“Want Trump’s action and style, then it’s One Nation you need.” That’s the promise on the website of Pauline Hanson’s party – or, at least, it was until yesterday.

As a keen-eyed Redditor noted, after Donald Trump’s midterm crashout, One Nation secretly removed its boast that “the actions of current U.S. President Donald Trump echo strongly with [sic] the principles and policies of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation.” That 2025 page now returns a 404 message, presumably because party strategists realise that pledging to “uphold the principles of Trump’s presidency” might not be the selling point they once imagined.

We’ve been here before.

Remember Trumpet of Patriots, the attempt by billionaire developer Clive Palmer to capitalise on Trump’s victory in 2024? No, neither does anyone else. Palmer imagined that a party name invoking Trumpism would convince local Deplorables to propel his candidates into office. But after the ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs of 2025, Australians turned decisively against Trump – and, in the 2025 election, Palmer’s MAGA-branded outfit flopped everywhere, despite some $60 million spent on advertisements and spam texts.

Liberal leader Peter Dutton was also dazzled by Trump’s return to office, and ran his campaign accordingly. Dutton pledged to overturn ‘woke’ curriculums at schools and universities; he promised to slash federal spending, appointing Jacinta Price (remember her?) as shadow minister of government efficiency, a nod to Elon Musk’s cost-cutting DOGE efforts. Price duly told rallying supporters she would “make Australia great again” – and then, immediately, claimed she didn’t remember using the phrase, as the Liberals belatedly tried to dispel claims Dutton was a ‘Temu Trump’.

It was, according to a subsequent internal party report, “the worst campaign the party has ever fought”.

In 2025, Pauline Hanson was also riding the Trump train. Unlike Palmer and the Liberals, she never got off. The One Nation website still records her visit to Mar-a-Lago, a pilgrimage it celebrates as “taking her message of patriotism and political courage to the world stage”. Since then, the Hansonites have assiduously copied Trump’s stunts. After he banned hostile media outlets, One Nation began excluding the Guardian and the ABC from its events. At the ON launch event for the Victorian election a few weeks back, ON candidate Mark Nicholson promised to jail former premiers Daniel Andrews and Jacinta Allan, in an obvious echo of MAGA’s anti-Clinton ‘lock her up’ slogan.

So will Trump’s current woes bring One Nation undone?

Most likely, no – or, at least, not immediately.

Pauline Hanson predates by decades the current global wave of right-wing populism. By the time Trump ran for the Republican presidential nomination in June 2015, Hanson had already won (and then lost) a lower house seat, founded One Nation, been expelled from it, gone to prison and returned as ON leader. That makes her one of the country’s most identifiable politicians: unlike Palmer, she doesn’t need the Trump name for attention.

Hanson, Trump differences

One Nation’s recent surge owes a great deal to the trauma of Covid. The lockdowns particularly affected Hanson’s core constituency – tradespeople, small businessmen and blue-collar workers in regional towns and the outer suburbs of cities. It alienated them from the major parties and fuelled their rage against those they saw as a white-collar urban elite, a group that emerged comparatively unscathed from the pandemic.

Yet Hanson never abandoned the old-fashioned racism on which she built her career.

In an old clip from the mid-nineties, you can find Hanson’s mother Norah Seccombe outlining her family philosophies. “I was always taught,” Seccombe says, “the yellow race will rule the world. And if we don’t do something now ... I’m afraid, yes, the yellow race will rule the world.” That was the sentiment that Hanson channelled in her infamous maiden parliamentary speech. Over the years, she’s adapted her slurs to suit political fashions: in the mid-nineties, she never mentioned Muslims; in the 2000s, Islamophobia became her stock in trade. But the old tropes remain – and, because of the centrality of anti-Asian, anti-Indigenous nationalism to a settler colony, they provide One Nation with a degree of stability.

We might also note the difference between Hanson’s political persona and Trump’s. A friend explained the distinction by noting that Trump boasts about his wins, while Hanson whines about losing. Trump swaggers and Hanson complains: she’s “had a gutful,” she tells us.

During the 2016 election, Trump positioned himself as the wrecking ball, the outsider who would make stuff happen. Hanson’s populism centres less on change than on misery: she’s an ordinary battler ostentatiously sharing the victimhood of other battlers. That also underpins her longevity: she promises nothing – and she delivers it.

The crisis besetting Trumpism will not immediately engulf One Nation. Yet the party’s decision to cleanse its website of pro-Trump rhetoric does hint at future tensions.

