Pauline Hanson came, saw, and conquered Canberra

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Pauline kept on as if nothing had happened. One Nation later joked they wish they’d thought of it!

The National Press Club this week attempted to show its liberal democratic credentials by giving the One Nation leader a national platform.

I was hoping it would be a win-win situation for Pauline Hanson.

If the journos got the best of her, more sympathisers would be on her side. If she won over the journos, she would have shifted the party into new territory. But nobody could predict that she would win, and win, and then win big in Canberra.

In the Morning Double Shot newsletter, Terry Barnes wrote:

Our Press Gallery correspondent, Michael de Percy, was at the Press Club on Wednesday, and asked Pauline Hanson a question as one of her media interrogators. As an accredited Gallery journo, Michael had a box seat to the proceedings, and he’s shared his impressions of the lunch, Hanson and her performance. It’s probably fair to say he’s had a Pauline conversion. And, as Rowan said on Sky, Michael’s question was excellent.

My latest in The Spectator Australia, Pauline Hanson came, saw, and conquered Canberra.

Labor failed their political IQ test

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Bozo! The Stop Sign!! And the week Albanese almost certainly regrets...

This week, Labor failed a political IQ test.

The best way to fight your political opponent is to Labor what pouring petrol on a fire is to the Rural Fire Service. Not only did Labor raise barely a trickle of financial support to stop One Nation, they helped Pauline win big. After three days and counting, One Nation’s war chest has surpassed $3.6 million.

Albo reckons it’s all a bit dubious. Pauline posted proof of truth.

Independent tech auditors say the amount is legit. Apparently, they’ve checked with the SQuirreLs and the SQuirreLs say the funds are not just promised but already delivered. That means there could be even more money on the way.

Just to remind Albo about his integrity, trucks are now driving around his electorate of Grayndler with the words ‘Fire the Liar’ emblazoned on the sides of the trucks.

In the Morning Double Shot newsletter, Terry Barnes wrote:

Meanwhile, the Fire the Liar fundraising campaign goes from strength to strength, with Oner Nation’s banked total now well over $4 million. Damien Costas explores the politics behind the visceral public reaction to Fire the Liar – and indeed to the Liar, and his and his government’s lies, that inspired it. Michael de Percy also adds his ringing endorsement to the cheeky One Nation campaign inspired by a comment made on a Sky News television programme just a week ago.

My latest in The Spectator Australia, Labor failed their political IQ test.

God, King, and Country: British identity and the Australian Defence Force

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Gunnedah soldiers, World War I. My great-grandfather, Ernest Percy, front row second from left.

This article appeared in The Spectator Australia on the King's Birthday, 8 June 2026. Terry Barnes wrote in the Morning Double Shot newsletter:

I was much taken with former Army officer Michael de Percy’s from-the-heart comment piece for King’s Birthday. He was sharing the importance of our British heritage and traditions for the Australian Defence Force, and the relationship our serving members have with the Crown. Our British heritage matters: that’s why King’s Birthday remains important: to remind us of where this country came from, and the legacy we carry from those origins. We have to be interoperable with Yank forces, but it doesn’t mean we sacrifice our own inherited military traditions and culture. Heavens, they can’t even salute properly.

The article was adapted from a speech I delivered at the Robert Menzies Institue's 2025 Annual Conference, 'Menzies and the British Commonwealth of Nations'. A recording of the speech is available below.

God, King, and Country is an interesting concept. As a political scientist, my method tends to be what is known as historical institutionalism. What I look at are legacies and how they inform policy choices in the present, but also continuity, disruption, and often serendipity.

In terms of serendipity, it’s interesting that Lord Kitchener was invited to Australia by Alfred Deakin to report on the Australian land defence force, the Australian Army. At the time there was controversy that it should have been Lord Fisher looking at the Navy, which made more strategic sense. But Kitchener arrived in 1909 and stayed until 1910. He travelled throughout Australia – Seymour, Darwin, Townsville, and elsewhere – and arrived to great fanfare. The country people loved the fact that this war hero, the Kitchener of Khartoum, was visiting Australia. Kitchener, of course, became the face of the first world war recruitment campaign.

It was interesting that Uncle Sam is a fictitious character, whereas Kitchener was the real, living hero. He was often criticised for sending many young men from British country towns to their deaths. Anyway, the long story short. Kitchener advised the formation of the Royal Military College, Duntroon. Duntroon was established along the lines of Sandhurst in the UK. It was quite natural that British identity would form part of the early institutions of the Australian Army and the military more generally.

Kitchener said Australians were soldiers naturally.

