One Nation’s David Farley has taken the once‑impregnable Coalition seat of Farrer. But with Gina Rinehart’s funding and the party’s rural base, who really owns the populist rage?
Category: Political Comment
That Was The Week That Was, No. 1 — Part Two: The RBA Show
The Reserve Bank cut rates. Jim Chalmers was pleased. He was, if anything, a little too pleased, the controlled smile of a man who has been waiting a long time for something to go right.
That Was The Week That Was No. 1, Part One: The Repository of All Wisdom
Tony Abbott, they whisper, is the answer. One pauses to consider the question. The man who stopped the boats is looking for votes — and the portfolio he has quietly assembled since Warringah showed him the door is not a gaffe reel. It is an ideology rendered as a CV. Fox Corp is the mothership. The GWPF handles the science. Quadrant handles the culture. The Ramsay Centre handles the universities. The Danube Institute handles the international networking. And the Australian Liberal Party, should Abbott have his way, handles the politics. It turns out he was the repository all along.
Phillip Lowe in a Frock
The RBA has raised the cash rate for the third time in a row. The board voted 8-1. The dissenting member cannot be identified. Someone had a conscience. We just can’t send them a fruit basket. Urban Wronski channels Clarke and Dawe.
O Quel Cul T’as: The Pat, The Politics and The Perfectly Fake Marriage
In 1969, Kenneth Tynan named a nude revue after a French pun about a woman’s backside. In 2026, the forty-seventh president of the United States provided the perfect sequel. The gesture lasted less than a second. The politics behind it have been building for decades.
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
One Nation’s battler lie unravels
One Nation calls itself the battler’s friend. Gina Rinehart’s plane, the NRA’s phone calls and Big Coal’s Senate votes tell a different story. Howard sowed the tares.
The King’s Speech: A Royal Masterclass in Diplomatic Evisceration
On 28 April 2026, King Charles III stood before a joint session of Congress and delivered twenty minutes of perfectly calibrated diplomatic napalm. He spoke of Magna Carta, judicial independence, NATO and the rule of law. Donald Trump stood there smiling and felt the warmth of the room. He missed everything else.
AUKUS: A Black Comedy in Several Ruinously Expensive Acts
The Palace knew about Kerr’s plan to dismiss Whitlam. Whitlam did not. Fifty-one years later, the same Crown is phoning the American president to sell AUKUS. Urban Wronski on the loyalty that never changed.
Is Trump Bullet-proof?
A man called Cole Tomas Allen arrived at the White House
Correspondents’ Dinner with a shotgun, a pistol, knives, and a
manifesto. He called himself the Friendly Federal Assassin. He
did not kill Trump. But by midnight, the president was invoking
Lincoln, the theology machine was running, and the Epstein
Inspector General probe had slid quietly to the bottom of the
news agenda. Again.
Urban Wronski Writes 