Every day across Australia, hundreds of camels, mules and goats are working diligently to help keep the country moving. Donkeys are rounding up cattle and defending land against predators, pigs are sniffing out truffles and horses are on the ground removing logs from forests. Their bravery and intrinsic behaviour has been valuable for hundreds of years, helping reduce devastation across the country and saving the economy millions. However, more than a third of Aussies are unaware of how animals help our everyday life. A new Working Animals International study found that more than a third of Australians believed animals working alongside people was a "thing of the past". In reality, these animals are some of the most important figures keeping the country moving. "Working animals such as horses, donkeys, mules, oxen and camels play a vital role in the lives of millions of people," chief executive Linda Edwards said. "They help families earn an income, transport goods to market and ensure that children get to school, yet too often, their welfare is overlooked." Donkeys, for example, are often used to help round up cattle and, in Australia, to protect farms against predators, such as foxes, wild dogs and dingoes, and reduce the threat of bushfires. Yet, 87 per cent of Australians are completely unaware of how they keep the country moving. "For over a century, we have worked alongside animal owners to improve access to skills, advice and veterinary care so that working animals can live healthy lives and be properly valued," Ms Edwards said. Brooke Purvis, who lives in the NSW Hunter Valley with her husband, was once a horse competitor. But since 2021, she's been training feral donkeys from the Northern Territory to work as guardian against predators threatening the land. Donkeys are considered pests in the Northern Territory and are often shot to control the population. "They shoot feral donkeys in the NT and we thought 'how can we repurpose them over here?'" Ms Purvis said. "Donkeys are far more than 'just feral' — they're intelligent, practical working animals with a key role in Australia's agricultural future." Alexandra Feiam on the news.com.au website.
Hard slogs and cricket dismissals
They might earn a lot more than you and me but they earn it. The Sea Eagles only just beat the Titans 12-10 hoever, the Warriors beat the Dragons 30-12. The only easy games in the AFL were the Swans and Geelong. Swans got done 107 to 80 and Carlton who won 92-58 against Port Adelaide. In contrast, Collingwood beat the West Coast only 92-82 and North Melbourne scraped past the Gold Coast 111 to 105. [click to read more]
Cricketing goes from bad to worse reports Ben Horne and Robert (Crash) Craddock in the Oz. A senior Cricket Australia staff member has been sacked for not declaring an association with a company commissioned contracts worth more than $600,000.
The dismissal comes after an anonymous whistleblower notified CA that the staff member had given CA work to a company they had ties with.
CA on Friday concluded the investigation and a CA statement revealed the staff member has now left CA
.
“ The anonymous complaint was made amid a major restructuring of the CA office with more than 20 staff members made redundant this year following heavy cuts last year.
Michael West Media Independent Journalists and Cricket Et Al had filed reports detailing an internal CA whistleblower filed an anonymous report on April 13, alleging that a cloud-service provider engaged by the recently appointed IT department head, constituted a conflict of interest.
The whistleblower report claims due process was not followed in the procurement of the contracts and asks whether the senior CA staffer in question still had ties to the cloud-service company, which he was formerly a director of, when the work was commissioned.
There were also questions raised by the whistleblower around the process followed in appointing the senior IT staffer, who used to work at the National Rugby League, and other staff he subsequently brought into CA, who allegedly also previously worked at the NRL.An independent assessment of claims made by an anonymous whistleblower concerning a CA staff member has been completed.
An allegation of an undeclared conflict of interest during a procurement process has been substantiated.
| 🎪 | Renewables support waning |
Support for new electricity generation projects powered by nuclear energy, coal, gas and fossil fuels-based hydrogen has soared to record highs, amid a rise in the number of Australians who believe the renewable energy transition is moving too quickly, reports The Australian today's website. [click to read more]
As the Albanese government doubles down on its renewables revolution to achieve Labor’s ambitious emissions reduction and clean energy targets, a new Mood of the Nation survey reveals that voters have ongoing concerns about power affordability and reliability.
The post-budget SEC Newgate survey of 1210 voters across every state and territory, which was conducted on May 13-18, found that reducing cost increases for household bills and essential expenses remains the No. 1 concern for Australians.
The top nine cost-of-living pressures were electricity and gas bills, grocery prices, petrol prices, insurance premiums, rent, mortgage repayments, water bills and motorway tolls.
After the Middle East war exposed critical supply chain deficiencies, the poll showed a pick-up in support for new fossil fuels-based electricity generation projects.
While rooftop solar (84%), waste-to-energy projects (74%) and hydro-electric power (73%) attracted widespread backing, record support levels were recorded for coal, gas, nuclear and fossil fuels-based hydrogen.
The survey showed rising levels of support for hydrogen gas created from fossil fuels (up to 42%), nuclear power (up to an equal record high of 40%), gas-fired power plants (up to 39%) and coal-fired power plants (up to 38%). Since October 2023, support for coal and gas-fired power has risen nine points.