I probably won’t come up with any fantastic theoretical contributions today, but one thing strikes me personally. I am one of four generations of my family who have served in the Australian Army – my great-grandfather, my grandfather, myself, and my son. The Australian Army has been part of our family history for a very long time, and it feels entirely natural. As a teenager I had the Union Jack and the Australian flag hanging in my bedroom, and I took them with me to Duntroon in 1992 and 1993. I don’t know why I did that. It’s just what I did. There is something very natural about that British identity in the Australian Defence Force.

When it comes to God, my first experience in the military was the laying up of the colours for the 51st Battalion, the Far North Queensland Regiment. In a church. It was a church parade. I’ll never forget at Duntroon the trooping of the colours on the Queen’s Birthday and the call, ‘Three cheers for Her Most Gracious Majesty. Hip, hip-hip, huzzah!’ I tell you what – if you’re not a monarchist after shouting ‘huzzah’, what’s wrong with you?

Then there is country. My first unit, the 51st Battalion, carried the sentiment Ducit Amor Patriae – excuse my Latin, but it essentially means love of country leads me. God, King, and Country are embedded in the symbolism, the practices, and the institutions of the Australian Defence Force.

This is very personal for me. What I’ll be arguing is that Menzies is part of that continuity. I dare say that without Queen Elizabeth II reigning for so long, we would not have had the same degree of continuity. I don’t know that King Charles would have carried the same appeal had he been the monarch we relied upon as the representative of the Crown for Australia. There was deep affection for Queen Elizabeth II, shared by Sir Robert Menzies – famously ‘British to the bootstraps’ – and reflected in the well-known story of the Queen walking past him in Old Parliament House. A lot of that feels natural, almost serendipitous.

The enduring importance of God, King, and Country in the ADF lies in the sense of purpose that most others do not have. When you are commissioned as an officer, you receive your commission from the Queen – in my case – which says you are to follow the orders given to you. If that means sending your soldiers to their deaths, and possibly yourself, then that is your job. That is a very powerful thing, and it is shared by warrant officers and other ranks as well.

Menzies played an important role in perpetuating that ideal. The modern expression of it really begins with the Korean War, which I’ll come to shortly. But let me start at the end.

Under the Morrison government – and reaffirmed in recent years—the Australian Defence Veterans’ Covenant was introduced. My generation of soldiers was very disillusioned with the RSL and the Department of Veterans’ Affairs. Only in recent years have many of us started coming back to the fold. I think we reached an age where we realised how important it was and wanted it back in our lives.

I wasn’t even aware the Covenant existed until my hearing began to fail. As an artillery officer I discovered I was already pre-registered for hearing aids, which was welcome. Suddenly I needed an RSL advocate, so I dug out my old 1999 badge and rejoined. The Covenant introduced something of an American-style ‘thank you for your service’. The oath states, ‘For what they have done, this we will do.’ One of the most significant aspects is that all mental health treatment is now covered for every soldier, sailor, and airman who has served.

Things have changed significantly, as they did after the first world war and again after the Second. Yet the Covenant sits quite comfortably alongside British military customs. Clement Attlee’s idea of the New Jerusalem was similar in spirit – the general ideal of looking after veterans – though perhaps with more of a socialist bent than Sir Robert would have liked.

In the regular army I served with the Royal Regiment of Australian Artillery. The title ‘Royal’ was granted by Queen Elizabeth II to the Australian Artillery in 1962, during Menzies’ time and during her reign. I’ll never forget, as a young subaltern, being told that the newest member of the regiment had to say grace at a dining-in night. These were formal occasions where you were not permitted to leave the table until the loyal toast had been drunk – quite excruciating in the ’90s, I can only imagine what they were like earlier.

The grace was simple, ‘For what we are about to receive, thank God.’ When I was first told to say it, it took me straight back to Duntroon, where I once asked the regimental drill sergeant major for advice on a parade and received a classic ‘bum steer’, resulting in two weeks of extra drills. It was that sort of culture – rather like an apprentice being sent to find a couple of skyhooks. But the grace was correct and very straightforward.

Back then the loyal toast for the Royal Regiment of Australian Artillery was, ‘The Queen, our Captain General.’ King Charles is now the Captain General. These are direct, frequent affirmations of the Crown and the Christian tradition. That tradition continues in the RSL. The League has its roots in the first world war. Like the Gallipoli Memorial Club in Sydney, which still exists, early RSL branches sometimes tried to restrict membership to those who had served at Gallipoli, but that could not last. The RSL adapted, as institutions must. Even today, RSL meetings usually display both the Union Jack and the Australian flag, and we always recite the Ode. It is almost archaic, yet very moving.

