#AnnekeDemanuele #VictorianSocialists #SocialismAustralia #OneNation #FarRight #AustralianLeft #Election2026 #BoganIntelligentsia

Teal independents are set to announce the formation of a new political party. This raises important questions about how the group intends to make an impact and how it will affect the burgeoning independent movements emerging from the other side of politics.

The prospective Teal party is a niche political grouping united by a few standout features: a strong position on climate, claims of being anti-corruption, conservative economic positions, and representation of wealthy electorates with traditionally conservative voting blocs.

In a majority government environment, the Teals have struggled to achieve the impact they had hoped for. Unlike Oakeshott, Wilkie and Windsor, who held the balance of power in the Gillard minority government and helped deliver one of the most dynamic parliamentary terms in modern Australian history, today’s Teals have lacked comparable influence. Caught between a Labor majority and a disintegrating Coalition, they have been trapped in the quicksand of profound political change. They now seek strength in numbers rather than strength through genuine grassroots democracy.

The affluent centrist — with progressive leanings — has become the puritanical core of the post-John Howard hellscape that is #Auspol, and the Teals have come to recognise this. After spending decades straining to be the “good guys” in Howard’s world, they have now become that world itself. While the right has moved on, exploring new ideas and challenging orthodoxies, the progressive centrist realm remains trapped deep in the neoliberal era, acting as fervent preservationists of a failing status quo. Those among them must finally recognise that they are not rebels or moral guardians but an entirely acceptable part of the managed world the powerful want us to inhabit. The right no longer seeks to preserve the Howard matrix; the conservative centrists do, and they are prepared to drag every last person on the left into their centrist vortex to maintain the illusion that they alone hold the answers.

The Teals’ success — or lack thereof — and Labor’s shallow electoral grip are not mandates from an Australian population satisfied with its political choices; they are protest votes. After decades of those protest votes being wasted on the uniparty and now on ineffective crossbenchers, they are flowing toward the most opportunistic and disingenuous political parties of all. Pauline Hanson’s One Nation is the natural by-product of that dissatisfaction and despair — the inevitable result when ideas are locked up by a disingenuous political class and the progressive elites who orbit it. The centrist party the Teals aspire to build can only be conceived from a level of comfort and insulation not shared by most Australians, and with an ignorance that many cannot afford.

The Teal party, which is mostly conservative and currently courting disenfranchised Liberal MPs and their voters, is also reshaping the public perception of what an independent is. In doing so, it disregards the organic independent movement that could spring up outside the leafy green suburbs. A confederation of Teal independents risks isolating genuine left-leaning independent movements from the outset. Teals, now more accustomed to fortifying their seats against resurgent major-party candidates than presenting bold alternatives to poor policy, will disassociate themselves from anything deemed too radical to unsettle their narrow majorities. In a short time, lofty ideals have been replaced by sandbagging Menzies-era seats (hardly inspirational). Zoe Daniel lost her seat to a reheated Tim Wilson, and the pattern is clear.

The more progressive Teals, such as Helen Haines and David Pocock, have operated more in the tradition of genuine community independents — allowing their electorates to shape their positions on national issues. They risk damaging their brand by aligning with the new Teal-led party. There is a distinct “toy village” quality to much of Teal politics: they stake out moral positions on issues they cannot meaningfully influence, while remaining timid or silent on matters where their concentrated influence in wealthy seats could actually shift policy. Some understand the difference far better than others.

True independents should enter Canberra knowing their community placed them there, not because they offer a sweeter packaging of their major-party predecessor. The election of an independent is, by its very nature, a bold statement, and their representation should reflect that. How can the Teals claim to be the frontline of independent resistance to major-party politics when not one of the seven Teals (Allegra Spender, Kate Chaney, Zoe Daniel, Monique Ryan, Sophie Scamps, Zali Steggall, Kylea Tink) supported a Labor bill to increase tax on superannuation earnings above $3 million? How can they credibly work together when some (Kylea Tink and Sophie Scamps, with Andrew Wilkie) tried to amend a motion on Israel’s actions, only for the rest to support the pro-Israel motion and defeat it?

This wave of independents has been dominated by affluent, conservative Teals rather than grassroots working-class voices from the left for a simple reason: time and money. Running as a serious independent in a safe Labor or Coalition seat demands significant personal resources and networks that most ordinary Australians lack. By formalising a party centred on these wealthy electorates, the Teals risk raising the barrier to entry even higher. What began as a challenge to the major parties is hardening into an inhibitor of broader independent politics — one shaped by class as much as by conviction. In working-class seats weary of safe-seat Labor MPs, many initially hoped the Teal model might extend leftward. That illusion has now been dispelled.

One Nation, the very phenomenon cited as justification for forming the Teal party, draws its strength from a growing disgruntled working class and claims a desire to break the status quo. With no real intention to rock the boat and nothing more to offer than neutral pragmatism, there is an element of both folly and hubris in the elite independents’ hope for incrementalism in a rapidly changing political landscape.

Rather than forming a party of select independents, a looser confederation could prove more effective — aligning on key policies while still allowing genuine representation of each community’s distinct voice. The party structure will inevitably diminish the vibrancy of independents and their true superpower: acting as a real conduit between the electorate and Canberra. These independents should be travelling the country, promoting other independents, recognising the diversity of Australian voices, and contrasting them with their own — not building gated communities in hostile territory that do little more than help their residents sleep better at night.

Potentially the most consequential outcome of the Teals’ partyfication of independent politics will be the further marginalisation of the independent left in a hostile political landscape. With the neoliberal, pencil-pushing ALP still claiming to be the party of the worker while captured by corporate unions and lawyers, the Coalition evaporating in incompetence and greed, the Greens chasing vibes and identity politics, and the Teals claiming to be the bastion of the independent movement, where else does a marginalised working-class and middle Australia turn but to the party sponsored by Gina Rinehart that claims to understand them?

The strength of independents lies in their independence — a fact that may be lost on some of the independents themselves. Zali Steggall, citing the need to counter the rise of the far right, said: “The challenge is to build something that expands our impact while preserving the independence and community-first values that define us.” Yet the essence of independence has already been compromised by the very proposition of a party. After a period of struggle, the Teals have not achieved the political impact they sought. With their energy now consumed by sandbagging Menzies-era seats rather than pursuing bold reform, the Teals have become part of the furniture. Far from challenging the status quo, they merely decorate it. The question is not whether they deserve a party, but why they bothered.

