Anthony Albanese’s government is under siege—but history shows Labor can fight back. From Whitlam’s boldness to Keating’s fire and the Greens’ grassroots power, survival demands courage. Here’s how.
Category: Albanese government
AI: The Emperor’s New Algorithm, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Recognise the Same Old Con
After billions in development, Microsoft quietly slashed expectations for Copilot, its AI wonderchild that can’t reliably perform basic tasks. The pattern is grimly familiar: massive investment chasing promised returns that never appear, followed by market correction when reality intrudes. But this bubble comes with a uniquely toxic twist—AI’s environmental cost accelerates the very climate crisis it claims it will solve.
Data centers now gulp enough water annually to supply hundreds of families while generating marketing copy riddled with errors. Training GPT-3 alone evaporated 700,000 liters of clean freshwater. Meanwhile, Australia’s Albanese government subsidizes data center expansion while manufacturing collapses, emissions targets slip through accounting tricks, and workers face automation without security.
The millenarian faith in AI’s salvation delays the unglamorous work we actually need: rapid decarbonization, public investment in resilience, and democratic reform to counter corporate capture. Time to stop waiting for miracles.
When Antisemitism Becomes a Political Weapon
n the wake of Bondi, grief is being channelled into a dangerous misdiagnosis: that Jewish safety requires conflation, censorship, and punitive power. This essay argues for a public health approach to violent extremism, warns against collapsing Judaism into Israeli state policy, and shows how selective vigilance and entrenched Islamophobia undermine prevention and make everyone less safe.
AUKUS Caucus
Australia has built a $368 billion cargo cult and called it strategy. The AUKUS Caucus offers money, bases and sovereignty in exchange for submarines that do not exist, built by shipyards that cannot deliver, on timelines that belong to fantasy. The only thing arriving on schedule is the bill.
Wronski’s News on Wednesday
Tuesday 10 December revealed Australian politics at its finest: banning teenagers from social media while spending $368 billion on submarines the UK admits it can’t build, from a country that’s already moved on diplomatically. Welcome to the Kingdom of the Unfalsifiable, where policy exists beyond verification, protected by the impenetrable forcefield of good intentions. As Richard Denniss observed, only a fabulously rich country could commit such sums without troubling Treasury or Parliament. We’re not battlers – we’re loaded enough to operate entirely in the realm of political fan fiction.
Labor’s Betrayal of Environmental Justice, a response to Bob Brown.
Anthony Albanese has perfected the political sleight-of-hand that turns protection into permission. Bob Brown’s forensic analysis reveals Labor’s environmental legislation as corporate capitulation.
Ban It and They’ll Thank Us Later: Labor’s Teen Social Media Panic
While Finland invests twenty years teaching its children to think critically about media, Australia reaches for symbolic gestures and declares them progress. Within days, a new law regulating social media will take effect; one already destined to fail in its stated aim of protecting young … Continue reading Ban It and They’ll Thank Us Later: Labor’s Teen Social Media Panic
Part Four: “When ‘Historic Reform’ Means Managed Decline”
The final instalment: Did Labor’s environmental reform stop the degradation, or just slow it down enough to look serious while keeping the machinery of destruction functional? We measure the bill against Samuel’s recommendations, synthesise what every independent expert told us, and reveal the four-step pattern of how to manage environmental decline while calling it protection. This is policy capture in a democracy, not through corruption or conspiracy, but through the mundane mechanics of political calculation where industry interests outweigh both scientific advice and majority voter preference.
The Climate Silence. And What Actual Environmental Commitment Looks Like
Australia’s new environment law makes it illegal to consider climate change when approving coal and gas projects. Not an oversight. Not a gap to fix later. Explicit prohibition. This is what corporate capture looks like—and what genuine environmental commitment would require instead.
CLARKE & DAWE do Koalas and Coal
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.
Urban Wronski Writes 