I mentioned the Korean War. My grandfather, whom I knew well, served in the second world war and then with the 67th Battalion in the British Commonwealth Occupation Force in Japan, including Hiroshima. Australia’s participation in the BCOF was entirely natural. The 67th Battalion became the 3rd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment. The ‘Royal’ prefix was important. We began serving alongside Americans as the Royal Australian Regiment during the Korean War. The 67th Battalion was formed from volunteers from the 3rd, 6th, and 11th Divisions to deploy as part of the BCOF.

Anyone who has served with an infantry battalion, or as a forward observer in artillery – as I did with Bravo Company, 6 RAR in Brisbane – knows how strongly those soldiers feel part of the Royal Australian Regiment. They are extremely proud of it. The Royal Australian Navy and Royal Australian Air Force have their own proud traditions. What we see overall is the continuation of the British Army regimental system in Australia.

In my day we were still called SO3 – Staff Officer Grade Three, a captain’s rank – followed by our functional title (Operations, Fire Support, or whatever it was). Those titles have since moved toward American usage for interoperability, though the British have done something similar. Honours and awards are still approved by the Sovereign, and the Crown remains the symbolic legal source of military authority in Australia.

The RSL was long focused on the idea of imperial service, and that emphasis continued through the inter-war and post-war periods. After he retired, my grandfather lived in an RSL home called War Haven in Cairns – an entire village of veterans. You can imagine the shenanigans. But there was also a profound sense of loyalty, belonging, and camaraderie.

Service in the two world wars was largely seen as service to the Empire. Even when Curtin brought the 7th Division home, it showed a necessary turn toward the Americans. That did not erase the deep Britishness inculcated in the Australian Defence Force. Returned soldiers received enhanced social status. Old property maps of Australia still show the impact of soldier settlement schemes, especially in country towns. Military service was a badge of superior citizenship, rooted in the ideal of British imperial loyalty.

Menzies described himself as ‘British to the bootstraps’. It has become almost a cliché, yet he genuinely sought to preserve a cultural, even puritan, inflection of British character in Australia. It is unfair when the left admonishes him for this, because he also had warm connections with the United States and lectured there. Through his demeanour, however, he reinvigorated monarchist and imperial sentiment in the 1950s and ’60s. The granting of royal titles to our military units, many of which remain unchanged, created a favourable climate for the RSL’s British-oriented veterans’ culture – one that still exists today.

The Royal Australian Regiment grew out of the British Commonwealth Occupation Force. This was not all Menzies’ doing. It occurred under the Chifley government. In earlier work I have written about communications and about Menzies and nuclear policy. He was not always the instigator, but he was a powerful perpetuator of these ideas. The Royal Australian Regiment became Australia’s first permanent infantry regiment, modelled on British lines.

Kitchener had recommended a form of compulsory military training, which existed from 1911 until around 1922. Menzies later reintroduced national service. During these foundational periods, a great many able-bodied young Australian men experienced that tradition. The inculcation of British military history and culture through the Australian military has been perpetuated though such schemes.

If you come to Gunning, my village in the Southern Tablelands of New South Wales – population roughly a thousand – we routinely see more than three hundred people at the Anzac Day service. Particularly in regional Australia, the culture and sense of identity remain strong.

The Royal Australian Regiment’s motto, worn on the hat badge, is ‘Duty First’. If you were not doing your job, your mates would soon remind you to ‘read your hat badge’. These symbols are constantly reinforced. They are not mere decoration. They function as living institutions. That is something you do not find in the same way elsewhere.

In the Commonwealth context, Australia retained the Crown while republics were admitted to the Commonwealth of Nations. The ADF continued to operate within the broader Commonwealth military culture – ABCA (American, British, Canadian, and Australian), later expanded with New Zealand – through regimental exchanges and close cooperation.

At Duntroon, my guidance officer was a British infantry officer of the Northumberland Fusiliers. My surname traces to Northumberland. Our artillery regimental officers’ basic course was run by a regimental sergeant major from the Royal Horse Artillery. These exchanges between Australia and the British military continue and remain important. The integration is remarkably seamless. The main cultural difference is that Australians tend to bag each other more than the Brits or Kiwis do, but apart from minor drill variations, it feels entirely natural to serve together.

British identity in the defence force stands in contrast to civilian Australia, where it is now largely symbolic and declining. We still see coats of arms on regional courthouses and prisons, but they are not lived traditions. In the ADF these traditions are institutional, daily, and operational. In many ways the Australian Defence Force is the last redoubt of God, King, and Country.

The difference persists because tradition and esprit de corps require continuity. You cannot simply recreate a history. Anyone who has marched in column to a pipes and drums band, or to a military band playing the same tunes the British marched to in the Seven Years’ War in the 1750s, knows the adrenaline that rises. These are tried and tested ways of motivating troops, and the same music continues today. The regimental system is inherently conservative precisely because tradition matters.