#marcusstroman #LaborTribune #AUKUS #PalestineSolidarity #GreenCapitalism #AustralianLeft #UnionPolitics #AntiWar #MarxistLeft #BoganIntelligentsia

The rise of One Nation to the preferred party of opposition is a story that requires attention, as polling recently demonstrates a major swing towards the far-right party, reflecting an electoral shift that is poorly understood by those in the major party brains trusts and irresponsibly toyed with by the concentrated right wing media.

Recent polls paint a dramatic picture: Roy Morgan’s post-budget SMS poll (May 13-14 2026) showed One Nation on 32% primary vote; ahead of Labor on 28.5% and the Coalition on just 16.5%. Newspoll gave them around 27%, Resolve 24%, and Freshwater 26%. One Nation even won the Farrer by-election in May 2026 with a commanding primary vote. This is no longer a fringe protest, it is a vote that has grown rapidly, and it is a genuine challenge to the two-party system.

While the Australian political spectrum embraces or recoils at the prospect of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party receiving a potential power-share in Australian politics, those who celebrate One Nation’s ascendancy do so through pure political disenfranchisement, while the detractors critique the rise of the far right through a misguided condescension: both missing some of the causes behind the symptoms manifesting in different ways on both sides of politics.

Sliding door moments. It was 2004, Pauline Hanson had just gotten out of jail, and was a pariah. She was in between fish and chip shops, and cast asunder from the political mainstream; including the concentrated press that used her up and threw her away like a washed up Hollywood star. After being repudiated by the majority of the country, Hanson’s return was cast on the backdrop of a country going to sleep.

In the background a neoliberal hum was ringing in John Howard’s Canberra. Australia was beginning a period of deep ideological stagnation under the helm of a new breed of politician.

This isn’t a story of mockery, or ridicule that frames some of the analysis of Pauline Hanson and One Nation. This is a piece about the power of persistance, and how perseverance, and a lot of money from Gina Rinehart, and the absence of a coherent left can go a long way in a deliberately politically stagnant Australia.

Hanson spent ten years in the political wilderness after her appearance on Dancing With the Stars in 2004, doing media and running unsuccessful independent campaigns, before reclaiming the leadership of One Nation like a redheaded Rocky from Ipswich. In this time John Howard ceded to Rudd/Gillard and back to Abbott, and a neoliberal autopilot carried on — one part mining boom, one part global war on terror, and equal parts not good enough. The training montage of Hanson’s Hail-Mary return into politics occurred during a decade of Coalition revisionism and Labor playing small target politics, and the rise of populism in the West.

The internet had nebulised the voting bloc, and the politics had eroded public sentiment. Post-pandemic Australia became a different political landscape, ending the Coalition’s reign and giving Labor another chance to do not much else different. The neoliberal autopilot had become a conveyor belt, and Labor demonstrated that it would do nothing more than offer much of the same policy imperatives as its predecessor: tax cuts, AUKUS, oil and gas licences to foreign tax-dodging giants.

Labor’s first term, laden with the disappointment of small target government, was followed by its second term of economic, diplomatic and military support for policies that many voters saw as disconnected from domestic suffering (like Israel’s genocide in Gaza), while rents soared, wages stagnated, and essential services creaked. The working class watched on as their concerns were sidelined.

On the left, the abandonment of working class politics over identity politics has disconnected it from a swathe of people in Australia who may hold working class values but now ascribe them to One Nation. That’s more than a strange anomaly, it’s the mistake of the major party left and the ideologies of the further left that created a vacuum. Economic anxiety, cultural displacement, and the sense that no one in Canberra was listening became fuel. Many on the left doubled down on abstract theory while the battlers looked for someone who spoke their language — even if imperfectly. Some of the blame in the political shift lays with the left alternatives and minor parties that have failed to connect with marginalised working class communities with tangible soultions.

This isn’t about some concessions to load into the right, it’s the opposite. It’s about identifying the struggles of Australians through the lens of Marxist economic fundamentalism, and reaching out to disenfranchised Australians with better ideas.

Hanson and her party are totally neoliberal, partnered with Gina Rinehart, and less about the poor and struggling than they might want to admit. Unashamedly Trumpist, a fan of the US imperial status quo, and a friend of the media, One Nation is no more than a protest vessel riddled with contradictions. They rail against globalism and foreign ownership while accepting major support from mining interests. Gina Rinehart’s associates have gifted One Nation a private plane worth over $1.5 million, along with millions in donations from executives like Ian Plimer and Adam Giles. Hanson has taken multiple undeclared or taxpayer-claimed flights on Rinehart-linked jets, yet the party pushes economic nationalism, protectionism, tariffs, and “Aussies first” welfare: quite the contrast when it comes to One Nation’s claim to be the party of the battler.

The John Howard guide to government, passed down successfully through every bipartisan iteration of government to this day, has revelled in an atrophied cultural malaise on three decades of a badly managed mining boom. And apart from Argentina, a few remaining ingrained African post-colonial nations, and the planet Arrakis, there isn’t much to compare this country to. The Coalition talk about making Toranas, and the ALP delivered a budget dismissing no social welfare to poor children, while house prices remained a generational insult. The major parties have had decades to provide the conditions to avoid One Nation, and Labor — coiled in a box claiming it could be an alternative — has only come to government to drive the same John Howard era neoliberal jalopy with a Medicare bumper sticker.

Seeing the sliding doors moment now and the ‘Return of the Pauline’, the point where voter patience snapped, should terrify the establishment. One Nation’s return is not the disease. It is the fever. The real illness is three decades of managed decline dressed up as responsible government: a badly managed mining boom that left dust and empty towns, a political class more interested in international virtue than domestic wages, and a media environment that mocks the symptoms while protecting the causes.

The question isn’t whether Hanson deserves power. The real question is why so many Australians now believe the major parties have left them no better choice. Hanson offers no genuine escape. She delivers only a loud, Rinehart-funded echo chamber wrapped in nationalist clothing. Her party rails against the elites while cosying up to mining billionaires. It speaks for battlers while protecting the resource aristocracy, and it trades Canberra’s neoliberal autopilot for Washington’s imperial one. Its a shame that there isn’t a visible alternative.

Until that vacuum is filled with real economic sovereignty, serious material relief for the working class, and a politics that puts Australian citizens first, not donors, not ideology, not foreign powers or mining magnates, the doors will keep sliding toward more disruption, not less. Pauline Hanson may be the fever, but without a proper cure from the left, Australia risks mistaking the symptom for the medicine.