Trump’s fracturing base

Trump’s electoral success held together an unlikely coalition, with MAGA bringing together traditional Republicans keen to cut taxes and government funding; protectionists seeking to restore American industry through tariffs; tech bros pushing crypto and AI; evangelicals who saw Trump as fighting a spiritual war against literal demons; culture warriors obsessed with wokeness; and overt white nationalists and fascists. In the aftermath of the midterms, the antagonism between those factions is likely to develop into an internecine war.

Already, JD Vance has published a long social media post blaming the result on the conflict in Iran. The statement represents Vance’s attempt to re-position himself ahead of a possible presidential run, but it also expresses the deep hostility between MAGA isolationists opposed to entanglements abroad, and neoconservatives keen to use American military power to overturn hostile nations.

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That split has obvious implications for Australia. A pivot back to an America First posture (as per Vance’s tweet) would probably mean the collapse of AUKUS, as well as a broader withdrawal of the US from the Asia Pacific region. American isolationism would throw into disarray the foreign policy consensus of the major parties, both of which see the US alliance as fundamental.

But Vance’s disavowal of the Iran war hints at a deeper struggle within MAGA – a profound schism over Israel. The US joined Benjamin Netanyahu to attack Iran, a collaboration that enraged many MAGA loyalists. Some on the American Right have been genuinely horrified by the Gaza genocide. But Trump’s willingness to court white nationalists has also attracted a sizeable group of antisemites. The so-called ‘Groypers’, for instance, are youthful, articulate and deeply, deeply bigoted. They’re perfectly positioned to recruit from a disintegrating MAGA coalition.

Hanson’s Islamophobia led her to (quite literally) wrap herself in the Israeli flag, vocally supporting the slaughter in Gaza. But one suspects that many younger One Nation supporters, who follow US politics closely, will find Groyper-style antisemitism deeply appealing. A fragmentation within MAGA might well have consequences here, but probably not for some time.

The Republican rout in the midterms does show that the far-right can be beaten. But it won’t, in and of itself, derail One Nation. We can’t rely on on Trump’s problems to defeat Australian racists. That’s something we have to do ourselves.

Nothing is worse for people than when the political class start agreeing on the narrative. It’s almost always wrong, almost certain to ignore the real underlying problem, but it inevitably means poorer people are about to be screwed and the comfortable class of media, politicians and business will carry on as before.

It’s ingrained within the commentary and articles written by those in the Press Gallery who get an op-ed. It’s the foundation of questions to politicians.

It colours the analysis (such as it is) of economic data and any utterances by the Reserve Bank, as happened yesterday when it raised rates for the fifth time this year in what can only be described as a form of class war.

We saw this agreement after the budget when talk among the very serious people in the Press Gallery was that the NDIS cuts ‘had to be done’.

Why?

Well, errr … fraud … err… you know, the NDIS is growing unsustainably.

Ah yes now we get to it – sustainable. Spending has to be sustainable.

We see it with the most recent talk about inflation. You have seen it. It is impossible to avoid now.

That congealed wisdom throughout the media and polity redolent of a blocked toilet: spending needs to be reined in. Government spending is causing inflation and we would have much lower interest rates if only the government spent less.

The more adventurous will attempt with a grasping indolence so marked of members of my profession (or is it former – now that the Press Gallery executive have decided I am no longer fit to be a member) of comparing what is happening here with that overseas.

Gosh look at France! They are rioting. We need to start cutting spending now before it is too late!

Please.

First off yes, let’s look at France and all advanced economies.

We are a low taxing and low spending nation.

If you can’t agree to that, then just admit you are an ideological gronk who cares so little for facts that you would lie to the public, or you are a gullible fool too scared to stand apart from the herd.

If we raised as much revenue as the average of the OECD we would raise $100bn more. If we raised as much as Canada we would raise an extra $141bn.

What does that mean? With an extra $141bn, the government could double spending on:

• the PBS

• public schools

• the Disability Support Pension

• jobseeker

• the child care subsidy

• support for carers

• spending on healthcare to the states

And still have $1.7bn left over.

So no, we are not a big taxing nation. Nor are we a big spending one. Nor do we have much debt, and neither is our budget in such a terrible state.

But hey inflation is rising and we spend more now than we did in the past so it must be the cause. We can only cut spending, we can’t raise more tax. Gas companies gotta eat, don’t ya know! The narrative says so.

There is a reason why the government spends more now than in the past. We have a NDIS now and (stay with me here, because it does get complex) that costs more than when we didn’t have a NDIS and so we now spend more than in the past when we didn’t care so much about people with disabilities:

Take that away and things are basically where they always are – low spending and with governments, oppositions and the media pretending that we have universal healthcare with no out of pocket expenses and a great well-funded public education system and … gee what other lies do we tell ourselves to convince everyone not to raise more tax on companies … Our train system works well? (Oh, but don’t worry we are cutting NDIS, because … narrative).