Interoperability with the UK and Commonwealth partners now extends to the Americans as well. There is also a constitutional reality. The King, symbolically and constitutionally, through the Governor-General, remains Commander-in-Chief of the Australian Defence Force. Veterans’ organisations continue to reinforce that Britishness.

To conclude, the ADF remains one of the most British institutions in contemporary Australia. Loyalty to King and Country – and implicitly to God – is not a mere ceremony but a living tradition.

I’ll never forget an early lecture at Duntroon on comparative religion. The lecturer asked, ‘Hands up – who doesn’t believe in God?’ A few hands went up. He said, ‘When we were caught in an ambush by the Japanese in New Guinea, everybody prayed’. Implicitly, God is part of that process. As the Americans say, there are no atheists in foxholes.

This identity was consciously preserved through the Menzies era and continues to shape the profession of arms in Australia. Menzies was a big supporter of the RSL. In the military, more than anywhere else in Australian society, this British identity endures.

Just to finish, the black-and-white photographs across the top of montage below shows my great-grandfather – before he went overseas, during his preparation, and then in the second world war, because he went back for another six years. You can see the impact. Featured are my grandfather, myself, and my son. It is very difficult to separate the personal from this idea of British identity, because to me it is simply natural.

The Percy Warriors

What did I miss? Australia’s political week in fast-forward

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Angus Taylor openly referred to Albo’s government policies as socialist. It’s about time.

Recent interviews suggest Paul Kelly isn’t a fan of One Nation. The veteran editor-at-large at The Australian reckoned ‘Pauline Hanson is not fit to be Prime Minister of Australia’. Our editor-in-chief begged to differ.

Meanwhile, One Nation will ban The Guardian from attending party events after the masthead allegedly admitted it used photographs that deliberately made Pauline Hanson look more sinister. The only thing sinister about Pauline is that she is putting the wind up the establishment that doesn’t give a toss about ordinary Australians.

While we’re on the topic of not being fit to be Prime Minister of Australia, Angus Taylor openly referred to Albo’s government policies as socialist. It’s about time somebody in high office stated the bleeding obvious. It seems the battle lines have been drawn.

It’s a good thing too because those ‘other people’ who have the money that socialists use are now mere mythical creatures. Unless of course you read the comments from all the leftie bots that ride on Albo’s gravy train.

My latest in The Spectator Australia, What did I miss? Australia’s political week in fast-forward.

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

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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.

What did I miss? Australia’s political week in fast-forward

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My editor: Where is the interview? All you filed with me were photos of yourself in an infinity pool.

From Port Havannah, Vanuatu: What have you missed? If you’ve had a gutful of trending politics like me, probably all of it. Every day brings another story about how the Albanese government is driving the cost of living through the roof. Labor has become the proverbial ‘passion fingers’.

Exhausted by press releases and nauseated watching Labor’s pitiful social media campaign (designed to bombard taxpayers with so much Budget propaganda that they eventually fall in love it), we went off to Port Havannah in Vanuatu for a week. It is the first time I have had an actual holiday in nearly 40 years of adult life. I turned my phone off and drank Piña Coladas like they were going out of fashion (if that’s possible).

There’s no point saving money while Labor is in power. I figured they’ll take it off me somehow. So off we went.

The trouble is, we ran straight into a microcosm of Labor’s bullshit in Vanuatu.

My latest in The Spectator Australia, What did I miss? Australia’s political week in fast-forward.

Standing on the shoulders of leftists

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Labor deserves a Darwin Award. They’re standing on the shoulders of Lilliputians.

The Albanese government is unoriginal. They are supported by the bolshie petty bourgeoisie.

The bolshie petty bourgeoisie are those who survive on government funds. In other words, they are leaners and not lifters. With so many people now living on government funds, that is, taxpayers’ money, these grifters are not the owners of the means of production. But they are communist in intent and dead set on milking the government teat dry. All while claiming they are productive.

It’s like the old joke about capitalism and communism. In capitalism, you have two cows. You buy a bull and create a herd. You sell your natural increase which produces protein. Everybody is happy – they have meat, you have money – and there is much rejoicing.

In communism, you have two cows. A public servant decides that veganism is great. You know they’re a vegan because they tell you straight away. Next thing you know the public servant takes your cows and shoots them because they are creating too much methane and causing climate change. You shake your head. But that is a microaggression and next minute you are forced to undertake retraining to become vegan.

My latest in The Spectator Australia, Standing on the shoulders of leftists.




 


What did I miss? Australia’s political week in fast-forward

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Labor's circus declares war on small businesses with a covert death tax thrown in for good measure. 