Compared with the first Mood of the Nation poll in mid-2022, the number of voters who believe the speed of the renewable energy transition is moving too quickly increased from 17% to a record 23% this month. After hitting a record low 42% in February, the number of voters who believe the transition is moving too slowly edged up to 44%.
Older Australians and more men than women think the renewables transition is moving too quickly. Positivity about the transition to renewables stayed at 52%, while 27% of Australians felt negative about the clean-energy push.
While support levels for Labor’s 2035 emissions reduction target and the government’s commitment to net zero by 2050 remained steady at 59% and 56%, there is a lack of optimism that either goal will be achieved.
Only 40% of voters are confident the 2035 emissions reduction target will be met and just 32% are confident that Australia will achieve the mid-century net-zero target.
After Anthony Albanese this week flagged the government could extend the three-month fuel excise cut, the survey found 81% of Australians consider fuel availability will be an issue in the near-term, and 65% fear it will remain a problem over the next 12-months. The cost of halving fuel excise for three months was $2.55bn.
Despite the Prime Minister scrambling to secure petrol supply, 42% of voters (down from 60% last month) believe the government isn't doing enough to manage fuel availability.
Ed: Nothing, I bet nothing will sway this leftist government’s renewables charge — except a DISMISSAL or outsting of course! Remember the last dismissal?
| 🌀 | The mounting aged care tsunami |
The aged care system is already failing 200,000 older Australians waiting for care, the brutal truth is we did not fail to predict this crisis — we chose not to solve it, the Daily Telegraph newspaper reports today.
Economics often comes down to one brutally simple principle: supply and demand.
When demand exceeds supply, prices rise, queues form and shortages emerge. We see it in housing, childcare and electricity. Now we are watching the same slow-motion train wreck unfold in aged care.
Australia’s oldest baby boomers turn 80 this year. For the next decade, about 80,000 Australians will turn 80 every year.
That matters because the need for health and aged care services explodes in our late 70s and 80s. More people need home care. More need help with meals, transport and medication.
More will eventually require residential aged care. None of this is a surprise. Governments have known this wave was coming for decades, yet Australia still rations aged care services while pretending the system is coping.
On paper, the budget announcements sound reassuring. The government says it is delivering 32,000 additional Support at Home places in the coming financial year, on top of 83,000 places by the end of this financial year. That would bring the total number of Australians receiving support to 420,000 by 30 June 2027. To the casual observer, those numbers sound enormous.
But today around 200,000 older Australians are already waiting for home care services. These are not future applicants. These are people who have been assessed as needing care right now, or who are awaiting assessment.
Some are waiting for basic domestic help. Others need assistance with showering, dressing or medication. The average wait is close to a year. In the meantime, families are left to carry the burden while juggling work, finances and their own health problems.
A recent call to an ABC talkback program says it all. The caller’s father had been stuck in a hospital bed for weeks. After battling through mountains of paperwork, the caller finally got the news she had been praying for — he had been approved for residential aged care. She was ecstatic.
Then came the crushing blow: Yes, his need for care is approved, but there are no places. It may be nine months or more before we can admit him.
That neatly sums up the crisis. Even if 420,000 Australians are receiving Support at Home services by 30 June 2027, Treasury figures suggest there could still be 37,000 people waiting — unless packages are freed up because recipients either move into residential care or die. And the demographic wave keeps growing.
About 80,000 Australians turn 80 every year. Even if only half need support ∼ probably optimistic ∼ by 30 June 2027 we could still have 117,000 Australians needing care and waiting for it. The arithmetic is merciless. Demand is growing far faster than supply.
When governments ration services in a market where demand exceeds supply, queues are inevitable. That is exactly what is happening in aged care. Waiting times for residential care are now around a year as well.
Families and friends are forced to fill the gaps. Hospital beds are clogged with older patients who cannot safely return home but cannot access aged care either.
Last year the government lifted the market price cap for aged care accommodation from $550,000 to $750,000 so providers could build new facilities and modernise old ones. But it did not equally increase funding for financially disadvantaged residents.
Providers could effectively receive accommodation funding based on $750,000 from wealthier residents, while support for low-means residents was closer to $300,000.
For many providers, especially not-for-profits, the economics quickly became ugly. Some openly warned they could not continue taking large numbers of financially disadvantaged residents because the funding gap was simply too large.
The Budget throws money at the problem — increasing the accommodation supplement for homes with high numbers of low-means residents. Some homes may eventually get support equivalent to about $580,000.
But here’s the rub: the extra funding doesn't start until March 2028. And even then? It still falls $170,000 short of the indexed $750,000 market cap.
Too little. Too late. Problem not solved. [click the intro to return other stories]
| 👯 | More sleezebag on allegedly sleezy royal |
An historian has alleged that the former Duke of York’s was on a shortlist of 11 'prominent names' accused of sexual abuse
, reports the news.com.au website today. [click to read more]
Ten thousand duchesses having their toes sucked could not have done more to batter Buckingham Palace’s image than historian Andrew Lownie in a matter of months.
