“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.
Category: australian-politics
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.
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.
Uninvestable, A Clarke and Dawe sketch
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
Clarke and Dawe tribute: The PM Explains Gas
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.
THE RECEIPT: the tab
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.
Governments Just Get On With the Job: Mark Butler’s Razor Gang and the NDIS They Want You to Forget
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.
Urban Wronski Writes 