Small businesses copped Labor’s socialist king-hit. These days they’re called a ‘coward punch’ which is fitting, because what the Treasurer penned in his Budget certainly constitutes a cowardly act.

On display since last Tuesday’s Budget are Labor’s double standards. These are supported by their network of supporters I would call the bolshie petty bourgeoisie.

They’re bolshie as in communists, but they are actually the petty bourgeoisie.

They aren’t the owners of the means of production, but they’re public servants, union officials, dole bludgers, and immigrants all living off the government.

My latest in The Spectator Australia, What did I miss? Australia’s political week in fast-forward.

Budget 2026 losers and biggest losers

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The budget byline is ‘Reform and Resilience’, but it is all plagiarised from Paul Keating.

The Treasurer’s opening statement in the budget overview places the blame for our current economic woes on the war in the Middle East. Energy, technology, intergenerational equity, and home ownership are the key words used to justify emptying your wallet. Out of the six opening paragraphs, five mention the Middle East and the global oil shock.

The budget byline is ‘Reform and Resilience’. Clayton’s reform, with none of the resilience home-grown. A Fuel and Fertiliser Security Facility costing $7.5 billion will secure overseas fuel instead of Australia producing its own. It’s like using our money for a beggar’s stash rather than developing our productive capabilities.

The Treasurer said in his briefing this afternoon:

‘This Budget is ambitious in the face of adversity … making sure that opportunity, aspiration, and ambition are central … it’s all about getting compliance costs down…’

If your ambition is to lean on the government, you’re a loser, and this budget’s for you. If you want opportunity and aspiration, you’re the biggest loser.

For Australia’s 840,000 family trusts, however, the headaches are only just beginning. Never mind the war in Iran. With this budget, the Treasurer has gone to war with Australian small businesses.

What did I miss? Australia’s political week in fast-forward

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I doubt you missed the demise of the Liberal Party, which happened in its birthplace over the weekend. But you might have missed the irony of Pauline Hanson and One Nation supporters singing John Farnham’s ‘You’re the Voice’ in Farrer.

The song was part of the infamous Voice to Parliament campaign while the One Nation victory is perhaps the least-Woke event possible. In my view, Pauline is now Sadie the Cleaning Lady. The room certainly loved it.

One Nation’s thumping win in Farrer wasn’t just a by-election, it was a political earthquake. David Farley stormed home with over 39 per cent of the primary vote and more than 57 per cent after preferences. The once-mighty Coalition scraped together barely 20 per cent.

My latest in The Spectator Australia, What did I miss? Australia’s political week in fast-forward. 

Here’s what Albo can do with his Medicare card

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I know exactly what Albo can do with Medicare card. I'll leave the rest to Hemingway’s ‘iceberg’.

When Albo flashes that card, he is taking the mickey. Whenever anything goes wrong, he pulls it out as if to say, ‘Look what we do for you!’ I’d rather keep my Medicare Levy in my own pocket and get a real benefit from my health insurance. Instead, we pay and pay and get nothing in return. If only I could fill out a form with my left hand and spell my name wrong.

Mind you, there’s plenty of anecdotal evidence of that happening on the NDIS. You could see that enormous rort a mile away.

My latest in The Spectator Australia, Here’s what Albo can do with his Medicare card.

Labor’s spending left the RBA with no option

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In 2025, the Treasurer said rising private sector demand would see a reduction in public sector demand.

Since Labor took office in 2022, federal spending has grown faster than the economy. The 2025 budget projected a $42.1 billion deficit, with gross debt approaching $1 trillion and spending as a share of GDP heading toward 26.9 per cent. Both the Parliamentary Budget Office and Treasury have identified Labor’s policy decisions as the main driver of a significant deterioration in the medium-term budget position. When government pumps extra demand into the economy without corresponding supply-side gains, inflation becomes harder to tame.

In the Unfiltered newsletter, Alexandra Marshall wrote:
It’s hard to imagine an election where a Treasurer like Jim Chalmers walks away with his seat, let alone his appointment, intact. Is he the worst Treasurer this country has ever seen? There’s a debate about that online. One thing is for sure, as Michael de Percy writes of the latest rate hike, he’ll be unable to side-step the criticism. Everyone is hurting. People are being tipped over the edge of financial ruin. This is not the Australia of people’s dreams.
My latest in The Spectator Australia, Labor’s spending left the RBA with no option.

What did I miss? Australia’s political week in fast forward

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Reality’s got a habit of punching you in the face. Only now it’s got a diesel price tag attached.

Ah, the lucky country… While we try to bring you the week in fast forward, Labor was hell-bent on putting their policy goals in reverse.

