Comms Minister Anika Wells rejects the premise of liberal democracy

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Australia deserves better than this, but the fourth estate, the ABC aside, is starting to see the light.

If only I could have witnessed Minister Wells in person, I might have confirmed my ‘reject the premise’ thesis empirically.

What does ‘rejecting the premise’ mean?

In Labor parlance, ‘rejecting the premise’ means ‘okay, you may think that you caught me fibbing, but I’m from the government and therefore you’re wrong’.

In the Morning Double Shot newsletter, Terry Barnes wrote:

Heute ist Der Tag. Today is The Day. The day when, if you’re under 16, you become an outlaw if you venture onto legally-proscribed social media platforms. Proscribed, that is, by an egregious American who is Australia’s eSafety Commissioner, and spruiked by embattled communications minister, Anika Wells who, as Michael de Percy points out all the way from Hamburg, can’t answer basic questions about how it will work in practice, whether it will work, and is it an affront to liberal democracy (her answer: ‘I reject the premise of the question(s)’. Our answers: we still don’t know; it won’t; and it is). However well-meaning it may be, this ban is wrong, and that it is being enforced zealously by a Septic who surely was brought up on the First Amendment, is even more appalling. But it is here, and we predict it will fail. The only question is how long it will take for its spruikers – on both sides of politics (don’t forget Peter Dutton was the first on this bandwagon) – to realise it’s a flop.

My latest in The Spectator Australia, Comms Minister Anika Wells rejects the premise of liberal democracy.

ACT government flirts hard with socialism

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The socialist ACT Government prioritises central government planning over individual rights.

The ACT government has passed new laws that remove third-party appeals for public and community housing projects, a move designed to speed up construction by eliminating community input on development approvals. This decision strips residents of their ability to challenge government-backed housing initiatives through the usual legal channels, placing full control in the hands of the state.

Such a policy is socialist in intent because it prioritises central government planning over individual rights and local concerns. In a socialist system, the state dictates resource allocation without regard for private property interests or community objections, and this ban mirrors that approach by silencing dissent against state-directed housing.The ACT government’s action treats residents as obstacles to be removed rather than stakeholders to be consulted.

My latest in The Spectator Australia, ACT government flirts hard with socialism.

Will Albo’s crocodile diplomacy discourage China’s flotillas?

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Mr Albanese appears to be feeding the crocodile and hoping it eats us last.

It was the Labor Party that spent a decade mocking the idea that China could ever be a threat, dismissing concerns about foreign interference as ‘anti-Chinese racism’, and attacking any politician who dared mention the words ‘strategic competition’. It was Labor’s punters who ridiculed the 2018 foreign interference laws, who whinged about the calling-out of Confucius Institutes, who sneered at the Coalition’s Pacific Step-Up as ‘climate denialism in disguise’.

And it is Albanese himself who, as Prime Minister, has gone out of his way to cosy up to Beijing by increasing defence expenditure somewhere in the distant future while simultaneously ignoring calls from Washington to protect, not restrict, freedom of speech.

My article in The Spectator Australia, Will Albo’s crocodile diplomacy discourage China’s flotillas? 

If this is Germany’s post-colonial democracy, bring back Bismarck

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Horrid graffiti consisting of zero artistic talent is all over the monument.

The Bismarck Monument stands high above the port and looks down the River Elbe towards the sea. Symbolically, the statue portrays Bismarck as the protector of the city and the German Empire’s maritime ‘gateway to the world’.

The monument was completed in 1906 with some funding provided by Hamburg’s merchants. It was opened by Kaiser Wilhelm II and remains the largest Bismarck monument in the world.

In 2024, a €13 million restoration project, funded by the City of Hamburg and the federal government, was completed to address structural issues caused largely by additional concrete added during the second world war to create an air raid bunker.

Barely a year later, the statue looks disgraceful.

In the Morning Double Shot newsletter, Terry Barnes wrote:

Michael de Percy is in Germany. He writes about the disgraceful vandalism of a Hamburg monument to Otto von Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor who united Germany and founded the Second Reich. Apparently German activists hate him like activists in Australia hate James Cook. Those ignorant bratwurst-eaters should bone up on Bismarck, and the consequences of Wilhelm II dropping him in 1890. Bismarck would have renewed the non-aggression ‘Reinsurance Treaty’ he had with Russia, would have kept Austria-Hungary in check, and would never have antagonised Britain with a naval arms race. Thus, there would have been no World war I, and therefore no Hitler, Nazism and World War II. The world would have been a much better place.

My latest in The Spectator Australia, If this is Germany’s post-colonial democracy, bring back Bismarck.

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.

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.

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