His scorching 2025 biography of Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, Entitled: The Rise and Fall of The House of Windsor, irrevocably unmasked the former prince as having the morals and character of Rasputin’s shadier brother.
Now Lownie is back, adding 40 pages to the newly released paperback edition of Entitled, in which he alleges that Andrew was on a 2025 FBI shortlist of 11 'prominent names' accused of sexual abuse during investigations by the Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force
.
Lownie writes that this FBI document alleges Andrew took part in orgies on Jeffrey Epstein’s private jet, of him requesting 16-year-old blondes
, of him being seen dirty dancing with a 'young girl'
and was given sexual favours to keep him 'happy'.
The new Entitled also adds Russian and Chinese spying to the disgraced, dumped duke’s story, not to mention a buffet of new, grubby claims about prostitutes, a former Miss Slovakia and Andrew lurking outside the bedroom of a pregnant woman.
But back to the 2025 FBI document, a PowerPoint specifically, which, Lownie writes, alleged that the former Duke of York had taken part in orgies on Epstein’s private jet
, been given sexual favours to keep him happy
on the instructions of Ghislaine Maxwell and been seen dirty dancing with a young girl
on Little Saint James.
One woman, whose name is redacted, said she was told 'to make Prince Andrew happy' by doing the 'exact same things that she did for Epstein because he is good friends with [Ghislaine] Maxwell'. However, the document hasn't been verified and does not establish guilt.
This FBI document is not the only instance, Lownie claims, of Andrew’s name appearing in US intelligence circles. Lownie writes that he was passed an American intelligence document, dated January 15, 2026 and headed Political: Corruption Andrew M-W; RU/PRC
.
The document reads: RIS [Russian intelligence services] originally developed … networks using figures such as Jeffrey Epstein for access to political and business leaders, and to control any possible domestic law enforcement actions
.
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor (AMW) was cultivated by RIS to cultivate a figure close to the British Royal Family as 'protection' for them to conduct both intelligence and corruption operations within EU/UK/US. Using AMW as a front provided legitimacy to corruption operations worldwide.
According to the document, Andrew was not blackmailed or otherwise coerced into this role
but was a willing participant in these schemes due to financial, sexual and personal reward
. However, Lownie stresses, It wasn't suggested that Andrew was knowingly getting in bed with Russian intelligence
.
However, he also writes that there were plenty of people the former HRH did try to get into bed with.
One employee at the British embassy in Bangkok told Lownie that staff were told to book two hotel rooms for Andrew — one 'official' one and one for his antics with prostitutes
.
Then there was a trip to Prague in 2003: Andrew’s office arranged with a friend of his in the capital to pay €10,000 for a former Miss Slovakia to spend the night with him
.
Then that night, a party was thrown in his honour full of the great and good — where he apparently turned up with his Miss Slovakia but left early. He obviously had no interest besides as a rendezvous for his tryst
.
The next year, in 2004, Andrew was invited to open a luxury Bahamas resort: He sent in a litany of demands that included a hefty appearance fee and a request for 16 year-old blondes
.
There’s more, of course.
Take this charming scene. The pregnant wife of a well-known Scottish businessman meets Andrew at a public dinner. What did the charmer do? He cracked obscene jokes, made innuendos about sleeping with her and then waited for her outside her room when she returned to it that evening
, Lownie writes.
Or this one. Andrew, a senior army officer told Lownie, would send pictures of naked women to senior service personnel.
Here is one final wonderfully karmic anecdote. While Andrew was in the navy he was seconded to a nuclear submarine, during which time he generally behaved like an a**e to everyone,
one crew man told Lownie.
Unfortunately one day, the duke left his kid leather flying gloves behind in the control room and so, the submariner took them into the bathroom and did something unspeakable and then returned the glove
.
As Lownie points out, this did much to raise the morale of the crew
.
| 🛅 | What if and when options |
Australian government plans for 'worst-case scenario' retail fuel rationing, documents reveal. With warnings world oil supplies are expected to hit 'red zone' by August, the Albanese government has outlined its powers to enforce daily purchase limits for motorists writes The Guardian website. [click to read the rest of the story].
Contained in documents obtained by Guardian Australian under freedom of information, one option the government has outlined to arrest a local fuel supply shortage is to impose a maximum transaction value per vehicle per day
— a rationing rule limiting how much fuel a single vehicle can buy at a service station over a 24-hour period.
Rationing has not been needed and the government has said it does not expect it to be required, with the March plan a worst-case scenario
.
But there is now expected to be increasing pressure on fuel supplies internationally, with the International Energy Agency warning on Friday that oil markets will enter the red zone
by August as stocks dwindle amid an export shortage from the Middle East.
Documents from the DCCEEW, show government officials have options for rationing if management of fuel by the petrol industry ∼ stressed as the government’s first preference ∼ proves inadequate.
The documents span the period from February 21 to March 17, covering the early part of the Iran war after US-Israel strikes on Iran began on February 28.
