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.
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.
The National Archives orders ABC and SBS journalists to stop their Signal messages from disappearing. The ABC declines to explain how it will protect sources. The SBS is “still working through it.” Nobody is accountable. In the spirit of Clarke and Dawe, Urban Wronski follows the circular buck-passing to its magnificently absurd conclusion.
A deadpan Clarke & Dawe dialogue exposing the absurd machinery behind Australia’s love affair with coal, the bureaucratic disappearance of koalas, and a political system that “does not evolve, it thickens.” Dark, sharp, and painfully recognisable.
BRYAN DAWE: John, the government has announced a state funeral for Graham Richardson.
JOHN CLARKE: That is correct, Bryan. Full ceremonial arrangements, high attendance, very dignified.
BRYAN DAWE: Despite his record.
Guardian reporting shows Advance has pumped out at least 44 anti-immigration ads on Meta since the 2025 election campaign began, with more than 1.5 million impressions, drenched in talk of “mass immigration” and “threats” to Australian values. Some Liberal MPs have called the campaign “disturbing” and warned it will poison relations with migrant communities.
You cannot reach net zero in 2050 while approving fossil fuel projects that operate until 2070. That’s a 20-year gap. That’s not nuance. That’s not balancing interests. That’s fraud.
Labor approved the Northwest Shelf extension until 2070. Among 30 other projects. All while claiming to take net zero seriously.
The math doesn’t lie. Labor does.
Australia’s social media ban for under-16s hands enforcement to the platforms that profit from teen attention. That’s not policy, that’s Monty Python with cabinet approval.
This piece examines how Net Zero has become a scented screensaver: soothing sounds, calming visuals, ambient reassurance for donors. And how the fossil rentier class continues to extract while the political class performs a kind of serenity ritual in public.
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An exploration of the hazardous objects and features found in the Victorian home
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SIT DOWN, HAVE A DRINK, RELAX.
Urban Wronski Writes 