Showing posts with label Australian Politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Australian Politics. Show all posts

Barnaby Joyce quits Nationals to sit on crossbench

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Barnaby Joyce has always been more than a politician. He’s a force of nature.

Today, Barnaby formally resigned from the Nationals, the party he once led with a mix of charm and chaos. He’s indicated he’ll sit on the crossbench and won’t run for New England at the next election.

That would be a mistake.

Reports indicate that Barnaby is considering running for a Senate seat with Pauline Hanson’s One Nation.

I think he needs to stand up as a One Nation representative for New England.

Alexandra Marshall had this to say in the Unfiltered newsletter:

‘My concern was Barnaby’s welfare,’ muttered Peter Dutton, in response to Barnaby Joyce’s claim that he asked the Nationals MP to quit. Twice.

As expected, today was the day Barnaby finally had enough of the factional games being played inside conservative politics. After a steak dinner with One Nation leader Pauline Hanson, he announced his defection to the crossbench as an independent. Most suspect that he will hang around in no-man’s land for a while and see if the Nationals make him a frontbench offer. If not, it’ll be over to One Nation and – probably – onwards to a Senate seat.

‘I haven’t made that decision … I don’t know. Walking away in part from the party in Canberra is easy. Walking away from the membership is very, very, very hard. It’s just quite obvious, when they talk about generational change, that’s code for “get out of here”.’

He has expressed this sentiment on many occasions and yet the party has been quite happy to leave one of their most effective fundraisers in the wilderness.

There has also been some disappointing commentary from Senator Matt Canavan, who has perhaps also forgotten that many of his supporters moonlight as One Nation voters. ‘One Nation are good at stunts in the Senate, but they’re not so crash hot at winning votes in Parliament.’ True, but that is in large part thanks to the major parties stitching up democracy with preference voting – entrenching the powerful grip of the two-party system. Still, Mr Canavan says he has not ‘given up hope that we can convince him to return’. And he might be right – but it is doubtful that Mr Joyce would return for anything less than Nationals Leader.

Michael de Percy has the full story.

My latest in The Spectator Australia, Barnaby Joyce quits Nationals to sit on crossbench,

Parliament cancels A Super Progressive Movie trailer: ‘It might offend someone’

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Cancelling the trailer was great marketing for One Nation's full feature-length movie.

What should have been a straightforward 5.30 pm event in Parliament House turned into a late-night 9.15 pm screening at Dendy Canberra after parliamentary services pulled the booking yesterday morning. The reason given: the content ‘might offend someone’.

The 90-second trailer and the first five minutes of the film (set in a dystopian ‘Naarm’) were shown to a packed cinema. Despite the short notice and the late hour, around half of the original ticketholders still turned up. Some had driven from Wagga Wagga, others from interstate. Dendy Canberra looked after everyone, and seeing it on the big screen with the big sound in layback chairs was impressive.

Terry Barnes had this to say in the Morning Double Shot newsletter:

As a declared Liberal, I’m not a spruiker for Hanson and One Nation. But the treatment of her this week, including by Liberal senators, has been appalling. It even extends to Parliament House staff, responsible to Labor presiding officers, banishing a screening of the trailer – a mere trailer – to Hanson’s Please Explain movie out in January, which then had to be held elsewhere. Michael de Percy followed the screening around Canberra, and reported from the cinema. I do wonder about Labor and Liberal political judgment sometimes: if they victimise a political opponent as they are Hanson, she not only gets the attention they want to deny her, but they win her sympathy and support. Burkas and berks!

My latest in The Spectator Australia, Parliament cancels A Super Progressive Movie trailer: ‘It might offend someone’.

Liberal Party is dead, and moderates just delivered its eulogy

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I think that Menzies is dead and we have killed him. And it’s not good.

Yesterday I was toying with Nietzsche’s idea that God is dead, and we have killed him, but in a Menzian sense. Nietzsche didn’t think that the absence of God was a good thing. Similarly, the Liberal Party, until recent times, was the only party whose platform I could read without cringing at any of its ideas. While that may still be the case in writing, in practice, I now think that Menzies is dead and we have killed him. And it’s not good.

Contrary to what lefties love to think, Nietzsche wasn’t glad that God was dead. Neither should we be glad that the Liberal Party has killed off Menzies.