I get in trouble if I miss my mark backing the truck into a loading dock. Big trouble. When Labor dings the side of our country on a brick wall or knocks over a sacred cultural statue, there is zero accountability. Jim Chalmers should try using his mirrors once in a while before he hits something that tears the wheels off.

And it was a big week for damages.

Housing? Going backwards. Debt? $1 trillion next financial year. Immigration? Doors are open. Productivity? Stalled. Interest rates and inflation? About to take another bite. And while Trump puts in a support call for allies, we skulk away like cowards.

These failures are repackaged as positives instead of accidental damage accumulated by an L-driver.

My latest in The Spectator Australia, What did I miss? Australia’s political week in fast forward.

About to vomit out the Left

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We sucked it up like John Coffey in The Green Mile, taking in what the elites forced down our throats.

The left has once again proven what it always proves. Socialism doesn’t work.

They’ve run out of other people’s money, they’ve run out of ideas, and now we’ve literally run out of fuel. The experiment is over. The bills have arrived. And the Australian voting public has had enough.

For years we were told to keep swallowing it.

Higher taxes, open borders, endless spending, performative rituals, and a foreign policy with a soft-touch on terrorist regimes while doing little for our own diggers.

We sucked it up like John Coffey in The Green Mile, taking in every ounce of the sickness the elites forced down our throats. Now the public is about to spew the whole rotten mess back into the æther.

My latest in The Spectator Australia, About to vomit out the Left.

The Digger’s Code: Anzac Day and the Vernacular of Belonging

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Stand with your mates old and new. Reclaim the one nation the Anzacs fought to defend. 

As we pause this Anzac Day to remember the fallen and their mates, spare a thought for our native language that few outsiders ever fully master. It is not the formal speech of the silvertails with their airs and graces. It is the laconic ‘Diggerspeak’ that binds Australian servicemen and women tighter than any oath. It entered our military from regional and rural Australia, and it went back and forth from navvie to digger and continues to do so. It is an evolving language that reflects our deep-seated sense of nationhood.

The rhyming slang, the ironic understatement, the rural shorthand and the deadpan inversions turned ordinary blokes into a code. The enemy and even our closest allies struggled to crack it. In the jungles of New Guinea or the paddy fields of Vietnam, it was not just talk. It was a language of belonging.

The Yanks noticed early. By 1942 the US Department of War and the Navy were issuing pocket guides to Australia. These guides were crammed with glossaries of our slang. Their troops kept staring blankly when an Aussie said something was fair dinkum or that the situation was apples. She’ll be right. The guides were well-meaning. They missed the point.

The real test was not whether you could look it up. The real test was whether you got it without asking. Pause to ask for clarification in the heat of the moment, and you quietly announced yourself an outsider. Aussies are not unwelcoming. Far from it. True mateship assumes a shared frame of reference. You do not need to be born here. You just need to be willing to learn the code and live it.

Australian slang has always been a living thing. It evolves with each new trial. What began in the trenches of the Great War absorbed French, Arabic, Vietnamese, and Malaysian influences. (I don’t know how many times I had to diddly-bop off for some makan.)

The language keeps mutating. A bludger in one war became a walloper in the next. In my time it was a Jack-man. She’ll be right carried the same laconic optimism. (Politely put, a Jack-man says: ‘She’ll be right, Jack, I’m okay!) The language is derived from shared challenges, hardships, and best of all, shared glory. The code adapts. Its purpose never changes. It marks those who belong.

The evolutionary nature of the Australian vernacular goes something like this. I remember at Duntroon a particular word came to be used when something was excellently cool. As legend has it, later this word happened to be the surname of a fourthie who was regarded as a complete quamby. He kept getting bumphed ‘cause his work was NUTS. His mates ended up sharing his pineapples. So the word went from being excellently cool to something that was completely bished, if you get what I mean.

It’s not just in the military. In many of the store docks I deliver to, there exists a language of belonging. I learnt quickly not to say, ‘good morning’. What’s bloody good about it? Next time, Morning! At least you didn’t say good, this place is a loony bin. You’ll be lucky if you get out. Hey Chezza, did you tell him he lives here now? This place is awesome! (I wish I could provide the appropriate onomatopoeia for the quiet guttural groan accompanying the bewildered facial expressions.)

I doubt many of my academic and journalist mates could understand Australian like this. In many eyes, modern academics and journalists don’t belong in such places.

Even my good mate from Pakistan. He’s completing a degree in English. He’s working at a servo and a bloke walks in. ‘Packeta Winnie Blues Mate.’ He recalls fondly the process of becoming Aussie. It took him a while, but he got there. Loves his cricket and his snooker, too. And he’s a toiler.