Under the Liquid Fuels Emergency Act, the federal energy minister, Chris Bowen, can declare a liquid fuel emergency, with powers including directing fuel supply and even rationing in extreme examples.
Even at the height of the crisis, Bowen and the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, publicly ruled out the need for fuel rationing.
Bowen said on March 26 a liquid fuel emergency plan, which has existed since 2006 and discussed rationing measures like banning jerry cans, was just a guide
and the government wouldn't do it that way
.
Other countries have enacted various responses to the fuel crisis, including limiting purchases and asking citizens to reduce travel, according to the IEA. The Australian government asked people to consider voluntary measures such as using public transport.
According to notes from a March 3 meeting of the National Oil Supply Emergency Committee, representatives from Victoria raised interest in thinking in future about what will rationing look like
. One participant ∼ details of which were redacted ∼ wanted to consider what demand rationing might look like and messaging around this
.
The meeting resolved that DCCEEW would consider work on how rationing under an liquid fuel emergency declaration would work under a future worst-case scenario, and what messaging might look like
.
The release of other documents, including a cabinet document titled Triggers to support liquid fuel security
and an executive council document on regulations for a liquid fuel emergency, were refused.
By March 17, Nosec was advancing discussions around rationing. An executive summary of that meeting stated it would begin conversations next week around planning for fuel rationing/restrictions, noting hesitations around signalling and tempering public panic
.
As early as March 9, documents from a liquid fuel group note that fuel rationing was among options to respond to supply disruptions
. The heavily redacted document notes the minister’s powers under the Liquid Fuels Emergency Act, including rationing ∼ restriction on the amount of fuel users can purchase
∼ or directing that fuel suppliers make supply available for certain users.
The government has added to stocks since the crisis began, securing 600m litres of diesel and 100m litres of jet fuel in 14 additional cargoes from Singapore, China, Brunei and other nations. The budget also included a $10bln fuel security package.
Another document titled Background to the National Oil Emergency Demand Restraint Strategy, which is otherwise heavily redacted, discusses possible settings around regulated retail rationing
.
It suggests, in a serious fuel shortage, controls could be placed on either bulk or retail sales of petroleum products and further customer demand side management responses
, in hopes of ensuring other users have petroleum supply for as long as possible
.
The document goes on to say the government’s preference was for industry to respond to a fuel emergency in the first instance, before the minister’s powers were enacted to direct supply.
Depending on the severity and expected/actual duration of an emergency, people may be restricted in their fuel consumption for certain periods of time,
it states.
It is anticipated that mandatory controls would only be introduced if market based measures did not achieve desired outcomes.
State and territory governments, as well as the petroleum industry and other key stakeholders
, would be consulted and given input to such measures.
[click the intro to return to front page]
Federal Court has ruled against a women-only app founder in a landmark transgender discrimination case, forcing her to pay compensation and sparking fears about women’s rights, writes Peta Credlin in the Sunday Telegraph today. [click to read more]
On Friday afternoon, as I sat down to work on this column, I honestly didn't know where to focus first.
Was the biggest issue the loss of integrity in our public life, after the Prime Minister ("my word is my bond") admitted saying 50 times he would not change any of the rules around investment properties but did it anyway?
Or was it the reality, confirmed in the budget papers, that under Labor’s record high immigration, Australia will hit 30 million people by 2030, despite nowhere near enough housing for those here now? Or was it the revelation that Labor has just brought in death duties by stealth?
Giggle v Tickle
As I debated all of this, the Federal Court handed down its decision in the long-running Giggle v Tickle case, where Sall Grover, a woman and founder of a women’s online networking app (called Giggle For Girls) was accused of discrimination against a transgender woman, the biologically male Roxanne Tickle, who sought to join the women-only app.
In a devastating blow for the rights of women and girls in this country, the court rejected scientific fact and declared that sex was more than biology (it isn't), and so Grover lost and now owes compensation to Tickle.
The fact that the taxpayer-funded Human Rights Commission was a part of this legal action to deny all women our biological rights is appalling. The fact that Grover now has to rely on donations from ordinary people to defend rights that should not need defending says everything about the state of woke policy and activist courts in Australia.
But what’s perhaps most galling of all is that we are only in this position of denying chromosomal reality because Julia Gillard, ironically the first female prime minister, stripped the word woman
from the sex discrimination act. Before then, this case would never have got to court.
Anyone for any toilet
But what this latest decision does (and let’s hope it gets overturned when Sall Grover heads to the High Court), is that women’s sport, toilets, access to medical services, schools, clubs, domestic violence shelters, prisons ∼ the whole box and dice ∼ are open slather to any man who declares he is a woman.
Gender used to be what you called yourself, sex is what XY or XX made you. Not any more, thanks to this decision. And Gillard too, who changed the law just TWO DAYS before she was rolled by Kevin Rudd in June 2013 — how dare she lecture anyone on misogyny.
But on Friday afternoon, the bad news kept coming.
