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.

Vale Allan Moffat, the gentleman racer

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With Allan Moffat's 1977 Hardie-Ferrodo 1000 winner's trophy at the Dog on the Tuckerbox.

Allan Moffat was Canadian by birth, but Australian by choice and by deed. He arrived here with an accent, a ruthless work ethic, and a gift for driving a race car on the absolute limit with a grace that made it look effortless. Four Bathurst wins, four Australian Touring Car titles, a Le Mans class victory, and more lap records than most drivers have race starts. Yet he was never less than courteous, never less than impeccably turned out, never anything less than a gentleman.

He gave us the 1-2 fairy tale of ’77, and decades of Ford versus Holden battles that felt like civil war on wheels. Australian motorsport would have been quieter, slower, and far less colourful without him.

My latest in The Spectator Australia, Vale Allan Moffat, the gentleman racer.


Boeing Bowen heads up Turkey’s COP-out

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Chris Bowen is not about leadership, he is all about frequent-flyer diplomacy.

Australia’s Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Chris Bowen, once stood before the nation and promised that Labor’s ‘Powering Australia’ plan would slash household power bills by $275 a year by 2025. That was the headline figure, repeated ad nauseam during the 2022 election campaign.

With 2025 now almost behind us, the average household is not $275 better off, it is hundreds of dollars worse off. Wholesale electricity prices have repeatedly spiked, retail offers have soared, and the subsidised-for-rich-people surge in rooftop solar and batteries has done precisely nothing to shield everyday consumers from the brutal reality of a grid that would crumble in the night without coal and gas.

Yet instead of staying home to fix the mess in his own portfolio, Mr Bowen is packing his bags for yet another international talk-fest.

My latest in The Spectator Australia, Boeing Bowen heads up Turkey’s COP-out.

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.


John Laws, Richo, and the end of an era

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John Laws not only commanded Australia’s airwaves for over seven decades, but our kitchen.

Laws’ voice bridged the gap between our kitchen and the world. When I heard the news that he was gone, I teared up and rang Alexandra to ask if we could do something that focused on the great man.

His departure leaves a void in the media landscape he helped define. For me, it stirs memories of a pivotal moment in my own career.

In the Unfiltered newsletter, Alexandra Marshall wrote:

Michael de Percy has shared his personal story with John Laws and describes his passing as an ‘end of an era’. ‘Laws wasn’t just a broadcaster. He was a cultural institution. Laws’ voice bridged the gap between our kitchen and the world … his voice echoed across generations, and in no small way, it helped shaped mine.’

My latest in The Spectator Australia, John Laws, Richo, and the end of an era.


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’.

Dave Rubin comes to Sydney

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People like Dave Rubin are bringing about the end of Woke, one cnversion at a time.

Last night I was fortunate enough to meet with Dave Rubin after his show in Chatswood. The event was hosted by the Centre for Independent Studies, MC'd by new CEO Michael Stutchbury, with Dave interviewed by former Deputy PM John Anderson.

Dave Rubin is an interesting character in the conservative movement. His journey proves that one does not necessarily fit the leftists' bill because of who they are and what they do.

Dave was very generous in spirit and I am pleased I was able to hear him speak about Charlie Kirk, Presidetn Trump, Australian politics, and all things political and cultural.

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.

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