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Eddy delivers unfiltered analysis on the Royal Commission’s secret recommendations, ASIO and AFP failures leading up to the Bondi attack, the secrecy protecting intelligence agencies, Australia’s lockstep alignment with a faltering US strategy in the Middle East, and the growing disconnect between public opinion and official policy.

Hostilities have technically resumed in the Iran War. Iranian reports (denied by CENTCOM) indicate a US warship was fired on for allegedly breaching the ceasefire, followed by additional strikes from both sides. Targets have also been hit in the Gulf, with US strikes reported on Iranian locations. The fragile ceasefire, which has barely held since hostilities paused after the initial Israel-US-Gulf war on Iran, is now crumbling.

Reports that Iranians struck a US warship have been verified by multiple sources outside Washington. However, the White House has refused to call the successful strike a breach of ceasefire terms. This indicates reticence in the US to escalate further and reveals a clear level of indecision and anxiety in Washington.

The Trump White House is in visible panic. Beneath the steady stream of AI-generated social media posts—Trump clutching too many Uno cards one day, “healing the sick” on the White House lawn the next while a Baal-like shadow looms overhead—lies a palpable discombobulation. This frantic performance only deepens the growing disconnect between Washington’s fantasies and geopolitical reality, the very fracture that has produced the present crisis.

That disconnect between reality and ambition plagues Donald Trump’s second term. It was evident in the first hundred days, when aggressive ICE operations targeted ordinary Americans in the Heartland, while pardons were issued for criminals and those accused of genocide, and plans were drawn up for casinos in Gaza. It appeared in his claims on Greenland, his actions in Venezuela, and his threats against Cuba. But the clearest example of Trump’s detachment from reality remains his hubristic decision to launch a war with Iran on behalf of Israel — and the fallout that continues to this day.

The clash between the hard reality of kicking the hornet’s nest in Iran and the fever dreams of the Netanyahu/Trump-inspired White House and its motley crew of inglorious bastards is now splashed across the global crisis. In the aftermath of the first round of combat, Iran held the upper hand: it retained the power to close the Strait of Hormuz and project force after destroying US early-warning and radar systems. Meanwhile, Trump declared victory with a blockade on the Strait and the blockage of 20% of the global hydrocarbon and fertiliser supply. Tentative diplomatic talks in Pakistan saw Iran imposing strict terms, while the White House’s dreams were captured in the strained grins of JD Vance, Jared Kushner, and Steve Witkoff. Trump’s attempt to suppress the price of oil on paper by printing Treasury money into the stock market clashes with the reality of consumers paying nearly double at the pump. Even Trump’s dream of exiting this disastrous war conflicts with the consequences of starting it and with the differing interpretations held by his co-belligerents—Israel, the US, and the Gulf states.

Despite the fact that previous AIPAC-influenced presidents avoided an invasion of Iran under the same pressure from Netanyahu, the very thought of it has long been seen as a terrible move. Iran is not a strategic threat to the United States, and military simulations dating back to the early 2000s have consistently shown Iran emerging victorious in any theoretical war—with the odds only improving for Tehran with each passing year. This point was not lost on Trump’s predecessors, who viewed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) as the best available compromise. That connection to reality was lost under Trump. Chock-full of Miriam Adelson’s money, pumped up with sycophantic fantasies, and driven by a desire to enrich his family, he took Israel’s advice and fell into the trap he struggles with today.

As its primary declared mission—to remove the Iranian government at Israel’s demand—looks increasingly disastrous, the US may be trying to salvage its side-quest to corral the global hydrocarbon trade. As the reality of the disaster befalls the lucid dreams of those conducting it, the thrashing superpower is trying to justify its logic, or perhaps make the best of a bad situation. Whether this is a coping mechanism or a Hail Mary to regain primacy, it looks messy and sclerotic—and clearly due to the man at the helm. No Deep State reassurance or Beltway poker face can hide it.

The fact is, the mission is doomed by its design and its execution. A large power play of the kind some soothsayers describe requires real ability to execute—a question of doubt raised by German Historian Tarik Cyril Amar and others who struggle to see the pragmatism or skill of the deep state in carrying out such a feat with a “mad king” character like Trump at the helm. Amar suggests that the circus in the White House lacks the cohesion, comprehension, and clout to pull it off with “a commander-in-chief who is a madman”.

This “4D chess” claim being made about the current bunch in Washington—via Venezuela, Iran, and the global fuel supply—seems more like a mantra to help distressed deep-state decision-makers sleep at night and ignore the compounding reality: Trump is trashing the global prestige and capability of the US empire at a rate that cannot quite be comprehended.

Israel remains the decisive factor that denies any clean exit route. For all of Washington’s regional calculations, the optics of admitting defeat to Iran, and the domestic political cost of defying Netanyahu, continue to trap the administration in escalation. This leaves the United States juggling an impossible list of conflicting objectives:

• Waging war on Iran to fulfil Israel’s dream of regional hegemony

• Renditioning leaders like Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro

• Operating the Navy as a state-sanctioned pirate fleet to blockade trade routes and seize ships

• Dismantling the Bretton Woods global order

• Collapsing the energy independence of allies and adversaries alike

• Constructing a blockchain-powered techno-feudal enclave in post-genocide Gaza

• Imposing that same dystopian model — driven by Palantir and the military-industrial complex — on the rest of humanity

With so many balls in the air, juggled by the most deluded of clowns, the chances of dropping everything only increase. Behind every unit of US action now stands an equal or greater unit of reaction: in the asymmetric war with Iran, in economic competition with China, and in its unreasonable expectation of maintaining a unipolar grip over global decision-making. Trump is dropping the balls, and each one is being scooped up by more competent hands outside the circus.

As these Washington fantasies collide with cold reality — the folly of using war for political ends and the bankruptcy of a foreign policy dictated by Israeli interests — the United States will never recover its former heights. Overextended, unprepared, and unaware of what it wants to achieve from the situation it has created at the insistence of Israel, the US is now open to exposure from the great power competitors it hoped to somehow contain through its actions.

Trump’s invasion of Iran accelerated the death knell of the petrodollar, elevated Iran as a regional power, revealed the limited projection of its legacy navy, and demonstrated America’s inability to impose itself in faraway theatres of war as it once did. After an initial exchange with Iran that resulted in the decimation of billions of dollars’ worth of radars, bases, and forward operating positions, the illusion of American military dominance now lies in ruins.