To add Labor insult to Labor injury, dropped out when they hoped no-one was watching was news from the Victorian government that not only was Daniel Andrews going to get a bronze statue in his honour but that it was already being made. You can't make this stuff up, can you?
In memory of stupidity
Given Victoria has a daily interest bill of $24 million, a $130,000 statue is a rounding-error but it’s the attempt to force Victorians to honour the man who locked them up for two years, ruined businesses, blew out debt, kowtowed to China, dialled up woke and made the once-proud state an international laughing stock that’s tipped people over the edge.
Am I the only one asking how the heck did we get here?
And, more to the point, how do we turn it around or, God forbid, is it even possible?
Never trust any leader again
If Albanese is allowed to get away with his massive budget lie, then we will never be able to trust any leader again. And if we can't ask questions before an election and base our decisions on what they tell us and hold them to it, then democracy is dead.
For all of Labor’s talk about intergenerational equity, the budget hits younger Australians the hardest. The PM says breaking his word on negative gearing is about them, but how can it be when they will never be able to use negatively gearing (as he has) to build up a nest egg but those doing it now can keep it up?
Buy a new-build property instead, Labor tells investors. But again, how’s that fair for young people given this is what they typically buy as a first home and, now, they're going to face even more competition as investors move in? Even Labor’s own budget papers admit that these changes will likely increase rents (as they did in the Keating era before he was forced to back down) and do little to increase the stock of available homes.
And then there’s the tax on aspiration (CGT changes) before they get you from the grave (the hit on trusts).
Liberal backbone
Thankfully, the Liberals have finally found a bit of policy backbone, and a bit of political mongrel.
Angus Taylor’s reply to Labor’s budget speech felt like the start of the Coalition getting its mojo back. He made the bold move to end bracket creep once and for all by indexing income tax thresholds, meaning low- and middle-income earners won't get punished for getting ahead. On migration, he went for the jugular and landed a bullseye if the hyperventilating from Labor MPs is any guide. The PM in particular was hysterical, declaring it was un-Australian to divide people between those who are migrant and those who are not.
That is not what Taylor did. He divided them between Australian citizen and non-citizen and said that, under the Coalition, only citizens would get access to the pension, the dole, the NDIS and other welfare.
Help for no commitment
Now what is unfair about that? Why should your taxes carry people who have made no formal commitment to this country? Right now, people can live here for decades, take the money and never pledge loyalty to Australia and its people. Taylor says not any more.
Add in the Treasurer’s announcement of a new Working Australians Tax Offset (a pollster-named handout if ever there was one) of $250 a year (or $4.80 a week) and rightly people are angry. In his budget speech, Jim Chalmers called his WATO meaningful
but what’s meaningful about 68 cents a day when the cost of everything has skyrocketed? It’s not meaningful, it’s insulting.
(And I might add, it’s still not even the $275 Albanese promised off their power bills).
Albo's right for a change
Anthony Albanese said that this budget is full of Labor values
and it is — the socialist values
that attack the fair-go, break trust, and hit middle Australia even harder
For the Liberals, there could be no better ground than this to fight Labor.
If the Coalition holds its nerve and campaigns every day like its life depends on it (because, frankly, it does) then this budget could well be the beginning of the end for the Albanese government.
But only if they work, day and night, to take the fight up to Labor. Labor is the target, not each other and not One Nation.
THUMBS UP
Jacinta Nampijinpa Price: Her emotional, fighting speech in the Senate is a must-watch as she demanded culture
takes a back seat to better protect Aboriginal children.
THUMBS DOWN
Military witch hunt: Another $43m in Labor’s budget to investigate soldiers on top of the $350m that the Brereton process has cost taxpayers already.
"Promises and pie-crust," Jonathan Swift wrote in 1738, "are made to be broken." Vladimir Lenin, who liked the line, treated it as a slogan. Anthony Albanese treats it as a principle, Henry Ergas points out in the The Australian today. [click to read more]
The Prime Minister’s defence for repudiating assurances he had insistently reiterated ∼ indeed, for the 50th time
∼ is that Australia faces a crisis of intergenerational equity. But as Jonathan Pincus and I demonstrated on these pages, the claim is analytically incoherent and empirically threadbare. Nor, even if there were such inequities, would that justify the abrupt abandonment of repeatedly affirmed undertakings.
Serious governments seek democratic consent for contentious measures they had previously assured voters they would not introduce. John Howard did so with the GST: having ruled it out, he reversed openly, took it to the 1998 election, and proceeded only on the mandate he won there.
Greatest tax take in commonwealth history
The reason the Albanese government has not followed suit is neither urgency nor necessity. It is fear: fear that despite the opposition’s parlous state, voters would punish a government that has spent freely, governed carelessly and is now poised to extract the greatest tax take in commonwealth history.
The budget’s own numbers make the reality plain. Even accepting Treasury’s assumptions, the budget measures will increase housing supply over the next decade by less than one-third of 1%, while housing demand is likely to rise more than 15 times as quickly. This is not serious economic reform. It is a revenue grab wrapped in the language of moral urgency.
