Albanese’s regional Australia is being subsidised by $5 coffees

This week, I became a barista. It's more like Mugatu's bloated foamy latte fart than art, but it's a start! 

You don’t have to tell me that most politicians and policymakers are out of touch with small businesses in regional Australia.

I know it for a fact.

This week, Labor’s policies created a Catch-22 for the people who hold regional communities together. For me, this time it’s personal.

Small business cafés in the regions are being forced to choose between two bad options. They can absorb the rising costs of running a business and keep providing the social glue that governments never fund. Or they can pass those costs on to customers who are already stretched, watch their trade collapse, and lose the very community role that makes the business viable in the first place.

Either way, the social fabric frays and the business is weakened. That is the bind Labor’s cost-of-living settings have created for regional Australia.

My latest in The Spectator Australia, Albanese’s regional Australia is being subsidised by $5 coffees.

Small business cafés in the regions are being forced to choose between two bad options. ☕️

They can absorb the rising costs of running a business and keep providing the social glue that governments never fund.

Or they can pass those costs on to customers who are already… pic.twitter.com/723klJUOyU

— The Spectator Australia (@SpectatorOz) June 5, 2026

What did I miss? Australia’s political week in fast-forward

My editor: Where is the interview? All you filed with me were photos of yourself in an infinity pool.

From Port Havannah, Vanuatu: What have you missed? If you’ve had a gutful of trending politics like me, probably all of it. Every day brings another story about how the Albanese government is driving the cost of living through the roof. Labor has become the proverbial ‘passion fingers’.

Exhausted by press releases and nauseated watching Labor’s pitiful social media campaign (designed to bombard taxpayers with so much Budget propaganda that they eventually fall in love it), we went off to Port Havannah in Vanuatu for a week. It is the first time I have had an actual holiday in nearly 40 years of adult life. I turned my phone off and drank Piña Coladas like they were going out of fashion (if that’s possible).

There’s no point saving money while Labor is in power. I figured they’ll take it off me somehow. So off we went.

The trouble is, we ran straight into a microcosm of Labor’s bullshit in Vanuatu.

My latest in The Spectator Australia, What did I miss? Australia’s political week in fast-forward.

We are all recent survivors of a record-breaking week of political lunacy.

Bureaucrats have lost touch with reality.
Chalmers has lost touch with arithmetic.
Albanese has lost touch with social media dignity.
And One Nation has lost touch of its flag count.

Article |… pic.twitter.com/90daiDSwWu

— The Spectator Australia (@SpectatorOz) June 1, 2026

Standing on the shoulders of leftists

Labor deserves a Darwin Award. They’re standing on the shoulders of Lilliputians.

The Albanese government is unoriginal. They are supported by the bolshie petty bourgeoisie.

The bolshie petty bourgeoisie are those who survive on government funds. In other words, they are leaners and not lifters. With so many people now living on government funds, that is, taxpayers’ money, these grifters are not the owners of the means of production. But they are communist in intent and dead set on milking the government teat dry. All while claiming they are productive.

It’s like the old joke about capitalism and communism. In capitalism, you have two cows. You buy a bull and create a herd. You sell your natural increase which produces protein. Everybody is happy – they have meat, you have money – and there is much rejoicing.

In communism, you have two cows. A public servant decides that veganism is great. You know they’re a vegan because they tell you straight away. Next thing you know the public servant takes your cows and shoots them because they are creating too much methane and causing climate change. You shake your head. But that is a microaggression and next minute you are forced to undertake retraining to become vegan.

My latest in The Spectator Australia, Standing on the shoulders of leftists.

 

Michael de Percy | "Labor deserves a Darwin Award. They’re standing on the shoulders of Lilliputians."

Leftists have tried communism so many times they meet the colloquial criteria for insanity. This time it will be different. Look at the Scandinavian countries where everybody… pic.twitter.com/QQzVJAmhyn

— The Spectator Australia (@SpectatorOz) May 20, 2026