This same overstretch is evident across the board. The US has handed most of the responsibility for its efforts in Ukraine to Brussels, leaving Europeans languishing in a quagmire. They remain trapped by a hardened, zero-sum insistence on prolonging a five-year war that has killed nearly two million young Russians and Ukrainians, while their economies crumble between the realities of conflict with Russia on one side and Trump’s belligerence on the other — shaking down Europe while decommissioning its ability to sustain economic interdependence.

Among the outer-core vassals—Japan, Australia, Argentina—this hissy fit, couched as a “strategic pivot,” puts them at greater risk than most. As Trump brandishes a double-edged sword that seeks to cut his enemies but swings back at his allies, he fails to deliver significant damage to the former and ends up taking out more of his frustration on the latter.

Desperate for direction yet devoid of a sovereign bone in their political classes, these outer-rim semi-client states have never looked so isolated. The Eurasian landmass is figuring out ways to circumvent US maritime chaos. Iranian crude is moving overland, Asian countries are seeking alternatives from Russia, and South America is exploring options that prioritise domestic fuel production. But the last die-hard adherents to the US seem destined to miss out and walk exposed into the impending US-created global crisis unprepared to face the same realities that baffle Washington, and further exposed to the drastic fallout.

Meanwhile, the entire global economy is at a standstill after more than two months of near-zero flow from roughly 20% of the world’s energy supply. Reports of market manipulation are ringing out, with credible sources tracing insider trading accusations back to individuals close to the White House. The price of oil has been suppressed on paper markets, creating a dramatic disparity between traded contracts and real physical supply. While Trump uses the Federal Reserve’s printer to manipulate markets and suppress crude prices, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve runs dry and America’s economic credibility collapses with it.

The fragile ceasefire has collapsed. Right on cue, the White House admitted it is “pausing Project Freedom” — its own operation to force ships through the Strait — while the blockade remains. What Trump sold as a masterstroke for Israel has become America’s Suez Crisis moment: a humiliating self-inflicted wound that didn’t have to happen this soon. This is the direct result of choosing dreams over reality, and pragmatic presidents and independent allies of the past would be shaking their heads in disbelief. Trump brought this fatal disconnect crashing down on the world, now nations on both sides of the collapsing American order must act accordingly. The empire is bleeding out in public.

The current US blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, resulting from the escalation of the Iran war, is causing a global energy crisis with no end in sight. The International Energy Agency (IEA) has declared the situation “the biggest energy security threat in history.” With the current ceasefire period at an end and its participants at an impasse, this energy security threat is rapidly evolving into an energy security catastrophe not experienced in living memory. Could it be by design?

Since the beginning of the conflict on February 28, twenty-five percent of the world’s seaborne oil trade has been frozen in the Strait of Hormuz. An average of 20 million barrels per day (mb/d) has been lost to locked-in supply, compounded by a sharp drop in the capacity to produce liquid fuels.

As of late March, over 40 energy assets across the Gulf were reported as severely damaged. Some facilities saw temporary or partial restarts, but full recovery is expected to take months or even years due to physical damage, security risks, and logistical challenges. Even if the war ended tomorrow and the blockade were dissolved with full access restored, the IEA crisis would not be averted. The reality of this crisis — in production alone — has not been priced into the cost of fuel, nor has it been factored into the political calculus of governments around the world, which largely continue with business as usual.

The dirty world of hydrocarbons is making itself known again in the form of man-made scarcity. While Israeli-US objectives for the war are claimed to be motivated by preventing a nuclear Iran, there seems to be a reticence to acknowledge the global flow-on effects — and perhaps even a quiet embrace of them. As the entire global energy supply chain strains under the Gulf crisis, tanker traffic to the newly minted “Gulf of America” has tripled.

US fossil fuel net production has been on the rise thanks to increased exploration, drilling, and advances in the shale oil industry, which has seen the US technically become a net exporter of fossil fuels. The dream of a US energy monopoly has taken root and now forms a core part of the strategic calculus of US foreign policy. No longer does the US have to merely consider energy flows — it is now actively accelerating a more aggressive approach.

A country once obsessed with gatekeeping oil flows abroad is now looking to squeeze them in order to reroute energy supply chains around a new hydrocarbon order. As it locks the Strait of Hormuz, Washington is negotiating with Indonesia while eyeing the vital Strait of Malacca. Its ally Israel has recently doubled down on the ‘Isaac Accords’ with its firm partner Argentina, suggesting a potential reigniting of the Falklands dispute and the cutting of vital shipping lanes flowing between Tierra del Fuego and the tip of Antarctica. There has been a clear pivot in the way Washington views its place in the world — from conductor of global free trade to disruptor.

Sir Francis Drake made his name in the history books as the most famous of the British privateers. He led daring missions of plunder to the far side of the New World in the 15th century. Granted licence by royal decree to plunder Spanish treasure ships returning from the Americas laden with gold, Drake’s mission had been issued by Queen Elizabeth to contain Spanish naval dominance. By keeping the empire spread thin across its colonial domains and protecting its assets from state-sanctioned pirates like Drake, Britain eventually succeeded. The pirate activity paid off and was a major factor in the demise of Spanish naval dominance, culminating in the loss of the Spanish Armada at the Battle of Gravelines on August 8, 1588 — at the hands of the pirate captain Francis Drake himself. This set up a new era of maritime hegemony and state-sanctioned piracy for the British that lasted until the fall of Suez in the 1950s.

The Spanish never recovered from their defeat. The desertification of parts of the country under climate change today is partly linked to the vast forests felled for constructing the Armada in the 16th century. If we replace trees with oil and Spain with China, what is currently occurring in the war on Iran begins to make strategic sense. Spain’s lumber scarcity was ruthlessly exploited by the British. The Royal Navy declared a ‘war on trees’ that included cutting off access to vital Baltic timber, targeting shipments in the Caribbean, and controlling key trade lanes.

After plundering oil tankers off the coast of Venezuela before renditioning its sovereign leader to a supermax prison — heralding the definitive start of the “Francis Drake-era” of US foreign policy — what we see today should come as no surprise. Trump openly admitted he was targeting Venezuela for its oil and has made similar statements about Iran.

Washington has now sanctioned Hengli Petrochemical, China’s second-biggest refinery, in an attempt to disrupt China’s access to hydrocarbons. Eyes on Malacca and blockades on its seaborne energy flows are an open incitement, it has put pressure on Beijing directly, not to mention a high instance of critical energy infrastructure being damaged or incapacitated by incidents that seem too voluminous to be a coincidence. While the global energy supplychains freeze, and ‘the tank’s (clay) bed is glarin’, from March–April 2026, since the war with Iran has unfolded, multiple incidents disrupted global energy infrastructure.

