The Coalition’s polling collapse reveals a terminal decline. When corporate DNA meets authoritarian legislation, democracy itself becomes the casualty.
Tag: Corporate Capture
AI: The Emperor’s New Algorithm, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Recognise the Same Old Con
After billions in development, Microsoft quietly slashed expectations for Copilot, its AI wonderchild that can’t reliably perform basic tasks. The pattern is grimly familiar: massive investment chasing promised returns that never appear, followed by market correction when reality intrudes. But this bubble comes with a uniquely toxic twist—AI’s environmental cost accelerates the very climate crisis it claims it will solve.
Data centers now gulp enough water annually to supply hundreds of families while generating marketing copy riddled with errors. Training GPT-3 alone evaporated 700,000 liters of clean freshwater. Meanwhile, Australia’s Albanese government subsidizes data center expansion while manufacturing collapses, emissions targets slip through accounting tricks, and workers face automation without security.
The millenarian faith in AI’s salvation delays the unglamorous work we actually need: rapid decarbonization, public investment in resilience, and democratic reform to counter corporate capture. Time to stop waiting for miracles.
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.
The seeing stones. Australia and its New CIA-Made Friend.
“Pure undistorted truth burns up the world.”Nikolai Berdyaev(Also, apparently, Palantir’s unofficial mission statement.) I. Enter the Magical Spy Orb, Stage Right In Tolkien’s Middle-earth, the palantír was a sort of medieval CCTV camera with attitude. A seeing stone that showed you just enough truth to … Continue reading The seeing stones. Australia and its New CIA-Made Friend.
Labor’s Betrayal of Environmental Justice, a response to Bob Brown.
Anthony Albanese has perfected the political sleight-of-hand that turns protection into permission. Bob Brown’s forensic analysis reveals Labor’s environmental legislation as corporate capitulation.
The Climate Silence. And What Actual Environmental Commitment Looks Like
Australia’s new environment law makes it illegal to consider climate change when approving coal and gas projects. Not an oversight. Not a gap to fix later. Explicit prohibition. This is what corporate capture looks like—and what genuine environmental commitment would require instead.
The Greens’ Genuine Wins, And The Corporate Capture Revealed
The Greens won real concessions on forests. But Labor still won’t consider whether new coal and gas should exist at all. This is how you manage environmental decline while calling it conservation.
THE AI WARS: A TWO-PART INDICTMENT
Thirty billion dollars a year buys server farms instead of hospitals. Urban Wronski on how AI infrastructure spending is eating Australian democracy and why the machinery can’t be stopped—unless we choose to stop it.
The Midas Curse: How Mining Interests Own Australia’s Democracy
Scott Morrison waves coal in Parliament. The Minerals Council supplied it. He thought he was conducting. He was the instrument.
That moment wasn’t an aberration. It was testimony.
For decades, the mining lobby has achieved what every industry dreams of: complete bipartisan capture. Not just influence. Not just access. Ownership.
Today’s analysis maps the complete system; from dark money pipelines to media amplification, and asks whether we’re willing to build a movement powerful enough to break it.
Quiet, Piggy: How Calling a Female Reporter Livestock Became Just Another Tuesday in the Death of American Democracy
This is it—the final piece examining what “quiet, piggy” really means.
We’ve traced how outrages disappear (Part One) and mapped the nine-year war on women who speak (Part Two). Now we need to understand the broader pattern.
Because what’s happening isn’t chaos. It’s a playbook. Refined over decades. Tested globally. Deployed in America with surgical precision.
The question isn’t whether you’ll recognise the strategy. It’s whether you’ll resist before the window slams shut.
Urban Wronski Writes 