Thankfully, we have an independent institution to give a stamp of approval to the narrative. The Reserve Bank said government spending is increasing inflation (or at least insinuated it). They are independent, they cannot be wrong!

Well, sorry, but they often are.

They also don’t care about the things you might think they do.

I wrote this elsewhere, but it bears repeating. Last week, Greens Senator Nick McKim asked the Reserve Bank governor if she was worried about the fact unemployment at the start of the year was 4.1% and now it is 4.7%.

Such a pace of increase is getting very close to recession-like territory.

You might think that would worry someone who is paid to run an organisation whose mandate is “the maintenance of full employment in Australia”.

But no.

She replied: “We’re not worried about the pace of increase in the unemployment rate at this stage. We do forecast that it has to gradually move up.”

At that point, she dolled out her usual porridge to the plebs to not worry, this doesn’t mean you’ll lose your job, just that more people will be waiting to get a job for longer (and hopefully not die while they wait).

She also said that “the unemployment rate, in order to ease some of these capacity pressures, probably will be rising a bit further, and that’s what will be in our forecast.”

Those capacity pressures? Datacentres. Yep, the mad rush to build things that don’t turn a profit, won’t deliver any profits to Australia, but are already being used to axe workers is, in the view of the RBA, causing inflation to rise.

And so, we need more people to be on jobseeker to ensure we can keep building these work-killing sheds.

And we should cut government spending.

Because even if the RBA is right and the cause of inflation is that too many people in Australia have a job, then never do we hear talk of the need to slow down construction of datacentres.

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The narrative is too strong.

They are the future, they will deliver benefits … soon … one day, yes undefined, but Christ, Nvidia wouldn’t be investing so much money into Meta so that it can then buy stuff from Nvidia if it wasn’t a sure thing, right? Right?

Oh yes, the agreed narrative.

Perfect for explaining why public services need to be cut, perfect for explaining why we need to allow construction of things that will take way you job, perfect for blaming workers and those struggling to get by.

Perfect for those with power and wealth, and perfect to help them to keep it.

But here’s the thing about narratives – we can challenge them. We can change them. We can stop being screwed.

I asked Antony whether it mattered who won, given the lead candidates seemed to mostly compete on who could be more effective at waging wars and ethnic cleansing.

We also discussed the surge in the vote among Palestinian citizens of Israel, and whether it could make a significant political difference, as well as Israel’s longevity.

But before diving into all things Israel, we offered a quick response to Jillian Segal’s latest rampage, this time targeting human rights and social justice advocates.

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Books

Antoun is the author of Rebirth: A Love Story from the Depths of War, and Antony is the author of The Palestine Laboratory.

Jillian Segal’s new report – dubbed ASECA Priorities – screams of a desperate and dangerous attempt to quash any criticism of Israel by undoing the tethers of Australian democracy.

The net outcome of Segal’s hard-right recommendations – none of which is supported by any evidence – should be the federal government’s rescinding of her appointment. If Segal has her way, nearly every facet of life in Australia would, in effect, be subject to vetting by a cohort of pro-Israel supporters who wish for us to be muzzled as Israel carries out the worst crimes imaginable.

The unelected Segal wants to reshape the arts, vet our public broadcasters, oversee the use of venues, stages, art spaces, what festivals should and should not be doing, revise our visa programs, sit atop digital governance and online regulation and tell universities how to conduct themselves. The gall of the overreach is extraordinary – and yet mainstream media freely aired Segal’s report and arguments with barely a care for its implications on Australian democracy.

In essence, Segal would have it – although she denies it – that criticism of Israel, in whatever context it arises, be regarded as antisemitic. Whether it is generally known or understood what Zionism means or represents would be a moot point.

But who is this unelected Segal? She is South African-born, a former president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (still an office-bearer in that pro-Israel lobby group), a former president of the Australia Israel Chamber of Commerce and a board member of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel (a significant research centre that aids in the development of Israeli military technology).

We also know that Segal’s husband has donated generously to rabid, extreme anti-immigrant group Advance Australia.

But in this report, Segal has invented something called “modern progressive antisemitism” that is taking “the hostility of Islamic extremism and far-left antisemitism, together with traditional antisemitic tropes”.

Its contents are antithetical to the values of Australians – be they Christian, Muslim, Jewish, advocacy and human rights and civil-libertarian groups – in denying the unfettered right to protest in whatever lawful way about Israel’s actions, even if they were at the same time promoting social cohesion.