Corroding public trust
The inevitable result of that gap between political rhetoric and political practice is to corrode public trust. Trust, after all, is not a natural disposition; it is a social achievement, slowly accumulated and quickly squandered.
The word itself reveals the point. The Old English treow
lies behind both truth
and trust
; since at least the 15th century, to trust
someone has meant to believe that when he says what he will do, he speaks truthfully. Governments can sustain trust only by being truthful and trustworthy — and the institutional form through which those virtues manifest themselves is the promise.
A promise is what binds words to conduct, declarations to action, and electoral consent to subsequent government. Governments owe fidelity to their promises not merely for their own political advantage; they owe it because a healthy democratic life depends upon citizens being able to assume and assess fidelity to public commitments.
Governments need to mean what they say
The credibility of promises is also more broadly crucial to the viability of a free society, whose very essence is that people must order their lives amid continual uncertainty. Promises, including the promise that laws will not be changed capriciously, are what give individuals, families and businesses stable ground on which to plan. As Hannah Arendt wisely observed, they build islands of predictability
in the ocean of uncertainty
— islands that matter most to those with the fewest resources to absorb sudden policy shocks.
A young couple relying on an investment property to finance homeownership, a retiree dependent on hard-earned savings, a small business weighing expansion: all rely on governments meaning what they say.
But promises can only fulfil that stabilising role because they belong to the grammar of commitment: to the forms of obligation whose value lies in their relative insulation from changing convenience. A promise abandoned the moment it becomes burdensome is worth no more than the loyalty that melts away at the first sign of difficulty.
The preservation of credible public commitments is especially vital in Australia, where suspicion of the political process long predates contemporary disenchantment. Distrust of politicians was, as John Hirst emphasised, constitutive of the colonial polity itself. The men who entered politics were not thought fit to be trusted - and despite outstanding exceptions, many weren't.
Pioneering scholars of mass behaviour
The endless Australian debate over the accountability of parliamentarians reflected that suspicion. Both the Burkean trustee ∼ who is guided only by the light of his own judgment ∼ and the instructed delegate had their advocates. But it was the latter conception, entrenched by the emerging Labor Party, that ultimately prevailed. Labor parliamentarians were to be mere instruments: controlled by the ALP’s extra-parliamentary wing, bound by a pledge to uphold the platform and required to submit to caucus discipline on pain of political excommunication.
The Australian mass party thus emerged, from the beginning, as an institutional response to distrust: a mechanism designed less to cultivate confidence in politicians than to contain the risks they posed once elected. And Australian voters learned to scrutinise the distance between promise and performance with an intensity rare in comparable democracies. When that gap widened too far, confidence collapsed.
It is against this background that the events of the past three years must be seen. The Albanese government’s record on the central tax promises of two successive elections ∼ stage three, superannuation, and now negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount ∼ does not just constitute a litany of broken commitments; it constitutes the accelerated dismantling of an already tarnished public asset.
The predictable effect is an even more accelerated crisis of political representation. The four-decade arc from 1975’s 4% third-party vote to 2025’s 34% highlights its seemingly inexorable progression.
Withdrawing faithfulness
Those voters who have spurned the major parties are not ideological partisans of any third force; they are observant citizens who, having grasped what the parties no longer deliver, exercise the only sanction the system leaves them. Unable to meaningfully demand or expect faithfulness to a program from parties whose programs have ceased to bind, they withdraw their own faithfulness from those parties altogether.
The alternatives may not be especially attractive nor particularly unifying — but negative coalitions, aimed at punishing a detested foe, form more easily than positive ones precisely because they require only shared aversion rather than common aspiration. In these conditions, anti-system parties flourish, their capacity to aggregate voters a symptom not of democratic renewal but of democratic exhaustion.
To make things worse, governments confronted by a perpetually seething electorate are naturally tempted to govern through stealth and administrative manoeuvre, further impairing the trust whose disappearance produced the crisis of representation in the first place. And when a real, rather than confected, emergency arrives, they discover they can no longer summon the loyalties and willingness to sacrifice on which the survival of free societies ultimately depends.
Public language becomes tactical
No society can govern itself for long on the assumption that public language is merely tactical. Governments that repeatedly break faith with the electorate may secure temporary advantages. But they do so by undermining the confidence that policies announced today will survive long enough to shape behaviour tomorrow. As that confidence erodes, both the effectiveness of public policy and force of democratic authority unravel.
That is the deeper significance of the Albanese government’s conduct. It is not merely bad policy. It is the depletion of a civic inheritance that free societies squander far more easily than they rebuild. Yes, promises can be cracked like pie crusts. But in the end, public trust cracks with them. Lenin, sheltered by brutal authoritarianism, never had to learn that lesson. With the fabric of our democracy rapidly fraying, it is high time Anthony Albanese did.
No
guilded
lillies
here!
Scott Pape in Daily Telegraph
A
fter reading this column, my editor said: I'm confident this piece will generate the greatest amount of hate mail you've ever received.