And that’s the point. Australian slang is a language of belonging. A language forged out of our history through shared hardship and a sense of knowing what we’re all about. You can’t learn it. You have to live it.

That same code echoes every Anzac Day. At dawn services from Gallipoli to Kokoda to the local RSL. You hear it still. The wry asides. The understatement that masks profound respect. The easy familiarity turns strangers into cobbers for a day. If you can’t understand the lingo, you won’t get the stories, either.

The stories of the Owen gun’s legendary performance, or the corporal instructor who gives lessons on the Owen’s successor, the F1 submachine gun: ‘The F1 submachine gun can be fitted with a bayonet and used as a dart’ as he throws it into a nearby tree. The yippee shoots. The forced marches where some bloke pulls up from plantar fasciitis. Only it was a piece of wire gone through his GP and into his foot.

The legendary free grog at the boozer then woken at 3am for a forced march. The bloke who did it in his Reg Grundies while smoking a dart. The dargon leading the run who lights up his own darb under the cover of the palm of his hand. He breathes in deeply. Ah, that’s bet-ter! He says in his clipped, guttural, side-of-the-mouth enunciation.

Or the day our Colonel Commandant turns up on the gun position. I’ve taken over the gun position mid-ex from one of my fourthies who was NUTS. And Davo’s left his cam net back at the last position, and he can’t use his platform ‘cause he’s busted the legs on it. The Colonel asks me, ‘where is that gun’s cam net?’ A UD goes off in the CP just as my OPCP SGT starts shooting. I groan. Test-firing, Sir. Johnno’s Bravo crew is up cause Davo’s doin’ his ‘nana at the Alpha boys who have to go back and get the cam net. Karrumpah! Johnno’s gun sends down the first bomb. The dry grass lights up and the entire gun position is on fire. Who’s got the rakes and beaters? I groan again. I look over at my OPCP SGT and he smirks wryly and shrugs. FUBAR. What can ya do, boss? ‘Ere are, I’ve rolled ya a darb, and the lads grabbed a goffer and a gumpy for ya. God bless him.

It is the vernacular of belonging. It says we have been through the fire together. We know the score. We stand shoulder to shoulder anyway. Anzac Day does not demand uniformity of background. It demands unity of spirit. That spirit has always been more powerful than any official policy or government-sanctioned school curriculum.

Which makes the present moment feel particularly sharp. Decades of mass immigration without a corresponding insistence on cultural integration have left too many newcomers unwilling or unable to learn the code. Their cheer squads in the academy and the media make the problem worse. Some arrive in a nation that offers them every material advantage. They then treat its founding myths, its institutions and its very language of mateship as relics to be deconstructed rather than embraced. Decolonised, if you will.

The result is not the vibrant mosaic we were promised. It is parallel societies, simmering resentments, and a fracturing of the very sense of us that Anzac Day once renewed so effortlessly.

Worse. Those divisions have been actively cultivated. Outsiders to our national story and the domestic elites who amplify their grievances have worked systematically to undermine the institutions that once transmitted the Anzac ethos. The schools once taught pride in our military history. The media once celebrated it. The public square once honoured it without apology. The campaign has relentlessly targeted our shared identity. That identity transcends class, ethnicity, or postcode. When that identity frays, social cohesion frays with it.

No wonder Australians are looking outside the major parties. In the latest Sky News Pulse survey, Pauline Hanson’s One Nation has surged to level pegging with Labor on the primary vote at 27 per cent. This is a remarkable shift. It reflects deep disillusionment with the major parties’ failure to defend the things that make Australia work.

Even Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has reached for the language of one nation in his rhetoric. His government’s approach has too often amplified the very divisions that erode it. One Nation’s appeal is not narrow ethnic nationalism as its critics sneer. It is precisely the opposite. It is the insistence on one nation. Belonging is available to anyone prepared to adopt the values. It includes the work ethic, the fair go egalitarianism, and even the lingo that has defined us since before the trenches of the Great War. It is the Anzac spirit translated into contemporary politics.

That is why a return to the Anzac ethos is not nostalgia. It is remedy. It is not about excluding newcomers. Many Diggers were sons of immigrants. It is by insisting that those who come here join the code rather than rewrite it. The willingness to belong is what separates the citizen from the passenger. Anzac Day reminds us that belonging is earned in the quiet moments. It is the shared joke no outsider quite catches. It is the understatement that carries the weight of history. It is the instinctive understanding that she’ll be right only works when everyone is pulling in the same direction.

So today, as the last post sounds and the crowd murmurs Lest We Forget, listen for the deeper message beneath the words. It is an invitation. Learn the code. Embrace the spirit. Stand with your mates old and new. Reclaim the one nation the Anzacs fought to defend. The alternative is not diversity. It is division. And Australia has had quite enough of that.

