shift in thinking within these Gulf states, where rather than acting as passive hosts under coercion from the United States – which is causing internal anger within the region – there is a growing argument and confidence that they should pursuing more political independence, which includes removing these foreign-controlled bases, while opening up diplomatic communication with Tehran.

The government of Iran has consistently stated during this conflict that its main adversaries are the regimes of United States and Israel, not the Gulf states themselves. By taking these statements at face value, Gulf countries can create a certain level of insulation from the conflict, repositioning themselves not as lackies of the United States but as regional players acting on their own behalf. Whether that would be allowed to happen is another matter, but direct dialogue with Iran, even if it is limited, could be the tool that prevents further escalation on their own territories.

This is where another external player could have a role in this war: China. Unlike the United States, China has maintained economic relationships across the region without the same level of direct military involvement as the United States. Its dependence on Gulf energy supplies means that it has a large interest in a de-escalation, while its diplomatic history of restraint and longer-term speculations allows it to act without the short-term political pressures faced by Western governments.

Ever since these attacks on Iran commenced, China has been relatively quiet, but as these disruptions affect global markets and China’s own economic interests, the incentive to take on a more active role – diplomatically – will increase. China is also one of the few external powers capable of engaging all sides in a conflict with a degree of credibility, as was shown in 2024 when it brokered the Beijing Declaration, a unity deal with Fatah, Hamas and other Palestinian factions, an act that no other government had been able to achieve.

China is the ultimate pragmatist on the world stage, and its role wouldn’t be driven by altruism alone, but through a range of interests including securing energy supply chains, stabilising markets, and reinforcing its status as a global diplomatic actor. Not that the United States will simply roll over and allow China to intervene in an area where it’s had a strong sphere of influence and control over – and hasn’t that been a disaster over the past 80 years or so – but it’s clear that the geopolitical structure of the region needs to change.

Even so, mediation might not produce an immediate or clean resolution, as this war has already gone down a path that can’t be easily reversed. The involvement of an external mediator such as China – if it comes to that – might establish the frameworks for communication and restraint, but it won’t eliminate the underlying tensions that gave rise to the conflict, and not while the malevolent influence of the United States remains in the region.

The United States still remains the central actor here but the unexpected retaliations by Iran have shown that it’s in a weakened position and has never had a long-term interest in securing a lasting peace anyway: that’s not the American way. What began as a show of short-term force by the United States and Israel has now evolved into a test of long-term endurance, strong diplomacy, and adaptability, and history has shown that these are not the types of conflicts where America prevails.

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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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At the centre of this is the possible return of the Australian Democrats, a once-powerful force in Australian federal politics that held the balance of power in the Senate before disappearing entirely by 2007. Now, nearly two decades later, the party is attempting a comeback, positioning itself as a pragmatic, centrist alternative focused on accountability, evidence-based policy, and long-term thinking in an era increasingly defined by political short-termism and populist rhetoric.

In a wide-ranging interview, David Lewis speaks with Australian Democrats President Leonie Green about the party’s strategy to re-enter Parliament, starting with the Victorian election and a longer-term 12-year plan to rebuild representation in the Senate – and looking at the structural barriers facing minor parties in Australia.

Green outlines the Democrats’ core mission to “keep the bastards honest” – a philosophy rooted in the party’s founding by Don Chipp in 1977 – while adapting that vision to today’s political landscape.

We also examine the broader political ecosystem, including the rise of protest voting, the role of independents, and the growing support for populist movements like One Nation, looking at how voter frustration with the major parties is reshaping electoral behaviour, and whether there is space for a “sensible centre” party to regain relevance. Comparisons with the Australian Greens highlight key philosophical differences, particularly around pragmatism versus ideological rigidity, and the role of conscience votes in parliamentary decision-making.

As new political movements attempt to gain traction, we consider what it actually takes to build a sustainable minor party in Australia, from grassroots membership to electoral thresholds and media visibility.

With Australian politics entering a period of volatility, will the return of the Australian Democrats signal a broader shift in how Australians engage with democracy?

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While mainstream media narratives framed the election as a political earthquake driven by a surge in right-wing populism, the reality suggests a very different story – One Nation may have secured around 22 per cent of the primary vote, but it translated into just one seat in the lower house. So what does this say about Australia’s preferential voting system, proportional representation and how democracy actually works in practice?

We explore how preferential voting in Australia operates at the electorate level, why minor parties like One Nation and the Australian Greens often struggle to convert votes into seats, and whether the system is delivering fair and representative outcomes.

Is this a failure of democracy, or simply a misunderstanding of how the electoral system works? Should Australia consider electoral reform to better reflect shifting voting patterns and the rise of minor parties and independents?

We also examine the role of the mainstream media in amplifying One Nation’s influence, shaping political narratives, and contributing to the perception of a “surge” that didn’t materially translate into seats. Is the One Nation vote a genuine ideological shift to the far right, or just a redistribution of votes within the conservative bloc – driven by disillusionment with the Liberal Party, cost-of-living pressures, anti-immigration sentiment, and anti-establishment anger?