My latest in The Spectator Australia, Liberal Party is dead, and moderates just delivered its eulogy.

The future will be built by sustainable coal

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Manook effectively said that coal had been ‘choked’ and unfairly excluded from the Net Zero debate.

Manook is sharp and unapologetic in a role that few would envy. Especially in Australia, where Chris Bowen and Sussan Ley have the same limited vocabulary when it comes to our energy debacle. But Manook wasn’t arguing for a particular technology, but rather for technological neutrality and a level playing field.

Manook stated the obvious. The Net Zero debate is not about outcomes, it is about politics. The oft-touted level playing field aims to give no particular technology an advantage, with the outcomes from any particular technology standing on its own merits.

My latest in The Spectator Australia, The future will be built by sustainable coal.


The trouble is nobody believes Sussan Ley

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Sussan Ley’s decline has hit terminal velocity in the latest Redbridge poll.

Australia is going down the gurgler fast. Our economy is buggered, Woke stupidity has ruined our democratic institutions, and our political class wants us to be subjects of a United Nations now influenced by third-world countries, the majority of which are dictatorships. We allow too many people to enter our country and share in her bounty without adding anything. Too many are bringing their medieval hatreds to our shores. Even our national security head honcho is getting worried.

Ley is back on track. The trouble is … nobody believes her.

My latest in The Spectator Australia, The trouble is nobody believes Sussan Ley.


Pauline Hanson speaks at Mar-a-Lago as Sussan Ley flounders

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Hanson has announced plans for a greater nationwide push, supported by a proposed name change.

Pauline Hanson was invited to speak at the prestigious CPAC Circle Retreat and Gala at Mar-a-Lago in Florida, rubbing shoulders with conservative heavyweights. Hanson even attended Donald Trump’s Great Gatsby-themed Halloween party at his Mar-a-Lago estate, signalling her rising stature on the world stage.

To put Pauline Hanson’s international presence into perspective, she was in good company with Argentine President Javier Milei. Milei’s libertarian reforms and anti-establishment rhetoric mirror Hanson’s own chainsaw approach to bureaucracy, and it’s working.

In the Unfiltered newsletter, Alexandra Marshall wrote:

Speaking of… Michael de Percy reports on Pauline Hanson’s breakthrough speech at Mar-a-Lago while over 200 Liberal members have defected. So many people are trying to help the Liberals – people who have been loyal for decades and poured time and money into the cause. No one can understand their path of self-destruction.

My latest in The Spectator Australia, Pauline Hanson speaks at Mar-a-Lago as Sussan Ley flounders.

NSW Nanny State makes regional roads more dangerous

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I'm afraid without an intervention, I am B-Double fodder on the Hume Highway at 90km/h!

I challenge John Graham, NSW Minister for Transport, and Jenny Aitchison, the NSW Minister for Roads and Minister for Regional Transport, to ride on a LAMS-approved motorcycle on the Hume Highway between Goulburn and Yass. I challenge them to maintain the required speed limit of 90km/h for motorcyclists on the learner and P1 licences. I challenge them to tell me how safe they feel as they are overtaken by a B-double semi-trailer in full swing.

My point is that slower speeds are not necessarily safer.

Not only is NSW subjecting novice motorcyclists to demanding conditions in the name of safety, but these same ministers are now considering reducing speed limits on rural and regional NSW roads to 70 to 90km/h down from 100km/h.

My latest in The Spectator Australia, NSW Nanny State makes regional roads more dangerous.

Faltering Teals prove there is no room to the left of the Liberals

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There’s no electoral success for parties positioning themselves to the left of the Liberals.

The Teals are learning a lesson from Australian political history. There’s no enduring electoral success for parties or groups positioning themselves to the left of the Liberals, even if they are well funded.

History is littered with well-intentioned ventures that tried and failed to carve out a viable space in that territory. The Australian Democrats, founded by ex-Liberal, Don Chipp, provide an important historical case study. And today, the so-called Teal independents offer a contemporary lesson, proving that even with deep pockets and initial momentum, a drift to the left leads to stagnation or worse.

In the Unfiltered nessletter, Alexandra Marshallk wrote:

Michael de Percy doesn’t think the Teals are going to ‘make it’ as a political movement. Standing to the left of the Liberals as a ‘conservative’ has never worked. There is a long history of minor parties and independents attempting to to this – all have failed.

