Albanese’s regional Australia is being subsidised by $5 coffees

This week, I became a barista. It's more like Mugatu's bloated foamy latte fart than art, but it's a start! 

You don’t have to tell me that most politicians and policymakers are out of touch with small businesses in regional Australia.

I know it for a fact.

This week, Labor’s policies created a Catch-22 for the people who hold regional communities together. For me, this time it’s personal.

Small business cafés in the regions are being forced to choose between two bad options. They can absorb the rising costs of running a business and keep providing the social glue that governments never fund. Or they can pass those costs on to customers who are already stretched, watch their trade collapse, and lose the very community role that makes the business viable in the first place.

Either way, the social fabric frays and the business is weakened. That is the bind Labor’s cost-of-living settings have created for regional Australia.

My latest in The Spectator Australia, Albanese’s regional Australia is being subsidised by $5 coffees.

Small business cafés in the regions are being forced to choose between two bad options. ☕️

They can absorb the rising costs of running a business and keep providing the social glue that governments never fund.

Or they can pass those costs on to customers who are already… pic.twitter.com/723klJUOyU

— The Spectator Australia (@SpectatorOz) June 5, 2026