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.
Tag: Australian Politics
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.
Caps Off: How Mark Hammond’s Appointment Completes Labor’s Capture by Uncle Sam and the AUKUS Boondoggle
Albanese grins in his USS Vermont cap. Hammond smiles in his Chief of Navy lid. The submariners have taken the wheel of Australian defence — $368 billion, phantom crews, obsolete technology, and a slow bicycle ride to yesterday’s wars. Urban Wronski on how Labor completed its capture by Uncle Sam. With a little help from Clarke and Dawe.
The Biggest Peacetime Increase in Our Nation’s History
Defence Minister Richard Marles announces Australia’s largest peacetime defence spending hike while the Geelong refinery burns and fuel reserves hit five weeks. A deadpan account of spending better, NATO accounting, and submarines arriving in the 2040s.
DeadWood Marles: Australia’s Liberal in Drag
He is, in the most precise political sense available, a Liberal in drag. Same tough talk on alliances and deterrence. Same fondness for American hardware and AUKUS largesse. Wrapped in just enough factional red to keep the true believers satisfied. All suit, no spark. And a remarkable talent for making national security sound like a mildly confusing numbers meeting that ran somewhat overtime. Urban Wronski profiles Richard “DeadWood” Marles, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence.
Are we at War with Iran?
INTERVIEWER: Are we at war with Iran?
ALBANESE: No.
INTERVIEWER: Then why did they bomb our base?
ALBANESE: Because they’re Iran.
One interviewer. One Prime Minister. Forty-five satellite dishes, three submariners, one Wedgetail aircraft, a peace negotiation bombed flat, a hundred and seventy schoolgirls, and a pocket square without a mark on it. A political interview in the tradition of Clarke and Dawe.
Bondi’s Blood, Herzog’s Shield: How Australia’s Grief was Hijacked for Geopolitics
The Bondi massacre exposed more than a failure of gun laws. It revealed a political class willing to fold a community’s grief into a diplomatic script—inviting a leader accused of incitement to genocide to stand as the symbol of Australia’s solidarity. This is the story of how sorrow was weaponised, dissent was crushed, and the rule of law was suspended in the name of comfort.
An Anatomy of the Abyss: Trump’s $85 Billion ICE Machine and the Price of Canberra’s Silence
As breastfeeding babies are torn from mothers and the American interior turns into a new Heart of Darkness, the Albanese government remains pathologically mute. It is time to stop playing the submissive junior partner and start acting like a sovereign nation that recalls what humanity looks like.
The Hollow Crown: Australia’s Liberal Party and the Contest for a World That No Longer Exists
The Liberal Party’s leadership circus isn’t just about who wins—it’s about whether Australia can afford the show at all. From Angus Taylor’s Cayman-stained ledgers to Andrew Hastie’s heretical protectionism, the contest for the Liberal crown reveals a party—and a country—grappling with a world order in freefall. Part 1 of a 2-part analysis.
The Month in Room 315: Bondi’s Killers, Davao’s Hotel Curtains, and the Australian Art of Calling a Blind Spot ‘Unavoidable’
After the Bondi Beach massacre, Australia reached again for its familiar sedatives: the “lone wolf” narrative and a distant foreign setting to absorb the blame. But behind the rhetoric lies a deeper pattern — local radicalisation, institutional triage, and a political culture addicted to comfort over accountability.
