Bryan Dawe interviews a senior Labor figure about the smoothest national conference in decades — three days, one open debate, and not a face in the room. A tribute in the spirit of Clarke and Dawe.
Category: Australian Politics, Media, Satire and Commentary, Democracy
Mid-Winter Ball
“Were they promises?” “They were statements.” “Promises?” “Statements.” “Is there a difference?”
The Prime Minister explains housing policy, the Australian dream, and why he’ll be at the Mid-Winter Ball.
Anthony Norman Albanese crossed Parramatta Road the way other people cross a street: with the calm and conviction of someone who has rehearsed the gesture for television. He came from a housing commission island ringed by depots and the click-clack of Catholic rosary beads, black as anthracite and polished to a gloss by the unrelenting petitions of the poor but faithful. He was, as the campaign line put it, a son of a single mum. It was also an opening line with longer ambitions.
The Invisible Press, Part 2
The Australian Harrow does not use needles. It uses bail conditions, suppression orders, national security legislation, and pre-trial process that can run for years before a single day in open court. David McBride got six years in gaol for telling the truth. Bernard Collaery was prosecuted for defending his client. The penal colony never really ended. It merely changed its dress code.
The Great Digital Enclosure: How Google is Stealing the Future of Independent Journalism
Google’s AI Overviews are strip-mining independent online writing. It’s institutionalised theft. And the regulatory framework is standing in the rubble, blinking.
The Scorecard
One Nation has won the seat of Farrer. The Liberal vote collapsed by 31
points. The journalists filed the numbers. Urban Wronski asks the harder
question: what does a win like this mean when the information ecosystem that
democracy depends on is owned, hollowed out, and burning? A Martin Amis-
flavoured reckoning with journalism, dark money and the Palace of Lies.
Urban Wronski Writes 