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? 

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