Let's see if they're right … Do you know what the easiest thing I could have done this week was? Exactly what every other financial commentator has done: Lean into the outrage about the budget.
Instead, I'm going the other way. And I'm probably going to piss a lot of you off. Starting with Brian, who wrote to me after what I can only imagine was a solid session on the La-Z-Boy with a few reds:
Labor's tax grab? |
Scott, I am just so sick of these incompetent bastards. This budget is just another giant Labor tax grab. People in the top 10% of income earners pay more than half the taxes. Half! Now Albo wants to be a 47% silent partner in every small business in the country. Why would anyone bother? Young people saving for a deposit in index funds? Taxed.
Family trusts helping kids through university? Taxed. Small business owners who've spent decades building something? Taxed at rates that would make your eyes water.
New Zealand has no capital gains tax. Dubai has no capital gains tax. And our smartest young people are figuring that out real fast. You've got the platform, Scott. Let your followers know what’s really going on.
Bingo-bango, Brian! You've sure got a lot of very big feelings. Thankfully, I'm a father of four. I deal with big feelings before breakfast.
Let’s get into it.
Brian and I have a lot in common. I'm a high income earner and I pay a lot of tax. I come from a family of small business owners and I run one myself. And I bristle when I see politicians crowing about their economic credentials. The fact is, this is the highest-taxing Australian government since World War Two, and that spending is putting pressure on interest rates that every mortgage holder feels.
Yet what really worries me isn't the tax take. It’s that our outrage meter seems to be stuck at 11.
It feels like we're drifting towards America, where everything is viewed through a political lens and everyone is absolutely furious all the time.
Barefoot has given a scathing budget reality check.
And if we get angry enough we might just end up with Pauline as our PM, and the greatest economic insight she’s ever had was asking Why can't we just print more money?
(Seriously, look it up.)
Anyway, let’s deal with Brian’s three beefs. Plenty of young people have written to me in a panic about the changes to capital gains tax. Many were planning to use their share portfolio as a house deposit.
CGT not biggest problem |
My view? The CGT change is not their biggest problem. Let’s say a young investor puts $50k into an Aussie index fund. Based on historical returns, it grows to around $72k over five years. Under the new CGT rules, they'd pay roughly $900 more tax when they sell. And depending on future returns and inflation, they might actually come out ahead.
The real problem is the share market dropping 40% and their $72,000 deposit becoming $43,000. Then it takes a decade to recover, while rents keep rising and they're still at their parents' place eating their Cheerios. That’s why my rule has never changed: do not save for a house deposit in the share market.
Business partner! |
Brian’s 47 per cent silent partner
line was funny on social media the first 700 times. Now it’s just annoying. And it’s wrong. The small business CGT concession regime allows the vast majority of small business owners to halve or completely eliminate the capital gains tax they pay when they sell. It’s been there for years (though the thresholds need to be increased.)
The real risk is using the tax rate as a reason not to back yourself. Building something from nothing, employing people, serving your community. It’s a hard life. It’s also one of the most rewarding things a person can do. Don't let a meme talk you out of it.
The family trust |
Okay, so this one stings. You see, my kids have been nothing but a spectacular financial loss since the day they arrived. I was counting down the days until they turned 18, when I could finally start distributing trust income to them and claw something back. And then the bloody government snapped that door shut just as my eldest was getting close to useful.
Yet it actually makes sense. The system lets wealthy families with good accountants pay less tax than nurses and tradies. That doesn't pass the pub test.
Finally, if you spend enough time on social media (or listen to Brian) you may start to think that Australia is the highest-taxed nation on earth. Actually, we're in the middle of the pack, but with a standard of living in the top handful of countries on the planet. The cops don't shake us down (mostly). Our kids go to decent public schools (mostly). And if one of them gets sick, you don't need a GoFundMe page.
We'll be fine. After all, we're the wealthiest people in the country. Living in one of the wealthiest countries in the world. At the richest time in human history. Life is good, Brian, especially when you log off. Tread Your Own Path!
Financially abusing my brother |
Hi Scott: My brother just divorced his nasty wife. She had access to all his accounts, blew through a $180,000 inheritance, ran up $25,000 on his credit card, and towards the end wouldn't even let him touch his own debit card. He’s now living with me. He’s on a disability pension and can't work. I manage his accounts, have set-up his savings, and have tried to teach him the basics. He says it’s too hard. My sister accuses me of making it worse. Am I doing more harm than good?
Hello Caring Sister, your brother is lucky to have you.Your sister doesn't sound nice, but she does have a point. (How’s that for having it both ways?)
Now, before you throw me across the room, I know your intentions are completely different from his nasty ex-wife’s. You love your brother. She didn't. But, from where he’s standing, someone else is still controlling his money, his savings, and his decisions.
Now your bro doesn't need to become the next Warren Buffett. He just needs to learn to stand on his own two feet again, but that won't happen while you're transferring his surplus savings for him.