We also model what the South Australian election – and the 2025 federal election – could have looked like under a proportional system. The results are fascinating: a more representative parliament, a stronger presence for minor parties, and a scenario where Labor would need to govern in coalition. Would this lead to more effective policymaking on issues like climate change, housing affordability, and Australia’s foreign policy, including potential military involvement alongside the United States? Or would it create instability and gridlock?

We then consider the implications for the Labor Party. While Labor currently enjoys a dominant position federally and across the states, history shows how quickly political fortunes can change. Could the same forces that have fractured the Liberal Party – economic anxiety, political disillusionment, and shifting voter identities – eventually impact the progressive centre-left? Australia is entering a new era of political fragmentation, where traditional party structures give way to more fluid alliances and populist movements. And what happens next is anyone’s guess.

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What is unfolding in Iran isn’t just another regional conflict – history is filled with conflicts that began with limited or ambiguous aims, only to spiral out of control and into crises that ending up reorganising the global order. From the outbreak of the World War I – triggered by a petty accusations in parts of Europe and the one shot from a radicalised activist in Sarajevo, but sustained by drawing in different allies and a litany of strategic mistakes – to the long, grinding war Vietnam, modern warfare has repeatedly demonstrated how the absence of clear political objectives can produce outcomes far beyond the intentions of those who initiate the conflict.

The attacks by the United States and Israel on Iran have been framed by President Donald Trump as a move toward “stability”, but their consequences sound very similar to these earlier examples of diplomatic disorder and regional power games. Rather than containing the risk – which is what competent leaders should be able to do – the United States has intensified it, creating shocks throughout energy markets, supply chains and international economies. The world’s major economic blocs – the North America, China and Europe – now find themselves exposed to a crisis that should have been avoidable, but also repeats the many mistakes of the past.

The most immediate effect this time around has been disruption to global energy markets, a pattern seen repeatedly in modern history. The 1973 oil crisis, when the Gulf States punished the US and the Western world for supporting Israel in the Yom Kippur War, demonstrated how political problems in the Middle East can create supply shocks, and cause a serious economic crisis, and the attacks on oil infrastructure and shipping lanes during the Iran–Iraq War in the 1980s also destabilised global supply chains in a similar way. Today, the Strait of Hormuz – where roughly a fifth of the world’s oil supply passes through and just off the western coast of Iran – is providing yet another example of how a crisis in the Middle East can have major effects throughout the global economy.

For countries such as Australia which are heavily dependent on imported refined fuel and are firmly integrated into global supply chains, these shocks will be felt severely, with the onset of higher petrol prices, higher production costs and inflation. And this is how geopolitical miscalculations cause everyday economic pain – rising energy costs push up transport and manufacturing expenses; in turn, businesses will pass these costs onto consumers; inflation picks up; and institutions like the Reserve Bank respond by tightening up monetary policy. The term “stagflation” was a big part of the economic discussions during the 1970s, and there’s been whispers of it making an unwanted comeback – a stagnation in economic growth and a stubborn inflation that’s difficult to reverse once it sets in.

What makes the current situation particularly dangerous is not just the economic shocks, but the absence of a clearly defined strategic objective. Military generals and political leaders do study classical strategic theory (or, at least, they should) – Sun Tzu and Carl von Clausewitz for example – and war, in this sense, is understood as a continuation of politics by other means. In other words, it needs to serve a political end – Sun Tzu felt that the better leaders avoided war altogether but, if it cannot not be avoided, then it has to fit into political goals. But it’s just so hard to see what the political goals are for the United States – there might the Christo–fascist–Zionist–religious–ideological goals but, politically, it’s not so evident.

Without a defined endgame, the engagement and escalation of war risks becoming a self-perpetuating action that’s difficult to get out of, as was evident in both Vietnam and the post-2001 conflicts in the Iraq and Afghanistan, where ambitious wars based on ideology and retribution failed to achieve anything of note, except for more death and misery for the local communities.

The United States is the world’s largest energy producers, and it appears less vulnerable to supply disruptions than in previous decades. Yet history shows that global energy markets operate beyond the control of the United States. During these times of war and disruption in the Middle East, even countries with significant domestic production have been affected by global price shocks – oil is a globally traded commodity, and price volatility seems to go way past the borders of countries, regardless of their ability to produce and refine the product.

For Western allies – who might now be reconsidering their relationships with the United States – the effects on their economies are going to be even more disastrous. The economies of Europe, still dealing with the long-term consequences of their debt crisis and the energy disruptions following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, will face further pressures from the rising cost of oil and energy. Asian economies, intrinsically linked into global manufacturing networks, are very vulnerable to disruptions in shipping routes and the flow of commodities. Australia, with its limited domestic refining capacity and high reliance on imported oil, sits right in the middle of this vulnerability, and is likely to suffer a world of economic pain over the coming months.

And this is primarily because the United States is led by a President who is too busy immersing himself in the books of The Art of The Deal, than flicking through the literature of wisdom by Sun Tzu and von Clausewitz to guide him though this calamitous and foolish war.

Historically, even the most controversial and misguided military campaigns have been justified within a defined strategic framework, however flawed. The Cold War, for example, operated under the doctrine of containment – a clear, if highly contentious, principle guiding US foreign policy for decades. In contrast, the present situation suggests not a coherent doctrine, but a game of roulette, hoping for the right numbers to appear when the wheel stops spinning. But they never will.

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