Russia saw strikes on a major oil export terminal (Apr 3), a crude distillation unit (Apr 4), and another refinery (Apr 20). India reported deadly boiler explosions at a Vedanta power plant in Chhattisgarh (Apr 7 & 14) plus a refinery incident (Apr 21). Fires and explosions also hit Australia’s Geelong refinery (Apr 15), Mexico’s Pemex Olmeca refinery (Apr 9), Romania’s CET Vest power plant (Apr 21), and a Texas oil rig/refinery-related site (Apr 21). Earlier attacks targeted Iran’s South Pars/Asaluyeh (Mar 18), Kuwait’s Mina Al-Ahmadi refinery (early April), Qatar’s Ras Laffan (Mar 2), Saudi Arabia’s Ras Tanura (Mar 2 & 4), and UAE’s Ruwais (Mar 10). These events, linked to geopolitical tensions, raised serious concerns over global energy supply stability.

While it may be too early to make definitive claims about the nature of these events or whether they are linked to something more sinister, the sheer number of incidents alone is worth documenting. This pattern is worth noting in the context of this return to pirate activity, where the most audacious and diabolical plots are schemed.

Some pundits are pointing to signs of a war for control of the world’s hydrocarbon supply chains, and all of these factors could be used to fashion a cogent argument in support of that claim. All roads lead to a strategic contest with China. The US now realises it cannot compete with the Chinese economic engine, Chinese innovation, and China’s domestic manufacturing capability. It is therefore looking to compete where it still holds an advantage — in the domain of energy dominance and naval power, and all the pirate activity that comes with it.

While China may be rising in many areas of innovation and technology, the US is using its still superior (TBC) blue water navy and its adopted pirate policy as a hedge against traditional strategic and economic peer competition in the global market it once dominated.

There is a reason previous US presidents refrained from this scenario in the Gulf. Difficult conversations and JCPOA-shaped documents reflected that restraint. The deviation from this script we see today in Washington is one part Trump, one part Israeli pressure, and one part opportunism. The status quo of blockades and stalemates would have been factored in, and somewhere within Trump’s warped Clausewitzian triangle, Washington sees an opportunity in sending the world into the biggest energy crisis in history.

Middle powers will have to make a choice, because what comes after Trump will not be much different — Democrat or Republican. Revelations of Biden-era support for an Iran incursion, and decades of bipartisan musings over a defanged Venezuela, are all part of the political lexicon in Washington. AOC would likely be as much of a pirate president as JD Vance. Decades of unipolar exceptionalism and self-marination in the champagne of hegemony have manifested in disruptive and brutal global incisions under each party’s version of “America First.” In the end, it is really just plain old piracy.

In the end, what is unfolding in 2026 may not be an accident of war, but the deliberate reassertion of an old logic: when economic and technological supremacy slips away, naval power and control of chokepoints become the final arbiters. Whether this new Francis Drake-era succeeds in reshaping the global hydrocarbon order remains to be seen. What is certain is that middle powers can no longer afford neutrality in a world where the flow of energy itself has become the battlefield. The age of unipolar convenience is over. The age of open maritime contest has returned.

Laith shares what makes on-the-ground reporting in this period unique, especially covering resistance operations, civilian impacts, and massacres in the south.We go deep into the human cost: the daily plight of displaced families, children growing up without homes, destroyed villages, and the constant fear under continued Israeli strikes and presence despite broader regional ceasefire dynamics.

Essential listening for anyone seeking unfiltered insight into Lebanon’s struggle, the resilience of the resistance, and the human reality behind the headlines in West Asia.

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Australia is suffering a national crisis not experienced in generations. The 2026 illegal US-Isreal-Gulf war with Iran has triggered a severe fuel and energy shock that has emptied bowsers, crippled trucking routes, and exposed the country’s dangerous dependence on imported petrol, diesel, fertiliser, polymers and petrochemicals — with Australia now importing 80-90% of its refined fuels — farmers desperate for urea from the Gulf, remote communities running on diesel generators, mining operations, and millions of households facing astronomical commuting costs in one of the world’s most car-dependent nations.

Built on sprawling suburbs, over-leveraged freeway homes, vast road-train supply chains across an isolated continent, and an economy that extracts wealth with massive diesel fleets, Australia’s entire way of life was constructed on the assumption of cheap and reliable fuel; that assumption has now collapsed, turning a wealthy resource-rich country’s long-ignored vulnerabilities into an urgent national reckoning — one that brings both deep pain and a rare opportunity for genuine resilience.

The Fragile Foundations Exposed

It’s not just the fuel prices at the bowser, or the diesel allocations that run up day to day for trucking companies, it’s the fertiliser for farmers in an agricultural country. Australia is currently desperately pushing to find more urea (an LNG byproduct), as 64-70% of our supply comes from the Gulf and the Middle East, and winter cropping season needs to be sown. Resilient farmers are looking to change to less fertiliser intensive crops, and the government claims to be searching high and wide for alternative suppliers and products, but the word on the street is that we are in a national fertiliser crisis; something that can act as a prelude to a national food crisis. Oil plays a huge part in feedstock. Diesel is the lifeblood of farm operations, and liquid fuels are the catalysing elements that provide Australians with food from a Darling Downs farm to a plate in Dandenong.

In all the national disbelief, as Australians still book holidays to places with no aviation gas, and the Government has offered no changes to the way we access fuel other than telling us to ‘catch the bus’, many are unaware of the impending catastrophe and both ill-equipped and ill-informed to deal with it. This is especially concerning with strategic stocks sitting at just over a month supply of key fuels — far below the IEA’s 90-day benchmark.

Some on the left may say the fuel shortage is good for EVs, or those on the right may think Trump’s war with Iran is worth the higher cost of living, but they both speak from a position that is both alarmingly ignorant and concerning for the future. Liquid fuel is more than Ford Rangers and cheap plastic crap, it’s polymers for pipes, plastics for vital medical applications, injection molding for vital building materials. Liquid fuel is the base for roads, a key element in pharmaceuticals, synthetic fibers, resins, lubricants, waxes, refrigerants. All totally essential to the functioning of modern economies, across the spectrum of politics around the world.

