Category: australian-politics

A surrealist oil painting in the style of René Magritte's The Son of Man. A bowler-hatted figure in a grey suit stands against a blue sky with clouds. Where the face should be, a large LNG carrier floats in its place, serene and enormous. The figure holds a briefcase stencilled with the letters PRRT.

Uninvestable, A Clarke and Dawe sketch

May 3, 2026May 4, 2026 · 1 Comment ·

This sketch is written in the tradition of John Clarke and Bryan Dawe, whose work set the standard for Australian political satire. It is offered as homage, not impersonation. John Clarke died in April 2017. Bryan Dawe continues to work as a writer and performer. … Continue reading Uninvestable, A Clarke and Dawe sketch

A Clarke and Dawe style television interview set. A suited interviewer sits in a grey armchair facing a second chair occupied by a figure whose head has been replaced by a framed oil painting of an LNG tanker labelled AUS-INC. and LIQUEFIED SOVEREIGNTY. Small plastic figurines of cheering people stand at the bottom of the frame.

Clarke and Dawe tribute: The PM Explains Gas

April 26, 2026April 26, 2026 ·

Shell’s Australian chair fronted a Senate inquiry into gas taxation and couldn’t say how much revenue Shell makes from selling Australian gas. She was, however, very clear on the ill-advised part. Urban Wronski channels Clarke and Dawe to interview the Prime Minister about the gas we own, the tax we don’t collect, and the modelling that takes time.

A long paper receipt curls across a dark wooden surface in the foreground, printed with the words Diesel, Data Bundle and Gas Royalties. Behind it, a composite background blurs together a supermarket aisle, a classroom and a fuel bowser.

THE RECEIPT: the tab

April 25, 2026 · 4 Comments ·

The receipt from the Ararat servo gets longer. Palantir Technologies is watching every movement of every Coles shelf-stacker. The AI bubble is burning gas to produce, so far, almost nothing of measurable value. And thirty-five thousand Victorian teachers walked off the job to tell us what this is all costing. Urban Wronski tallies the full tab.

A dark editorial cartoon showing a self-satisfied bureaucrat at a desk marked “Sustainability Taskforce” signing documents while a exhausted woman with an NDIS appeal folder sits in a waiting room behind him, and through the window a nuclear submarine sits in dry dock with a $425 billion price tag.

Governments Just Get On With the Job: Mark Butler’s Razor Gang and the NDIS They Want You to Forget

April 22, 2026April 23, 2026 · 3 Comments ·

Lisa Goodwin’s twins are autistic. She applied three times, fought for years,
and when Labor announced its latest cuts she called it “a betrayal.” Urban
Wronski on Mark Butler’s razor gang, the $425 billion submarine program eating
the fiscal space disabled children once occupied, the algorithm that replaces
human judgment, and the shearing sheds that would not recognise the party
that grew from them.

Caps Off: How Mark Hammond’s Appointment Completes Labor’s Capture by Uncle Sam and the AUKUS Boondoggle

April 18, 2026 · 5 Comments ·

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.

Defence Minister Richard Marles at National Press Club podium announcing record defence spending as Geelong oil refinery burns in background during Australian fuel crisis 2026

The Biggest Peacetime Increase in Our Nation’s History

April 17, 2026April 17, 2026 · 1 Comment ·

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.

The radome spheres of Pine Gap intelligence facility visible against the Australian desert sky at dusk, small against the vast red landscape

Not Reporting A War Part 2

April 12, 2026April 12, 2026 · 2 Comments ·

Pete Hegseth is the Peter Principle applied to the largest weapons arsenal in human history. Pine Gap guides the missiles. Australian-made F-35 parts are in the payload. And our media calls it a partnership. Part Two of Urban Wronski’s investigation into what Australia’s press is not reporting, and what our silence is costing.

Sparse television interview set in the style of Clarke and Dawe: interviewer at desk, suited figure rising to leave, clutching a shopping bag labelled ALBO, Pine Gap radomes faintly visible through studio window behind him.

A Man of His Word

April 5, 2026April 5, 2026 · 3 Comments ·

Bryan Dawe is seated. John Clarke enters in a suit, slightly harried, carrying a reusable shopping bag with “ALBO” written on it in texta.
Australia sent troops to a war it hasn’t declared, through a base it won’t discuss, after a school massacre it can’t explain, while the Prime Minister assures us that transparency is everything. Clarke and Dawe, imagined for the age of Operation Epic Fury.

A petrol bowser shaped like a missile being filled by a suited politician, with war imagery and satellite surveillance in the background

For Australia The Price is Always Right

April 4, 2026April 5, 2026 · 9 Comments ·

Australia has signed up to another war without debate and without clarity. The costs are already visible, in rising prices, strained supply chains and a deepening entanglement that blurs the line between ally and participant.

Are we at War with Iran?

March 23, 2026 · 4 Comments ·

INTERVIEWER: Are we at war with Iran?
ALBANESE: No.
INTERVIEWER: Then why did they bomb our base?
ALBANESE: Because they’re Iran.
One interviewer. One Prime Minister. Forty-five satellite dishes, three submariners, one Wedgetail aircraft, a peace negotiation bombed flat, a hundred and seventy schoolgirls, and a pocket square without a mark on it. A political interview in the tradition of Clarke and Dawe.

Urban Wronski Writes

New, fearless, fresh and original Australian political comment, satire and more.