Nobody planted Pauline Hanson. The miners wrote her song a decade before she sang it. Thirty years on, they have bought her a plane.
Tag: Australian Politics
One Nation, Three Shareholders
The fraud charge against One Nation’s founders was quashed. The real offence was perfectly legal: a party built so that the people who paid for it would never own it.
Going Down: Australia’s Dutch Auction of Its Humanity
Labor, the Coalition and One Nation are calling the migrant intake down like lots on a falling clock. Nobody at the podium will ask what we owe the people on the block.
Eighty to One: The Greens, the Press Gallery and the Wrong Race
The press gallery has already called the Greens a roughie. In 1948 a camera at Flemington had something to say about that.
Australia’s West Bank Abdication: The Comfort of Complicity
Twelve nations put a price on Israel’s illegal settlements. Canberra sat at the table for months, then remembered it had a Security Council seat to win.
Labor’s National Conference: A Triumph of Unity
Bryan Dawe interviews a senior Labor figure about the smoothest national conference in decades — three days, one open debate, and not a face in the room. A tribute in the spirit of Clarke and Dawe.
Mid-Winter Ball
“Were they promises?” “They were statements.” “Promises?” “Statements.” “Is there a difference?”
The Prime Minister explains housing policy, the Australian dream, and why he’ll be at the Mid-Winter Ball.
The Art of the Steal
Trump killed Truth, Justice and the American Way. The same announcement-as-product racket just sold Australia three second-hand submarines and called it a triumph.
The Budget That Will Not Save You
The 2026-27 federal budget breaks two election promises, grows fossil fuel subsidies faster than the NDIS, hands $250 a year to workers, and approves gas drilling until 2080. Jim Chalmers was right that the can had been kicked far enough. He has been less forthcoming about who was doing the kicking.
The Front Fell Off The Coalition
Written in tribute to the late great John Clarke and his long-suffering straight man Bryan Dawe, whose two chairs and a clipboard remain the gold standard of Australian political satire. The occasion: One Nation’s historic first win in the House of Representatives, the Coalition’s nine-point-eight per cent primary vote in a seat held since 1949, and an exit strategy that turns out to be no exit at all. Going forward.
