How Australia became the world’s cautionary tale in resource management. The mining industry didn’t steal our wealth. We handed it over. The press, owned by the same mining interests since 1923, made sure we never asked why.
How Australia became the world’s cautionary tale in resource management. The mining industry didn’t steal our wealth. We handed it over. The press, owned by the same mining interests since 1923, made sure we never asked why.
They blew up 46,000 years of human history for $135 million worth of iron ore. And it was legal. From Juukan Gorge to 80,000 abandoned toxic sites, Australia’s mining industry is cannibalising its own future while shipping 86% of profits offshore.
They gave him 94 seats and a mandate like no other. But barely five months after his landslide re-election, Anthony Albanese’s government is already disappointing voters. From FOI requests plunging to just 25% approval, to $1 million in climate travel in two months, to a housing policy that makes homes less affordable—the second-term complacency is real. As independent MPs note: “We couldn’t go any lower than Morrison, but we have.”
Labor’s Eco Renaissance: Destroying the Joint, Sensitively As federal parliament resumes its familiar variety show of “Consensus or Catastrophe”, the Labor government unveils another environmental revolution; provided it doesn’t trouble its donors in hi-vis or hard hats. Gina Rinehart’s chequebook, Woodside’s lobbyists, and the captains … Continue reading Australia’s Environmental Policy Crisis: A Closer Look
AUKUS is the culmination of our imperial hangover. It combines obsolete technology in an age of drones with geography that defeats its purpose, industrial bottlenecks that guarantee delay, and a strategic rationale contradicted by its authors. Political cowardice is dressed as resolve. We are spending a generation’s wealth on submarines we probably will not get, cannot crew, cannot fuel, to fight wars Washington has already priced out of its plans.
Australia has a tragic genius for repeating its strategic mistakes. Part 2 of Urban Wronski’s AUKUS series traces how bipartisan cowardice; from Morrison’s photo-ops to Albanese’s deference; turned dependence into doctrine and loyalty into lunacy.
If Helen of Troy had the face that launched a thousand ships, Pauline Hanson has the face that launched a thousand chips. But the real story isn’t about Hanson at all—it’s about Long John Howard, who stole her racism in the 1990s, laundered it through the language of sovereignty and security, and left both major parties trapped in a political theatre he built thirty years ago.
One Nation polls at 14% between elections but collapsed to 6.4% in May—the evergreen boost that never makes it to the ballot box. Yet even with Anthony Albanese’s historic landslide, Labor still governs within Howard’s frame, still talks tough on “border security,” still uses his language. The government changes. The script endures.
From Barnaby Joyce playing pantaloon to Hanson serving up warmed-over resentment with extra chicken salt, this is how we all ended up living in Howard’s Australia.
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