Think about how this plays out long term. Your brother grows increasingly dependent on you. You grow increasingly resentful … and neither of you need that.
My advice? Keep helping him with the basics. Set him up with one simple account, show him how to use his card, and then step back. Let him make small mistakes with small money. That’s how people learn. And then, when the settlement comes, he'll be ready to move out and start his new life. That’s good for him, and great for you.
No Show Albo |
Scott: As a man who lost the family home because of my gambling addiction (a shame I live with every day), and as a father whose teenage son 'plays' fantasy football and gets emails and ads from sports gambling companies, I was bitterly disappointed that the government tried to bury their inaction on gambling ads. Did you get a reply from the Prime Minister?
Hi Daniel: I wasn't expecting a reply, and old Albo didn't disappoint!
He’s the most powerful man in Australian politics. He had the backing from both sides of politics, and the people — nearly three-quarters of parents (myself included) reported being bothered by their kids being exposed to gambling ads.
He had the ability to stand up and say: We've got a huge gambling problem on our hands, and the beginning of that problem is that sport is a gateway to gambling: today for three in four kids it’s a normal part of sport. That’s crap. I'm the Prime Minister of this country and I've had enough. No more bloody ads.
But he didn't.
The lobbyists won, the kids lost — the odds never change.
Moscow and several major cities across the European part of Russia sweltered under record-breaking spring heat this week. Photo: Arthur Novosiltsev/Moskva News Agency
The Moscow Times writes the relationship between Russia and China is a marriage of convenience where one party ∼ Russia ∼ likes to pretend they need each other equally. They don't. Unlike Moscow, whose options have been sharply curbed under Western sanctions, Beijing remains deeply integrated into the global economy. Putin visits China every year to shore up this relationship. But this year's trip was notable for coming hot on the heels of U.S. President Donald Trump, who claimed to have secured "fantastic trade deals" while offering few specifics. Putin's visit was similarly short on breakthrough agreements, including any guarantees about the future of the long-delayed Power of Siberia 2 gas pipeline. But experts who spoke to The Moscow Times said the trip ∼ whose pageantry closely mirrored Trump's earlier visit ∼ shows that for all China's overtures to Washington, it still sees itself as aligned with a global order that challenges U.S. hegemony. Russian markets responded poorly to the continued uncertainty surrounding Power of Siberia 2, with Gazprom shares falling 3.5%. The reaction indicated that, despite all the warm words, many remain unconvinced that the meeting meaningfully improved Russia's position. What else happened this week: ■ Russia held three days of nuclear exercises involving hundreds of aircraft, missile launchers and submarines. The drills were announced a day after a joint exercise with Belarus in which the two countries' armies practiced deploying nuclear weapons from makeshift launch sites. Even before its invasion of Ukraine, Russia used nuclear drills to signal strength to its adversaries. ■ A state auction to sell a 67.2% stake in Russia's third-largest gold producer failed to attract any bidders. The $2.22 billion stake was seized last year from billionaire lawmaker Konstantin Strukov, who was accused of illegally gaining control of the company through his government position. Yuzhuralzoloto is the most high-profile nationalized asset to be put up for auction since Domodedovo Airport, which also failed to attract bidders in January. ■ Authorities in the Krasnodar region said they had completed the cleanup of an oil spill caused by Ukrainian drone attacks on the Tuapse oil refinery. Even before the announcement, local environmentalists warned that officials were playing down the spill to avoid scaring off tourists. ■ Britain sparked backlash at home and abroad after following Washington's lead and eased sanctions on Russia's oil industry to help ensure fuel supplies. The trade license allows purchases of oil products made from Russian crude in third countries and permits the maritime transport of LNG from two Russian production plants. ■ Moscow threatened Latvia with an "appropriate response" and warned that NATO would not protect it after accusing Riga of allowing Ukraine to launch drone attacks from its territory. Latvia accused Russia of launching a disinformation campaign capitalizing on Riga's own political crisis triggered by Ukrainian drones straying into its airspace. ■ Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov dismissed the prospect of Russia ever returning to Eurovision, saying that the competition had become too "satanic."
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The tik-toks have it
At Milan Design Week, just following Watches and Wonders, Jaeger-LeCoultre staged The Perpetual Timekeeper, a sprawling two-floor exhibition dedicated not to wristwatches, but to Atmos clocks-the mysterious, glass-encased objects that have quietly occupied one of the most intriguing corners of the maison's history since 1928. ROBB Report.
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No women here!
A bill to create a Smithsonian American Women's History Museum on the National Mall was rejected by the US House of Representatives on Thursday, after it was amended to recognise only "biological" females, the New York Times reports. The bill designated a location for the long-awaited museum, which has had bipartisan support. But after Republicans amended the bill, including its definition of women, Democrats sank it in a vote of 216 to 204. Some said that any provision specifying the achievements of "biological women" threatened to exclude transgender women and girls from the institution's programming.
The Murrurundi Times is owned, compiled and written by Des Dugan. Email