One starting point and seeming foundation, in part, for Segal’s report is that “many in the Jewish community remain concerned that coverage they perceive as one-directional may contribute to a negative – and even hostile – view by audiences of those who support Israel, or have sympathy for it”.

Recently at a Senate hearing, Segal said she (emphasis added) held concerns about “the tone (and) frequency of reporting about Gaza on the ABC”. So, is there to be a limit on the number of reports?

Add to that, Segal says that the widely criticised IHRA definition of antisemitism should be adopted across the board, with extensive powers given with regard to people seeking to visit Australia ­– based on whether they are antisemitic (read, anti-Israel) – and dealing with people in Australia who espouse “antisemitic” views by cancelling any visa they might hold.

There can be little doubt that what Segal espouses is to shut down any criticism of Israel in Australia, and she appears determined to override Australia’s democratic norms to achieve it. In the eyes of the pro-Israel lobby, criticising Israel is tantamount to, and a manifestation of, antisemitism, which is palpable nonsense.

The focus should not be Segal’s outlandish ideas of what constitutes antisemitism, but a thorough interrogation of the positions of “mainstream” Jewish organisations who, to date, have not expressed any criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza, let alone genuine sympathy or concern for the plight of the innocent women and children in Gaza.

What Segal and the pro-Israel lobby have failed to reckon with is that their blind support for Israel is wholly out of step with Australian public opinion (79 per cent understandably view Israel negatively), and their antics to most – from the Royal Commission whingefest by pro-Israel supporters and now this latest report – look unhinged.

It should also not be overlooked that Segal and the pro-Israel lobby’s hostility extends to – and is perhaps most vicious toward – the growing number of conscientious Australian Jews fully in tune with their sense of morality and moving further away from Israel, Zionism and the distortions of Jewish faith and tradition that they represent.

There is an element of sideswiping antisemitism that does not fit Segal’s and the lobby’s characterisation of what qualifies as antisemitic. A type of antisemitism wholly ignored by a pliant mainstream media that runs front-page spreads at the beck and call of Segal. The obvious point they have skipped is that targeting ‘modern progressive Australia’ is also targeting active Jewish voices standing against Zionism and genocide.

On a political level, Segal’s outlandish recommendations make it clear, if not urgent, that her appointment be revoked – if protecting “social cohesion” and our basic freedoms is still something of interest to the Labor Party.

“This isn’t what I intended, this wasn’t how it’s supposed to be,” I said, driving home from Dad’s new retirement home, where Mum delivered him the news.

She responded with an Arabic proverb:

“لا تجري الرياح بما تشتهي السفن”

“The winds do not blow as the ships desire.”

The news being that doctors found a nodule on Mum’s lung. Suspected cancer. Consistently stoic for men of his age, Dad said little. He didn’t need to. His anguished brows were enough to convey a pained heart.

Mum had spent a month in hospital. A routine dialysis appointment morphed into a blocked artery that required a stent, then an infection caused by the various medications competing over her numerous co-morbidities. And finally, a CT scan of the chest, revealing the worst of them all.

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Before we left the retirement home, I showed them a precious gift. After Dad moved a few weeks ago, I rummaged through old belongings that had survived years of house relocations, to uncover forgotten treasures. The dark corners of the closet revealed a 50-year-old Eumig Austrian projector and a single, worn reel. Within a week, I had what could be salvaged from the reel digitised.

“What’s this?” Mum said, drawn to the recognisable face on the screen. A younger, slender version of herself, in a white chiffon hat. It was her wedding day – June 27, 1977, inside a fourth-century Orthodox church overlooking the Mediterranean Sea in north Lebanon.

The footage switched to Dad’s village, where old faces and “happy memories” were revived. The setting was the makeshift courtyard in front of a flat-roofed, limestone dwelling. As far as living memory could recollect, family members have been living in this same home for seven generations – each generation gradually expanding the structure. Before that, who knows how long? Two branches of the family still call it home – the third, ours, in Australia.

“That’s my grandfather,” he said, pointing to an ageing man capped with a tarboosh – a red, cylindrical headdress typically worn by men of the Levant in the early 20th century. The camera took in the vines and an array of fruit trees that haphazardly skirted the courtyard’s perimeter. In its centre frame were the layers of the village – Dad’s extended family and households who have been neighbours for at least 170 years.

