Trump killed Truth, Justice and the American Way. The same announcement-as-product racket just sold Australia three second-hand submarines and called it a triumph.
Tag: Australian Politics
The Budget That Will Not Save You
The 2026-27 federal budget breaks two election promises, grows fossil fuel subsidies faster than the NDIS, hands $250 a year to workers, and approves gas drilling until 2080. Jim Chalmers was right that the can had been kicked far enough. He has been less forthcoming about who was doing the kicking.
The Front Fell Off The Coalition
Written in tribute to the late great John Clarke and his long-suffering straight man Bryan Dawe, whose two chairs and a clipboard remain the gold standard of Australian political satire. The occasion: One Nation’s historic first win in the House of Representatives, the Coalition’s nine-point-eight per cent primary vote in a seat held since 1949, and an exit strategy that turns out to be no exit at all. Going forward.
That Was the Week That Was, Part 3: “The Farrer fracture:
One Nation’s David Farley has taken the once‑impregnable Coalition seat of Farrer. But with Gina Rinehart’s funding and the party’s rural base, who really owns the populist rage?
That Was The Week That Was No. 1, Part One: The Repository of All Wisdom
Tony Abbott, they whisper, is the answer. One pauses to consider the question. The man who stopped the boats is looking for votes — and the portfolio he has quietly assembled since Warringah showed him the door is not a gaffe reel. It is an ideology rendered as a CV. Fox Corp is the mothership. The GWPF handles the science. Quadrant handles the culture. The Ramsay Centre handles the universities. The Danube Institute handles the international networking. And the Australian Liberal Party, should Abbott have his way, handles the politics. It turns out he was the repository all along.
One Nation’s battler lie unravels
One Nation calls itself the battler’s friend. Gina Rinehart’s plane, the NRA’s phone calls and Big Coal’s Senate votes tell a different story. Howard sowed the tares.
AUKUS: A Black Comedy in Several Ruinously Expensive Acts
The Palace knew about Kerr’s plan to dismiss Whitlam. Whitlam did not. Fifty-one years later, the same Crown is phoning the American president to sell AUKUS. Urban Wronski on the loyalty that never changed.
Caps Off: How Mark Hammond’s Appointment Completes Labor’s Capture by Uncle Sam and the AUKUS Boondoggle
Albanese grins in his USS Vermont cap. Hammond smiles in his Chief of Navy lid. The submariners have taken the wheel of Australian defence — $368 billion, phantom crews, obsolete technology, and a slow bicycle ride to yesterday’s wars. Urban Wronski on how Labor completed its capture by Uncle Sam. With a little help from Clarke and Dawe.
The Biggest Peacetime Increase in Our Nation’s History
Defence Minister Richard Marles announces Australia’s largest peacetime defence spending hike while the Geelong refinery burns and fuel reserves hit five weeks. A deadpan account of spending better, NATO accounting, and submarines arriving in the 2040s.
DeadWood Marles: Australia’s Liberal in Drag
He is, in the most precise political sense available, a Liberal in drag. Same tough talk on alliances and deterrence. Same fondness for American hardware and AUKUS largesse. Wrapped in just enough factional red to keep the true believers satisfied. All suit, no spark. And a remarkable talent for making national security sound like a mildly confusing numbers meeting that ran somewhat overtime. Urban Wronski profiles Richard “DeadWood” Marles, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence.
Urban Wronski Writes 