Category: Politics and Society

“There’s a reflex in Australian politics that turns grief into ladder-climbing. After Bondi, the chorus demanding a Royal Commission has become compulsory. But the nation is being sold catharsis when what’s needed is law—and what’s on offer is legally hobbled theatre.”

Diverse Australian protesters unite for justice outside Parliament House, holding a banner reading ‘NO MORE SPECTACLE. JUSTICE NOW,’ symbolizing cross-community solidarity against political inaction.

Labor’s Bondi Backflip: When Fear Trumps Justice

Anthony Albanese’s surrender to a Bondi Royal Commission reveals a political system that prioritises spectacle over justice. But as diverse communities unite to demand real accountability, the question isn’t whether Albanese folded—it’s whether Australia will let the powerful turn tragedy into theatre. A systemic analysis of fear, failure, and the fightback

ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS MUM’S LOGIN: How Labor’s Social Media Ban Became a Masterclass in Government Theatre

Christmas 2025, and Australia’s teenagers are unwrapping their presents: new VPNs, borrowed parental logins, and AI-generated profile photos. Two weeks into Labor’s world-first social media ban, and it’s already a monument to performative governance. Meanwhile, the minister who should be celebrating is in hiding over travel rorts, and the policy architect has vanished into an expenses scandal. Welcome to government theatre at its finest.

Standing Together (a joint Palestinian‑Jewish project advocating for equality and peace in Israel‑Palestine)

Who’s Got Religion? Part One: The Myth of the Religious Nation

Australia is a post-religious nation whose institutions remain structured for religious privilege. We have declining religious participation but expanding religious institutional power. We have fewer believers but stronger legal protections for discrimination. We have marginal religious practice but media that treats religious institutions as deserving special deference. Most Australians don’t have religion. But religious institutions—operating through legal privilege, institutional networks, lobbying capacity, and media deference—hold a powerful grip on Australian public policy, education, and employment law. They retain structural power precisely because they no longer need mass participation.

The Billion-Dollar Balcony: ASIO’s Sovereignty Failure

When another nation’s intelligence operatives are called in to assist with a domestic security catastrophe, the admission is plain: our billion-dollar spymasters cannot clean up their own mess. The Bondi massacre exposes not just intelligence failure, but the hollowing out of Australian sovereignty itself. ASIO’s budget exceeds $700 million annually, yet perpetrators “known to authorities” strike with impunity while the surveillance state watches from elsewhere.