Economic reports would have considered these villagers poor. But there was no poverty on this screen, only an abundance of fellowship and laughter – from the most frail to the boisterous child. The tales of multiple generations woven together. It’s a great irony that, decades later, from the cold, sterile isolation of modern suburbia, it is this – the poor, ancient village with its vibrant pulse and social warmth – that we crave. Where loneliness is forbidden.

And it was this I had intended, just a morsel. That my parents would recede surrounded by their offspring, with enduring memories planted into the minds of their grandchildren. Even if their offspring were not on the same plot of land, but scattered across suburbs and states, the nearest a 45-minute drive. Even if their garden were not olive trees older than their flesh opening onto rolling green hills, but a courtyard sandwiched between bricked homes and concrete. Even if their dwelling were not historic and built by forebears, but a semi-detached weatherboard house owned by a bank that we must pay for life. Even if their neighbours were not kin of nearly two centuries (and likely more), but pale strangers who dare utter a greeting. Even if the constant hum of congestion drowned out the song of birds. Even if poisonous fumes smothered the fragrance of jasmine and orange blossom.

Even this, a fragment of their own childhoods, would not be theirs. Mum’s health didn’t stabilise as I had hoped. It deteriorated. My father’s ailments, too, came unexpectedly. His caring needs escalated, and with Mum unable to go a month without a hospital visit, and aged care support proving insufficient – courtesy of continued cuts by governments intent on making our lives worse – we surrendered to the one option we had long avoided. A retirement home for Dad.

***

“I’m too young for this,” Mum said, a day earlier. I had just arrived at her hospital room, late in the day, an hour after a visit from the doctor. I found her seated and forlorn beside the window.

“What did I do to deserve this?” she cried.

I sought to reassure her that the doctor said it looks like an early stage. But beneath my own attempted reassurance, I knew her co-morbidities posed a significant challenge.

I handed her a clear bag filled with a comforting green legume.

“Peas, from the garden.”

The seeds were the first on Mum’s wish list for winter. She tended to them carefully throughout the cold months, with skills honed over a lifetime.

“I gave the other half to Dad,” I said.

I had not planned to visit either parent that day. But the green glow of the snap peas protruding from their stalks lulled me into thinking otherwise. And so I picked roughly twenty ready-made pouches, stuffed them into a reusable vegetable plastic bag Mum had stored underneath the sink (for moments like this) and got into my car.

The sight of the bag jolted life into my father’s despairing eyes. It did the same for Mum.

I recall what my late paternal grandmother once said to Mum soon after migrating to Melbourne in 1977, pointing to a fig tree in her yard grown from a stem she brought across the ocean.

“We take Lebanon wherever we go.”

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The remnants of old Lebanon, and authentic pre-war Lebanese life, have since faded over the diasporic decades, but its spirit remains. It was present when I handed the homegrown peas to my parents. It was in their eyes, restored to a time and place where children ran through fields and plucked fresh beans beneath ancient olive trees planted by their ancestors, to the sound of playful screams rolling along the hills and into the valleys.

By right, they shouldn’t be here. Not in a nursing home. Not in this suburb. Not on this stolen land. Their childhood dreams did not count a rupture of an ancestral bond to their homeland. They did not envision war and imperialism catapulting them onto a distant continent. They did not cater for the immense hardship of renewal as poor outcasts, nor the pain of longing for the cultural and familiar.

But the winds do not blow as the ships desire.

Mum is too young to be so close to the end. Her story, however, is common. Migrant women in Australia suffer higher rates of diabetes, hypertension and cardiovascular disease. Contributing factors “include stress, experiences of discrimination, cultural stigma, and marginalisation while in Australia, poorer working and living environments, dealing with previous and current trauma, lack of social support and poor access to health care due to cultural and language barriers”.

For Lebanese migrants, it’s less flattering. Among eight major migrant groups in a study last decade, “Lebanese migrants experienced the poorest health outcomes … given their relatively recent wave of migration (with the majority arriving in Australia after the 1960s) and experience of being displaced by war and violence”.

When a fellow second-generation Lebanese-Australian recently asked why Mum was in hospital, I replied, “The stress of war and migration and everything in between. At some point the body catches up.”

“Ah, like my Dad,” he said. “Allah yerhamo. He died at 63.”

In the hospital room with Mum, I withheld my tears. To be a carer is to be a constant source of strength, in hope the recipient draws from it and carries forward. But in the quiet darkness of my unlit home, the rain tumbled from a crack that splintered my heart – a wound that may never heal.

“This is the test of God,” my maternal grandmother once counselled a grief-stricken Mum after tragedy struck in the war in Lebanon. “To live with your pain.”