Australia lacks domestic petrochemical self-sufficiency after eight refinery closures in the past 20+ years (leaving only two operational refineries supplying roughly 17% of national fuel demand); reliance on imported feedstocks compounds fuel import vulnerability. You just have to look at the map to know that Australia’s isolated geographical position leaves it vulnerable to this situation, and Anthony Albanese ringing up everyone in Asia for a couple more tanker-loads isn’t going to address the situation. If the war ended tomorrow, the damage heading this country’s way is already terrifying based on some of the warnings ringing thorough he global economy.

A Perfect Storm of Dependence

The already tenuous idea of buying an over-leveraged developer home on a flat piece of land by a freeway, far away from public transport and shops, and a double digit kilometre distance from work, seems impossible when an already strenuous long drive is met with astronomical fuel and grocery bills. The danger of unemployment caused by possible stagflation only makes the problem worse.

The entire concept of Australian neoliberal housing is based on the motor car, and is untenable without it. Australia has one of the highest vehicle ownership rates in the world, driven by sprawling cities, regional distances, and limited public transport outside major urban centres. Just-in-time supply chains, geographic isolation, and a car-dependent economy are turning out to be a perfect storm.

It takes roughly one thousand kilometres to bring calories from farm to plate in Australia. A mango gets picked in Bowen, Queensland, may have to be trucked down to Ultimo in NSW to a duopoly supermarket distribution centre, before being palletised, wrapped, loaded and trucked back up to a Bowen supermarket shelf. The centralised nature of our highly concentrated corporate giants, leads to labyrinthine supply chains that only make sense to them and their shareholders, and the neoliberal nature of the Australian business’ format means many things are made and stored further up in just-in-time supply chains overseas. Just-in-time-supply chains break when all the things that make them just in time fail.

The division of labour nebulised under neoliberal offshoring is compounded in a vast land poorly serviced by rail, and over-reliant on road-trains that run across the swathe of Australia hostile lands to reach rural towns and population centres that dot this largely uninhabitable country. Generators run remote communities, remote hospitals and police stations, the extracted wealth that is dug by thirsty multinationals mining companies who pay no tax, is done so with the same sovereign volume of fuel used bu ambulances and fire trucks. Who is dolling it out?

Missed Opportunities and Political Failure

Some may be fearing a Mad Max prequel environment, and are filling old water tanks and plastic containers on trailers hooked to Dodge Rams for good measure. Others may be hoping that the people elected to represent our country may be thinking outside the square a little more.

Penny Wong has ruled out the Russian oil the Filipinos have gained permission from the US to purchase, she won’t address the diplomatic options that US ally Japan took in bilaterally resuming fuel trade with Iran, but Albanese is playing coy going to Singapore and Brunei to scab a few barrels here and there, when he should be threatening to cut AUKUS if the belligerents of this war don’t discontinue blocking the entire global economy so Israeli soldiers can invade Lebanon, conduct a regional war with Iran, and continue committing a UN declared genocide in Gaza.

The coalition is talking about Torana’s, sharing Ampol ad’s from the 80s on social media, and deifying old factory jobs that John Howard destroyed, Labor talks about more neoliberal incrementalism and leans on how good they think they are as blokes compared to the other lot, and they both largely dither during this once in a century economic crisis, and both miss a golden opportunity to make the most of the bad situation.

On the right, the possibility of a Menzies style reset based in full employment, cheap housing and Aussie jobs could sound attractive right about now. On the left, a sovereign minded social and regionally focused national plan that includes housing, jobs and unique national ideas could be massively appealing, and with all those ideas not on the table, decreasing our relations with Israel and the US are polling quite popular…Wait a minute… they are really the same thing! Australians want a sovereign minded government who isn’t secretly working for big business, Israel, or the United States national interest. Its not currently available.

This is the ultimate low hanging fruit. Guaranteed to ensure political clout and a public mandate that could last for a generation. Australia could be recreated in the vacuum like it was after the US left the region in WWII, it could dream a new world if the right people were in power to see it. Electrification, green steel, high speed rail, renewable projects, nation building projects that realign our multicultural country under common goals and values that are modern and cutting edge. Green Armies, diplomatic corps, prison rehabilitation programs, a national building commission that puts half the nation to work building the affordable homes they will one day live in with Australian made materiel.

Whatever it is, after the hard times ahead that are coming, we wont be going back to what was before. Whether we want to or not. How about some big ideas?

But so far, this government has offered little more than cautious navel-gazing and the familiar refrain to “catch the bus”. It cant even review taxing the multinational gas giants, allowing another ripe piece of fruit to fall from the vine — ready to be devoured by political carrion birds such as Pauline Hanson and Clive Palmer. While Australians from both sides of the aisle desperately crave a genuinely sovereign solution, none is in sight.

As the crisis deepens, the government’s reactive efforts appear hollow. They come against the backdrop of a thirty-plus-year legacy of involvement in Israel-US conflicts across the Muslim world — a legacy that has helped shape the very fuel shock now gripping the nation. As Australians make tough choices in the months ahead, many will also grow tougher on the decisions that led us here, and on those in Canberra on all sides who failed to prepare for this day.

We discuss the unreported damage inside Israel from Iranian missile barrages , the true costs of the war, and whether Israel has dangerously underestimated Iran’s resilience and US ability. Shaiel addresses internal warnings of IDF collapse, growing criticism of Netanyahu, we also dive deep into the rationale behind Israels brutal Lebanon invasion.

#IsraelIranWar #Unit8200 #ShaielBenEphraim #IDFInsider #IranMissileStrikes #LebanonInvasion #GreaterIsrael #GazaEthnicCleansing #LavenderAI #NetanyahuCriticism #LebanonNormalization #8200Alumni #IsraelDamageAssessment #MessianicInfluence #WestAsiaWar #BoganIntelligentsia

“Australia is not an active participant in this war. But all Australians are paying higher prices because of it” echoed the words of Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese during a national address about the crisis in Iran and the consequent economic and fuel catastrophe that awaits. The speech was viewed round the world, but it fell flat at home, failing in the days that followed to meaningfully reassure a country at the bottom of a broken supply chain caused by a war that both Albanese and his government actively support, and leaving many Australians wondering: why was any of this even necessary in the first place?

The higher price that Albanese mentions is the economic meltdown caused by the US-Israel-Gulf war on Iran, and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz — a situation only made certain by the invasion he supports. The markets have reflected this position, with the record rise in the price of a barrel of oil only being matched by the record crash of the stock market and the abrupt disruptions to the global supply chain. The ‘active participation’ the PM refutes our involvement in is also one of the biggest national porky pies in the country’s history, and one of the most consequential.