My latest in The Spectator Australia, Faltering Teals prove there is no room to the left of the Liberals.

Hold the PHON! One Nation is on the rise!

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In an historically sgnificant move, One Nation is removing the founder's name from its branding.

The announced change in name from Pauline Hanson’s One Nation (PHON) to simply ‘One Nation’ is significant. Political parties that include the founder’s name come and go, but no active political party that includes the founder’s name has existed as long as the party formed by Pauline Hanson in 1997.

Writing in the Morning Double Shot newsletter, Terry Barnes had this to say:

Michael de Percy is excited at the prospect of a new dawn for Pauline Hanson’s One Nation, soon to be just One Nation. He sees the party’s opinion poll surge, and the prospect of Barnaby Joyce being part of a Hanson succession plan, as part of ON’s evolution from a minor to major party of the right. The sorry state of the Liberals certainly encourages such thinking, but those who want to see ON rise further should keep several things in mind. First, neither Hanson nor Joyce are an antipodean Nigel Farage. Second, opinion polls may have doubled ON’s primary vote since the May election, but they merely reflect disaffected Liberal and National voters parking their vote, more likely than not only temporarily. The polls are snapshots of what may be, not what will be. Third, if ON has realistic ambitions for greater things, much hard and detailed policy work needs to be done by ONs people to convince voters beyond its base that ON deserves the big time, let alone is ready for it. Hanson and her loyal team must prove themselves both capable and worthy of their poll surge to keep those parked voters until the one poll that counts. It’s easy to doubt they will, based on past performances: it’s up ON’s people to prove that supposition wrong.

My latest in The Spectator Australia, Hold the PHON! One Nation is on the rise!

Albo’s wall-to-wall press coverage wants us to ‘Back Australia’

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They are basically saying Albo will Make Australia Great Again but with different words.

In the tradition of Australian political theatre, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has unveiled his latest bid for relevance, the ‘Back Australia’ campaign.

Launched with nauseating levels of support from the mainstream media, the usual corporate titans have jumped on the government-funded bandwagon. Albo’s pitiful policy promises of a ‘new industrial era’ have been copied and pasted across Australia’s mastheads.

Writing in the Unfiltered newsletter, Alexandra Marshall had this to say:

Michael de Percy is quite right to point out that nauseating, wall-to-wall masthead propaganda that emerged last night. In unison, Australia’s largest media companies jointly released the Prime Minister’s ‘Back Australia’ program in combination with the most powerful companies in the country. No doubt the purpose is to quieten down Andrew Hastie. I don’t know about you, but this kind of organised cheer squad for a Labor policy feels like a betrayal by the press. The same press, I might add, which has today praised Albanese for putting Chinese manufacturing and trade ahead of Australia despite his plea to ordinary Aussies to ‘buy local’. Buy local from whom, Prime Minister? There’ll be no Australian companies left if you keep selling the furniture to China.

My latest in The Spectator Australia, Albo’s wall-to-wall press coverage wants us to ‘Back Australia’.

Trump saves Albo from diplomatic disaster, but Rudd must go

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Kevin Rudd's position is position is untenable in a Trump Administration. He must go. Now.

Throwing Rudd under the bus, or at least signalling his expendability, would have been a small price for Albo to pay for smoother relations. Yet, thanks to Trump’s grace, Albo might dodge that bullet too, at least for now.

But here’s my take. Kevin Rudd must be dismissed as Australia’s Ambassador to the United States. His position is untenable in a Trump Administration, and clinging to him risks further alienating our most crucial ally.

Australia deserves better than relying on luck and the goodwill of others, and we don’t need Rudd as a dead weight in Washington.

My latest in The Spectator Australia, Trump saves Albo from diplomatic disaster, but Rudd must go.

Albo the ‘Man of Lead’ while Chalmers has no clue

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Lead folds any way you want and it is malleable to the point of weakness.

According to a close mate in Gunning, Albo should henceforth be known as the ‘Man of Lead’. Here’s why the metallurgical metaphor is so apt.

In the annals of Australian political leadership, metallurgical metaphors have often captured the essence of a prime minister’s mettle.

My latest in The Spectator Australia, Albo the ‘Man of Lead’ while Chalmers has no clue.

Australians all let us regret, for we were weak and blind

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Senator James Paterson delivering the Tom Hughes Oration on Tuesday 14 October 2025.

