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

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.

Malcolm Roberts calls for an inquiry into immigration policy

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One Nation are the only party questioning the impact of immigration on our economy during the crisis. 

Senator Roberts has called for a straightforward parliamentary inquiry into the impacts of mass immigration on housing prices, rentals, wages, infrastructure (such as schools, roads, and hospitals), and social cohesion.

He has invited submissions from all sides, stating that if data shows immigration as a strength, Australians should see it.

Otherwise, our immigration policy needs re-evaluation.

My latest in The Spectator Australia, Malcolm Roberts calls for an inquiry into immigration policy.

King Albo of Multicultural Australia

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With no credible opposition in sight, Albo struts around like he is the King of Multicultural Australia.

After failing to win The Voice to Parliament referendum, King Albo was forced to cancel the Assistant Minister for a Republic.

Multiculturalism, however, now has its very own Cabinet Minister.

In Question Time on September 1, Ashvini Ambihaipahar asked this Dorothy Dixer of Labor’s Minister for Multicultural Affairs, Dr Anne Aly:

How is the Albanese Labor government strengthening and building upon the success that is multicultural Australia.

In response, Dr Aly could not hold back her excitement:

For the first time, Australia has a standalone Minister for Multicultural Affairs.

Aly is also the Minister for Small Business. It’s a pity that small businesses are standing alone as their hopes and dreams are dashed on Labor’s socialist beachhead.

For a beachhead it is.

Alexandra Marshall wrote in the Unfiltered newsletter:

The narrative of Multicultural Australia is coming under intense scrutiny, including in the Senate where One Nation has pushed for an inquiry to get to the bottom of whether or not diversity really is our strength, economically speaking. Well, according to Michael de Percy, Anthony Albanese appears to see himself as the King of this ideological movement. ‘In the presence of his court jesters and an Opposition scared of its own shadow, King Albo presides over Conflation Nation.’

Terry Barnes wrote in the Morning Double Shot newsletter:

Michael de Percy tells us why the Prime Minister is ‘king’ of exploiting multiculturalism for political gain better than your scribe ever could. As his article’s subtitle says: Australians deserve better; Middle Australians demand it.

My latest in The Spectator Australia, King Albo of Multicultural Australia.

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