“Australia is at war, today” — retired ADF Major Stuart McCarthy on the Bogan Intelligentsia podcast.

As the government attempts to square the circle to redefine the meaning of ‘active’, it was Australian sailors onboard the US submarine that fired the opening salvo of the war, sinking the Iranian frigate IRIS Dena as it returned from neutral naval exercises in India. From the moment the government hyper-extended to support the Israel-led strikes that opened the war, killing senior government figures, the leader of the Shia Islam, Ayatollah Khamenei, and over 170 school girls in Tehran, the Albanese government has moved in tandem with the invading axis. That includes coordinating data via US spy bases located in Australia like Pine Gap, consignments of air-to-air missiles to the UAE, the dispatch of an SAS contingent, and the deployment of an E-7A Wedgetail and an entire crew. This seems pretty active.

Albanese made his important speech to the nation on April Fools’ Day, followed by Keir Starmer and Donald Trump along the time zones. Fitting, considering the counterintuitive messaging piped from all parties. The former two indicated ominous times ahead, and the latter declared victory along with an escalation that involves a ground invasion of Iran. While the global markets pumped and dumped at what seemed like market manipulation and insider trading, rumours of peace from the White House that were couched in acts of war and talk of de-escalation ended up in skipping up rungs of the ladder and jamming the conflict into ‘forever war’ mode. The PM’s address was watched with bated breath, and frustrated sighs.

“We must substitute co-operation for competition and public service for private profit,” was what John Curtin said during WWII. In hard times you stick together. When the recession began in the 90s, Paul Keating rallied the nation around the difficult circumstances. “When you’re confronted with a challenge, unity is strength,” seeking to galvanise the country at a time of economic downturn. “The months ahead may not be easy. I want to be upfront about that. No government can promise to eliminate the pressures that this war is causing,” said Anthony Albanese after his government supported the opening strikes that began this crisis, making a statement before an international audience that amounted to taking the bus. That was about it.

Albanese’s speech seemed to be padding the ground for Netanyahu-Trump’s war for regional Zionist hegemony, like his government has passed the test for economically, diplomatically and militarily supporting Israel during its genocide in Gaza, or acting coy when the US kidnapped sovereign Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez. As Penny, Richard and Albo stay mute on the capture of Greenland, the starvation blockade of Cuba, the chainsawing of NATO, the favouring of autocratic sycophants who don’t mind crushing their people for end-stage neoliberal projects mainlined into the US, they stuff us into this horror by default.

Kevin Rudd hands away our trillion-dollar super fund like it’s a bottle of snake oil to Mississippi congressmen, Marles waits in the DC hallways for a chop out from the volatile Trumpian avatar Pete Hegseth, and Penny Wong puts on her wise nods when standing next to US diplomats in moral suspended animation, who flip words around about liberty and democracy while the whole world burns from the top of the Black Sea down to the Horn of Africa due to American design. And we haven’t even mentioned the trillion dollar tithe that is AUKUS, which is unlikely to ever provide us with the nuclear subs we need to not contribute active support in the future. Fair fucking dinkum.

As his nation faces a looming crisis not experienced in multiple generations, with the cockpit lights flashing one after the other, Albanese didn’t repudiate the warmongers who seem on the verge of escalating the conflict, he didn’t announce the need to strategically realign our diplomatic footprint around energy and common struggles with our Asian and Pacific neighbours, he couldn’t even vote in Parliament to tax the multinational gas giants that are taking our resources offshore.

Labor has squeaked out a small objection to the Israel-US war of aggression against Iran, purely out of economic concern towards its cataclysmic existence, but it has barely said boo about much else other than chiding Iran as some unreasonable actor who is bringing the world fuel supply to its knees for some vibe.

The Foreign Minister’s ‘Dennis Denuto’ approach to representing Australia’s interests during this impending crisis was captured in a corporate action shot on her social media on a conference call with 40 western leaders speaking about opening the Strait of Hormuz as part of Australia’s support for international efforts to reopen the critical waterway.

Consent for the Iraq War was manufactured in the media-hyped aftermath of September 11, 2001. Consent came after the West had enjoyed a decade of neoliberal prosperity, while the West had the money in the bank and the international reputation lift in the tank. Not so now, after decades of polyshambolic omnicrises like subprime mortgages, generational housing affordability, years of pandemic, an overwhelming cost of living surge, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the genocide in Gaza, the unveiling of a global pedophile elite spending a few largely unpunished decades partying on an island, and of course the long series of dodgy American “forever wars” that consent was manufactured for. John Howard had times of plenty to draw from, but Anthony Albanese has that.

Maybe the ominously deployed Wedgetail can get a better view of the situation, because the government speaks of the Strait of Hormuz closure like some Iranian-manufactured Gordian Knot, and not what it is: a brutal invasion of a sovereign nation of which Australia is a participant. Seventy-five percent of Australians are against this war, and more opposed to Australia’s involvement — however active or not the government wishes it to be — and no classy action shot from Penny Wong or augmented sentence structure from our under-equipped PM is going to change that.

It was a great show and a conversation about music, the power of unity and love, and the cultural void that feeds through Australia.

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The strength of Australian fuel security has been brought into question during the war in Iran and the boiling crisis in West Asia, and Australia’s decision to be involved doesn’t help the situation. As nations scramble to secure their energy needs in an uncertain future, Australia could be poorly positioned due to a number of factors, not least a bipartisan policy that has outsourced vital sovereign considerations including national fuel security, and a foreign policy that has put Australia front and center on the list of belligerents in this conflict.

The Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, his Energy Minister Chris Bowen and the government have spent the last couple of weeks in crisis mode responding to the fallout from a regional war his government has militarily supported from the onset. And just as the government has not reckoned with the fact that Australian service people have been involved in taking Iranian lives at the onset of this illegal conflict, it has not quite reckoned with the fallout from the actions of it.

Australia is tethered to the pointy edge of this war. Albanese was bending over backwards to approve the Netanyahu-Trump invasion of Iran. Now he is deploying a Fuel Task Force to oversee the allocation of available fuel as a consequence of the war he supports. A lesson in what not to do. In the vital Asian trade node that doles out the refined fuels needed to run Australia, it might be considered how Australia’s recent diplomatic footprint will determine its fate in a dwindling pool of resources.