James Paterson’s speech is a good start, but the Liberals need contemporary solutions, not old habits.

With Labor abusing power through slashed opposition resources and opaque governance, the Liberals have a moral duty to oppose effectively, lest Australia succumb to a ‘Victorianisation’ of entrenched left-wing dominance.

The culture wars, consisting of battles over identity politics, rewriting history, and developing idiotic societal norms, are no sideshow. The culture wars are central to the fray.

In the Unfiltered newsletter, Alexandra Marshall wrote:

Michael de Percy weighs in on James Paterson’s rousing speech. ‘Paterson’s speech urged the Liberal Party to end its ‘apology tour’, resolve internal divisions, and recommit to its core values.’ But then Michael cautions, ‘We can pretend all we like that we can use ideas from the 1990s to fix 2020s problems, but such naïve thinking defies all sense of history.’

In the Morning Double Shot newsletter, Terry Barnes wrote:

Senior Liberal James Paterson – the federal parliamentary Liberals’ best and most consistent performer by a long chalk (not that I’ll get a Christmas card from him for saying so) has laid out a decent prescription for the beleaguered party to get its proverbial together. Michael de Percy, however, rejects the Paterson plan outright. He views Paterson’s prescription as anachronistic and unfit for purpose for the uncertain times of the 2020s, as the Liberal party itself remains anchored the mindsets of the 1980s to early 2000s. John Howard’s broad church is dead, says de Percy, whereas Paterson still assumes it is alive. I’d like to have a lively discussion on this with Michael over a few beers, for I think Paterson generally is right. What do you think?

My latest in The Spectator Australia, Australians all let us regret, for we were weak and blind.

Time for a rethink of car manufacturing in Australia

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Andrew Hastie is right, we should build things again.

Amid the post-Cold War euphoria from the 1990s onward, globalisation’s architects like Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, and even John Howard, preached the ‘commercial peace’ thesis. Open borders, supply chains snaking across continents, and WTO rules would bind nations in mutual prosperity, rendering war obsolete. Australia, ever the eager disciple, signed free trade pacts from Singapore to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), slashing tariffs and welcoming Chinese investment in our ports and mines.

It worked, economically. GDP boomed, jobs flowed, and our ‘mixed economy’, or the pragmatic blend of coordinated and competitive capitalism that Stilwell had so deftly mapped out, thrived.

But geopolitics has a rude habit of upending theory.

My latest in The Spectator Australia, Time for a rethink of car manufacturing in Australia.

Are we really that gullible?

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The media is spinning narratives. When threats are made, it matters to the press who makes them.

If Britain is the harbinger, Australia is the echo chamber, amplifying elite delusions while the rest of us foot the bill.

But if rising cost of electricity is a slow-burn outrage, the media’s selective outrage on security threats is a full-throated farce. Consider the horror that unfolded in Manchester on October 2, during Yom Kippur no less.

Jihad Al-Shamie, a 35-year-old who was reported to be on bail after being arrested on suspicion of rape, allegedly rammed his car into worshippers outside Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation synagogue, then stabbed a security guard to death.

Two Jewish lives snuffed out in minutes of terror.

My latest in The Spectator Australia, Are we really that gullible?

This isn’t progress, it’s punishment

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Modern communism is destroying True Blue Australia.

In the shadow of our sunburnt country, an insidious force is at work, dismantling the very fabric of what it means to be Australian.

It’s not the bushfires or the floods that threaten our identity. Those are the battles we’ve always fought and won.

No, the real enemy is the creeping tide of modern communism, disguised as progressive virtue and unchecked mass immigration, that seeks to erase our unique cultural heritage in favour of a homogenised, globalist grey.

From the demolition of our Federation houses to the silencing of political opinion, and now the swamping of our suburbs with endless arrivals, this ideology doesn’t just hate Australia, it loathes the rugged individualism that built it.

My latest in The Spectator Australia, This isn’t progress, it’s punishment.

Here comes Andrew Hastie!

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Is this the calm before a leadership storm? Hastie calls it quits on Sussan Ley's Shadow Cabinet.

Andrew Hastie has made a move that will go down in the history books of the Liberal Party of Australia.