Antoun is the author of Rebirth: A Love Story from the Depths of War

Upcoming talks and writing workshop:

• Thurs, Nov 5, 6.30pm - book talk at Byron Bay Community Centre (register)

• Wed, Nov 11, 6.30pm - conversation with Dr Bushra Othman and Dr Saya Aziz on The Weight of Witness at the Wheeler Centre, Melbourne (register)

• Sat, Nov 14, 1-3pm - running a writing histories workshop at Amplify Bookstore, West Melbourne (register)

• Fri, Nov 20, 6pm - GINSIGHTS book talk with Theodore Ell, Canberra (register)

University of Sydney Chancellor David Thodey is in the firing line after being listed as a featured speaker at the upcoming Jerusalem Post Australia Summit to be held on 19 November.

The summit, its first in Australia, aims to strengthen “the relationship between Australia and Israel” and ensure “Israel’s story is being told”. The event will feature Israeli political and military figures, including Israel’s First Lady, and several leaders from Australia’s pro-Israel lobby.

Thodey’s inclusion has infuriated USyd staff and alumni who were recently denied a Convocation meeting they had requested to discuss the university’s ties to Israel.

“It’s appalling for a university chancellor to be speaking at this pro-Israel propaganda event. This is a PR event for a genocidal state,” Dr David Brophy, a senior lecturer in history, said.

The university has been at the centre of controversy since student protests against the Gaza genocide erupted on campus shortly after October 2023. A Palestine solidarity encampment was removed in 2024, and USyd’s management has since faced allegations that it is suppressing student political activism on campus – a charge it denies.

NSW Greens MP Jenny Leong – herself a former USyd Senate Fellow – said Thodey’s participation “demonstrates that the crackdown on freedom of expression and human rights on campus is clearly being driven from the top”.

Corporate figures line up behind Israel

In comments to Deepcut, a University of Sydney spokesperson denied Thodey’s participation was political, saying “his contribution will focus on innovation and its importance to both Australia and Israel, including what Australia can learn from Israel’s experience in driving innovation”.

Joining Thodey in the pro-Israel talkfest are several prominent Australian corporate leaders, including NAB Chairman Philip Chronican, Bunnings Group Managing Director Michael Schneider and Victor Smorgon Group’s Executive Chair Peter Edwards.

Their participation speaks to the level of support Israel still enjoys among Australia’s corporate elite, despite findings of genocide in Gaza by a UN Commission of Inquiry and a global fuel-price spike, including in Australia, caused by Israel’s illegal war on Iran.

It also reflects a widening gulf between corporate elites who remain aligned with Israel and the broader public who have turned sharply against the rogue state since October 2023.

A Pew Research poll in June found 79 per cent of Australians held a negative view of Israel, in line with global opinion.

Damaging USyd’s reputation

Leong said of Thodey’s inclusion that it was “abundantly clear that the university has lost its way when it comes to human rights”.

“So many students, staff and alumni are disgusted by the university abandoning its commitment to human rights as it deepens ties with a genocidal state,” she added.

Those sentiments were shared by Brophy, who said Thodey’s appearance “will leave a lasting stain on our institution’s reputation”.

Brophy helped co-ordinate a letter signed by over 450 USyd staff and alumni in August calling for a Convocation – a mass meeting of staff and graduates to provide input on the institution’s governance.

The letter accused the university of “failing to respond meaningfully to the ongoing genocide in Gaza”, which it said “represents a profound moral failure”.

Thodey rejected the request in a response dated 4 September, saying he was “of the opinion that the proposed subject of ‘the ethics of maintaining institutional ties with Israel in the current environment’ is such as ought not to be discussed in Convocation”.

A university Senate meeting on 25 September formally voted down the request.

Thodey’s decision to speak at a pro-Israel summit, so soon after rejecting Convocation, has rankled staff members.

“Staff who are aware of this are horrified, and many more will be when they learn what is going on. I’m sure I speak for many colleagues in saying that he should withdraw,” Brophy said.

“This summit includes some of the world’s most die-hard public defenders of Israeli atrocities. If the Chancellor is willing to stand alongside these figures, it clearly raises questions about his own views,” he added.

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Deepcut questions sent to the University of Sydney

• Why has the Chancellor agreed to participate in an event which its organisers say is to ensure “Israel’s story is being told”?

• Would the Chancellor personally classify his political views on the subject as pro-Israel, anti-Palestinian and/or Islamophobic?

• Given the current political climate, in particular the strong opposition to Israel’s genocide in Gaza at the University of Sydney and among the broader Australian community (79% of Australians hold a negative view of Israel), was a risk assessment conducted prior to the Chancellor accepting this speaking role?