In three weeks the world’s energy supply has all ground to a halt, along with the supply chains that deliver it, with consequences mounting by the day. Fuel shortages and service station closures around Australia make international news, services take on levies, shops run out of stock, and supply chains strain under pressure. Australia is a just-in-time economy, with time about to run out.“Our Fuel Supply Taskforce is up and running”, announced a rather confident looking PM cast against what the IMF is calling the worst economic crisis in eighty years (WW2). The government hailed some success in arranging a bilateral fuel arrangement with Singapore, and is reconvening the Fuel Supply Taskforce to look at additional measures, but that casts against an environment of rapidly developing supply chain issues and force majeure actions being made on significant oil and gas contracts around the world.

The Netanyahu-Trump war on Iran is a disaster. The spiking price of oil has sat next to the crashing western financial markets, the global economy is taking on shocks that cannot yet be fathomed, and the world rapidly shifts towards a period of uncertainty. Global markets have transformed into daily yo-yos dependent on President Trump’s performance of a diplomatic pantomime involving the simultaneous announcement of war and peace from the White House, met with total rejection from Tehran, and compounded by the escalatory ladder that sees further destruction of vital energy infrastructure and the crippling of the global markets.

Our greatest friend and security guarantee under Trump in Washington has gone beyond the pale in its invasion of Iran, and so too has Canberra for supporting it. Only stirring the pot is the Israel-US ‘good cop-bad cop’ approach to the conflict, compounded by Iran’s unwillingness to engage diplomatically, and as it stands, apart from the disjointed announcements from the Trump camp, there are no signs that this conflict is going to end any time soon. The options available in Australia are limited, partly due to the government’s willingness to support the Israel-US war from the outset—and for a country run by governments so keen to be involved in US misadventures in faraway lands, you would think it would have the wherewithal to secure an energy buffer for when that foreign policy pastime goes awry.

A complex asymmetrical war develops along an escalation ladder, with every rung another step too far away from a diplomatic exit, and a catastrophe for global energy supply and the economies and lives of billions. Iran is not accepting America’s terms, and America is not agreeing on the counter-proposal from Iran, and in a battle where both sides seem to be measuring completely different metrics of success, the damages to vital global energy infrastructure seen in barely three weeks seems minor to the cadence of what this war could wreak if it goes beyond three months.

Downstream from the frozen fuel nodes in the Strait of Hormuz, Asian fuel refiners scramble to take in the reality, and act accordingly. Our Japanese oil refiners amend their outputs and their clients, Korean and Singaporean suppliers respond to government calls to secure domestic supplies, and China halts almost half of its consignments of aviation fuel to Australia. Between the Asian refineries and the hungry ports in Australia live hundreds of millions of people in dozens of countries, many of whom have better relationships with each other than we do with them. Europeans are looking at multilateral contingencies, Asians are revisiting multilateral diplomacy to re-imagine Asia’s energy mix, and Australia looks pretty isolated sitting with a bunch of Pacific Islands we have been pissing off for decades down here at the bottom of the earth.

The situation would not have been so dire if bipartisan governments didn’t move to close 8 refineries in two decades, leaving one of the biggest nations in the world by landmass with two oil refineries. Long-term structural failures in energy policy have seen decades of under-investment in refining and fuel security. Australia has a couple of handfuls worth of fuel reserves, and a heavy reliance on imported refined products leaves Australia one of the most vulnerable modern economies in the world.

“Without Trucks Australia Stops” is a common sign spotted on the back of endless fleets of diesel trucks that run overland freight across vast distances where our energy returned over energy invested strains across the harsh space that separates a unique geography. Road trains running up the Hume and across the Nullarbor hail others turning down crossroads that lead to remote locations that are bone dry of fuel, and far away from a solution. Gardening maintenance companies to postal fleets see the price of logistics double at the fuel pump, MRI operators to fish and chip shops run low on helium and packaging.

The closure of the biggest gas fields in the world (Qatar, South Pars (Iran)) means vital gases for energy, high tech production, and medicine are unaccounted for. The collapse of the Gulf petrochemical industry means a halt in plastics, polyester, polyurethane and paracetamol. As the IMF issues dire warnings along with establishment financial experts, there is a developing crisis in the supply of Urea and Ammonium Nitrate fertilisers. Farmers can’t power their machines, and world hunger joins the equation. The flow-on effects of the crisis are endless.

In a situation like this, sovereignty is the driver of a nation’s response, and as nations from the Philippines to Burkina Faso seek to enact national emergency measures, the Albanese government has taken some more time to consider. Japan and Korea, both with 200-day sovereign fuel reserves, have enacted restrictions. Both of those countries refine the fuel that makes its way to Australia at the end of a fragile resource supply chain that is being rearranged.

Footage of middle Australians filling up jerrycans, old water tanks, and industrial storage units on the back of thirsty Dodge Rams paints a bleak reality. The Albanese government has yet to deploy any measure to combat this practice. Citing the rage, Coalition White Knight Andrew Hastie has made the most sovereign sounding statement made by a Liberal politician in recent memory, condemning Trump’s war, saying Australians are “suffering” because of it, and placing the blame for the crisis on the White House. This marks a shift that is growing rapidly against anyone in Canberra upholding this status quo, and applying additional pressure on any political entity prepared to uphold it.

Matt Canavan is posting old Ampol ads on his social media, Pauline Hanson and Clive Palmer are threatening to tax the foreign-owned gas giants, the Greens are embarrassing the government in the Senate, Hastie is stirring sovereign pangs in the heart of middle Australia; the Albanese government stands alone, refusing to budge, as the world crumbles around them, as the number one party of Trump in Australia, and the number one party of war. Not a good look in the current political situation.

Albo’s decision to lump in has been made as fast as one could, and his support for the US-Israel war is more than words; it is the deployment of Australian military personnel to an opaque war that has repercussions that go beyond the cost of petrol and the price of groceries. This isn’t some automatic decision. It’s not to be taken for granted. This is the most consequential conflict Australia has had to consider in generations, filled with the pitfalls, traps and tinged with messianic open-endedness. What the fuck are the government doing getting so close so quickly into this war?

The crisis in the Gulf has stirred up the global economy in ways not yet fully reckoned with—a situation compounded in Australia which sits in this predicament partly due to proximity and policy. What a disgrace that our government stands before us with serious faces, acting like prudent sovereign managers, when they have committed diplomatic and military support to the belligerents of the conflict and those responsible for the catastrophic situation in the Gulf. The fuel crisis in Australia is due to a bipartisan neoliberal economic policy that has prioritised corporate profits over national security. It’s partly due to geography, but it’s also due to the sovereign, moral and ethical decay of the Australian political class.

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