In the cutthroat arena of Australian politics, where ambition often masquerades as principle, Andrew Hastie’s resignation from the Coalition Shadow Cabinet stands out as a rare act of authenticity. In a candid email to his constituents this week, the MP from Western Australia detailed his early-morning call to Opposition Leader Sussan Ley, stepping down from the Shadow Home Affairs role because he could no longer stomach the gag order on immigration – a portfolio cornerstone he was barred from shaping or even discussing.

Hastie’s dilemma is painfully clear. Ley’s letter demanded Shadow Cabinet solidarity, binding him to party lines without a seat at the policy table.

In the Unfiltered newsletter, Alexandra Marshall wrote:

Here I was, about to sign off for Friday evening, when Andrew Hastie came out with the mother of all jump scares. He has quit Shadow Cabinet – thrown shade at Sussan Ley’s migration position – and joined the serious conservative talented amassing on the backbench. The Moderates will spend the weekend freaking out about the imminent threat of a leadership challenge.

In the Morning Double Shot newsletter, Terry Barnes wrote:

On Friday evening, Andrew Hastie announced his resignation from Sussan Ley’s motley frontbench, creating excitement amongst conservatives who knows the Liberal party has badly lost its way, and is heading to irrelevance unless it changes. Hastie quit over his being shut out of immigration policy despite it being part of his Home Affairs portfolio, but he’s also made it clear he wants to speak out on net zero and other issues, and is unafraid to rock the Liberal boat to effect a changed direction. Michael de Percy and Alexandra Marshall in today’s selection are delighted with Hastie’s drawing lines in Ley’s Labor-lite sand, as does Minny Jackson.

My latest in The Spectator Australia, Here comes Andrew Hastie!

CPAC Australia 2025: A conservative awakening

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Eliza and I with Senator Hanson in front of the One Nation ‘Please Explain’ pinball machine

In the wake of the assassination of Charlie Kirk in Utah, CPAC Australia was held in Brisbane over the weekend of 20-21 September.

From standing ovations to fiery speeches, it was a gathering that reaffirmed the conservative movement’s pulse in Australia. But amid the stellar lineup of speakers, one figure stood out as the undeniable highlight: Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price. Her presence not only electrified the room but also signalled her potential as a future Prime Minister – a bold, unifying force for a nation weary of Woke policies and economic folly.

In the Unfiltered newsletter, Alexandra Marshall wrote:

CPAC went off without a hitch over the weekend, with the stand-out crowd winners being Jacinta Price and Pauline Hanson – the latter of which announced the beloved Please Explain! cartoon series will be released as a feature length movie on Australia Day.

My latest in The Spectator Australia, CPAC Australia 2025: A conservative awakening.

A Conservative Manifesto to rescue Australia from Albo

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Now’s the time for conservative Australians to shake a leg.

The once-formidable Liberal Party, now a defunct shell of its former self, is ideologically adrift and electorally diminished, and appears content to nod along with Labor’s agenda, offering little more than token resistance.

Beneath the rhetoric of unity and fairness lies a stark reality. Our nation’s conservatives are fractured, leaderless, and in desperate need of a unifying force.

It is time to rally around a bold conservative manifesto, one that repurposes the remnants of the Liberal Party as a launchpad to challenge this creeping authoritarianism and restore Australia’s economic vitality.

Alexander Marshall wrote in the Unfiltered newsletter:

Maybe the Liberal Party should take Michael de Percy’s advice and embark on a Conservative Manifesto to re-establish the beliefs and principles which will lead the party forward.

My latest in The Spectator Australia, A Conservative Manifesto to rescue Australia from Albo.

It’s time to end union stranglehold on industry super funds

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Paul Schroder at the National Press Club: Super funds are not a government 'piggy bank'.

Government interference in investment decisions would be a ‘disaster’ for members, he argued, and here Schroder hits the nail on the head. Super funds must remain independent, focused on delivering returns to everyday Australians rather than bending to Canberra’s whims. His vision of super as an ‘engine room’ for national prosperity – investing in housing, energy transitions, and infrastructure on a risk-adjusted basis – is at least workable, provided it’s not dictated from above.

Yet, for all his talk of modernisation and adapting to ‘changes in society’, Schroder’s address curiously sidestepped the most glaring anachronism in the room: AustralianSuper’s own governance structure.

My latest in The Spectator Australia, It’s time to end union stranglehold on industry super funds.

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