• Does the university hold concerns that it will be seen among global peers as an institution aligned to a State found by a UN Commission of Inquiry to be committing genocide?

• Does the Chancellor’s participation in an event alongside Israeli military and political figures, at a time when the ICC has outstanding arrest warrants for Israeli leaders, suggest the university no longer values or respects international law?

• Does the Chancellor’s decision to speak at a pro-Israel event suggest an inability to exercise sound judgement befitting the post?

There will be no reckoning. Not while Australia pretends that ‘both sides’ are to blame for Australia’s decaying political discourse.

This is not a comment on the abhorrent act against Helen Haines. We still don’t know the motivations, or the details of the police investigation. But we do know who was blamed, almost immediately.

In the minutes after the news broke of the alleged (someone has now been charged, and so language must change with it) attack, blame was ascribed by commentators, and later the broader political class, to people who had protested a genocide, those who wanted more climate action, and the Left in general. We are consistently told we need to ‘turn the temperature down’, but never told who is fuelling the boilers. So let us zoom out.

On the broader question of violence, we are a state and society that increasingly normalises violence. We’ve normalised a man killing a woman each week. We’ve normalised police bashing peaceful protesters. We’ve normalised throwing First Nations kids in jail until they kill themselves. We’ve normalised shackling women in labour. We’ve normalised delaying climate action even as we see the devastating impacts, and we’ve normalised an economy that prioritises corporate profits while people suffer.

And when there is pushback against any of what we are supposed to accept as normal, if there is dissent or protest or legitimate democratic objection, that is treated as the crime.

The calls for civility only ever come in response to legitimate democratic pushback – not the issues fuelling dissent.

That’s not to say that some people never take it too far, but in a way that never seems to apply to the Right, those who do become representative of an entire movement. There is no nuance – both sides are always equally to blame.

The pushback against provocation becomes worse than the provocation itself. We are a nation who will tone police people protesting racism, but not the racists. Pauline Hanson can suggest there are no “good” Muslims and not apologise, but then claim victimhood the moment anyone applies the smallest amount of pressure.

She and her supporters are not held to the same standard of those being told to ‘turn down the temperature’. The abuse that most politicians have outlined – legitimate and terrible abuse – is not the same as legitimate democratic dissent.

A group of protesters sitting outside an MP’s office, demanding higher standards of their leaders, is not the same as death threats and violence. But in criticising the legitimate threats, the political and media classes will point to democratic dissent as an example. Death threats are terrible, yes, we can all agree, but have you seen the protesters?

And what of our leaders who urge us to turn down the temperature? The same leaders who take selfies with Donald Trump – a man who has overseen the death of what was left of America’s liberal democracy and relished in the harm his administration has caused people?

Australia’s official policy as a nation is to oppose “the death penalty in all circumstances for all people” and yet our leaders were unable to criticise or condemn a plan to livestream an execution by firing squad, because it might upset Trump. Barnaby Joyce was able to call it out, but not the government. Is that turning down the temperature? Or stoking it?

Australia surprised its other allies, including the UK, by not signing a statement condemning Israeli settler terrorism against Palestinians in the West Bank, and refused to apply broad sanctions. The only reason which makes sense is Australia, now openly chasing a spot on the UN Security Council, doesn’t want to upset the United States and lose its chance. How many degrees lower did that take the social fever? Or again, does it just stoke it?

It was conservative commentator Andrew Bolt who rightly, and accurately, called out the insane campaign to paint Ben Roberts-Smith, who has been charged with war crimes after 22 of his fellow soldiers testified against his actions, as a hero who need not be bothered with the legal system. Bolt, who has made a career out of finding the bottom of the barrel and dressing it up as opinion, was the one brave enough to point out that sweeping the allegations under a rug would be worse for the nation than testing them in court. Andrew. Bolt.

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Has the political ‘debate’ around migration turned down the temperature? Has supporting a genocide turned it down? Has ignoring calls for climate action lowered it? Has letting the RBA diminish our living standards so corporate profits remain untouched turned down the heat? Is having ‘rational’ people claim that raising the GST – which you and I have no choice to pay – is the smart way forward, while refusing to tax gas and other corporations, helped anyone simmer down? Is imposing gargantuan datacentres in our suburbs and towns, next to our homes and schools, without our consent, turning it down? Why is it the people pointing to the fire are those being told to stop being so vocal about it?

You can be civil and dissent. You can push back and be respectful. And you can have higher expectations of your democracy and leaders without resorting, or wishing violence. Pretending that those who wish for better for all are the same as those who seek control or supremacy over others is not lowering the temperature – it’s raising it.

