Category: Barnaby Joyce

The $9 Trillion Net Zero Lie: How the Coalition Turned Investment Into a Scare Campaign

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When a political party starts throwing around numbers with more zeros than Peter Dutton had votes left in Dickson, you know you’re not getting economic analysis, you’re getting a con job. The Coalition’s $9 trillion net zero scare campaign is the latest instalment in a decades-long franchise of climate hysteria, from Whyalla’s promised obliteration to the $100 lamb roast that never arrived. But this time, the real cost is the one they never mention: the price Australians are already paying for a lost decade of delay, obstruction and weaponised ignorance.

Alt Text: "John Howard during Tampa crisis and Pauline Hanson in fish shop representing political appropriation of One Nation rhetoric"

Ask Not What You Can Do for One Nation—But What Has One Nation Ever Done for Anybody?

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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.