 This article first appeared in The Spectator Australia on Anzac Day 2026 as The Digger’s Code: Anzac Day and the Vernacular of Belonging.

Is the rule of law still fit for purpose?

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There appears to be a tug of war between public expectation and the judiciary.

The rule of law is one of the foundational pillars of liberal democracy. At its core, it rests on the simple, powerful idea that no one is above the law. Not kings, not parliaments, not the wealthy or the well-connected. It was designed to protect the weak from the arbitrary exercise of power and to ensure that governments, however popular, remain bound by principles of fairness and reason.

Yet in contemporary Australia, we may ask whether this venerable concept is still serving the public interest, or whether it has been subtly repurposed to shield those who undermine the very society it was meant to sustain.

In the Morning Double Shot newsletter, Terry Barnes wrote:

Again and again, the public will is overturned by judicial activists, judges who imply all manner of esoteric things into interpreting the law and effectively placing themselves above the people’s elected representatives and His Majesty’s duly-constituted government. This is not the rule of law, but the law of rule. Michael de Percy turns his mind to the erosion of the rule of law, and the sovereignty of the people through parliament.

My latest in The Spectator Australia, Is the rule of law still fit for purpose?

Albo government’s perfect storm of weakness

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We do not need a government that hides the bacon at the back of the supermarket of policy.

Yet here we are, a resource-rich nation pleading with others while global supply chains buckle under the weight of conflict in the Middle East. The fuel crisis and the attendant energy price pain are not abstract. They are the lived experience of every Australian filling up at the bowser or watching power bills climb.

And they arrive as part of a perfect storm that reveals something deeper about the Albanese Labor government. A pattern of weakness that is now unmistakable.

Consider the converging crises. The fuel emergency is immediate and visceral, born of global events but exacerbated by years of domestic energy policy that left Australia exposed. The energy crisis has been simmering for longer. Policy choices that privileged ideology over baseload reliability, now colliding with external shock.

My latest in The Spectator Australia, Albo government’s perfect storm of weakness.

What did I miss? Australia’s political week in fast-forward

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Chris Bowen's energy policy platform is a lot like a dead fish.

You have to feel a tad sorry for Energy Minister Chris Bowen. He had a tough week of bruising press conferences. Never mind, his leadership is unequivocal. That bold renewables target? Totally achievable, even if he doesn’t like mentioning it except under the duress of a hostile journalist. Bowen is probably checking his tyres on the way to another renewables announcement as we speak, making sure his EV fleet is topped up from the nearest solar panel before lecturing the rest of us about the urgency to transition away from reliable power.

My latest edition of What did I miss? Australia's political week in fast-forward in The Spectator Australia.

Zen and the art of truck driving

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The ten rules I wish I didn’t have to learn the hard way.

Philosophy, at its best, is not some airy-fairy meditation on the meaning of life. It is a set of rules for living. The ancient Stoics understood this better than most. Epictetus gave us the Enchiridion, interpreted as a literal ‘handbook’ of reminders you have to keep rereading because your monkey brain keeps forgetting.

Another well-known Stoic, Seneca, confessed that he never came home from the Roman forum with quite the same moral character he had when he left. Something always became unsettled. He needed the quiet of his study to recompose himself.

A truck driver has no such luxury. The road does the recomposing for you, whether you like it or not. And it does it with the subtlety of a 20-crate dolly sliding off a wet foot-control ramp.

Epictetus’ idea of reason was based on the divine, active, and ruling faculty within human beings that allows them to distinguish between what is under their control and what is not.

Truck driving, however, is a lesson in the fact that you don’t control anything.

In the Morning Double Shot newsletter, Terry Barnes wrote:

Our Michael de Percy has many hats. Academic. Journalist. Former military officer. Truckie. Of the latter hat, one can say that Michael has drive, and he has writing an insightful satirical take on the truckie’s professional life. Unlike your scribe, who’s never missed taking a wrong turn in life, Michael ‘Rubber Duck’ de Percy drives straight and true.

My latest in The Spectator Australia, Zen and the art of truck driving.

Dob in a servo? How very un-Australian

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We would be far better off with a ‘dob in a useless politician’ scheme.

The NSW Labor government has found a new way to distract us from its own failures. It is encouraging the public to ‘dob in’ service stations charging what it considers ‘high’ prices for fuel.

In a move straight out of the Covid-era snitch handbook, motorists are being urged to report servos via the FuelCheck app for alleged price gouging. This is not a tough-on-business policy. It is the politics of incompetent governance dressed up as consumer protection.

And it is utterly un-Australian.

My latest in The Spectator Australia, Dob in a servo? How very un-Australian.

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