Legitimate democratic dissent and pushback is not the fire, it’s the alarm. Suppressing alarms doesn’t put out the fire, it just leaves less time for us all to act.

State violence in France has rarely been so visible; its legitimacy, rarely so openly discarded.

Scenes of running battles between police and protesters in the country I call home have continued for two weekends.

The mobilisation was initially meant to give voice to the unbearable cost of living for far too many. More than 800,000 French people from every walk of life took to the streets on 17 October to vent their frustration after weeks of government deafness to the socio-economic demands not only of Gen Z, but also of firefighters, nurses and farmers – all of whom face a form of acute financial insecurity.

It ended with more than 2,000 minors and young adults arrested – mostly school and university students – and many protesters maimed: from orchestra musicians tear-gassed mid-performance to indiscriminate violent blows alongside documented chokeholds, lost eyes and fractured jaws.

Even by the standards of France’s long tradition of confrontational social movements, these are unprecedented markers of brutal repression.

Cumulative inflation (over 20% this past decade) driving rising deprivation and inequality; growing budget austerity in the service of a €3.6tn (A$5.7tn) debt; worsening exposure to climate and environmental risks; and a deliberate choice of military rearmament have all heightened social tensions while shrinking the State’s room to manoeuvre.

It is this trajectory – genuinely unsustainable – and the pitfalls it heralds that the French have in mind when they take to the streets.

A week of tension

Since 17 October, the Macron government has responded with what it describes as a “massive” security operation, deploying 70,000 police and gendarmes nationwide, authorising the use of the Sentinelle military force and pursuing “casseurs-payeurs” legislation that would hold anyone near a protest financially liable for damages. It placed the bill on the Senate’s fast-track agenda.

“Count on my firmness,” Laurent Nuñez, the interior minister, declared ahead of the second weekend of protests, promising forces would “go up a notch” to “hit” troublemaker groups.

This past week, the Macron government has systematically curtailed the right to protest by ordering prefects to ban demonstrations not organised by trade unions and restricting authorised marches to routes that avoid commercial areas and seats of power. Amnesty International condemned this as “a slide toward authoritarian practices”, adding that the French government was “fuelling a climate of fear that would justify any and all restrictions on freedoms”.

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Judicial sanctions after 17 October also demonstrated the State’s unyielding response. The French justice ministry reported over 170 incarcerations, with fast-track trials producing heavy sentences, including a contested case in Bobigny where a man was handed an immediate six-month prison sentence for receiving stolen baby formula after a pharmacy looting. Left-wing lawmakers seized upon the case to denounce a “class justice” and a “strategy of fear”.

For the first time, the government also threatened to cut off social media and mobile network access. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu reportedly wrote to Orange, SFR, Free and Bouygues Telecom asking the operators to prepare to suspend platforms including TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat and X, with restrictions intended to target mobile networks and specific areas rather than a nationwide blackout.

Despite the government’s scare tactics, between 410,000 to 800,000 (the former figure claimed by the interior ministry, the latter by one of France’s largest trade unions) came out on 24 October, with the marches unfolding largely peacefully before tensions erupted in several areas.

The State’s main tactical shift was from a static, territory-holding posture on 17 October to a deliberately mobile and offensive model after Nuñez acknowledged that forces had “lost control” in several cities on 17 October.

Macron’s contempt for democratic representation

Before this tipping point, no one had missed the government’s democratic deficit.

That deficit includes several nationwide citizen consultations quietly shelved: the Citizens’ Convention on Climate (2019–20), the National Great Debate and the 2019 Grievance Registers. In 2024, legislative elections called by President Emmanuel Macron himself were lost by his ruling party to a left-wing coalition, yet he never agreed to appoint a head of government reflecting the national representation that had emerged from the vote.

It also includes ignored mass citizen mobilisations, such as the 2 million signatures on a petition in 2025 against the farm law (Duplomb) authorising a pesticide proven to cause cancer, or the millions who demonstrated in 2023 against the pension reform, ultimately forced through by executive power, bypassing a parliamentary vote.

None of these democratic actions, direct or representative, produced the political or legislative outcome that a mature democracy is expected to deliver.

All were brushed aside by the Macron government – incompetence at best, contempt at worst. Protests were a predictable consequence of a population ignored by its political elite.

State violence in service of whom?

If the State, in the words of the sociologist Max Weber, holds the monopoly on physical violence, that monopoly rests on legitimacy. It is not violence in itself that distinguishes the State, but the fact that it is recognised by those on whom it is exercised – that is, founded on the basis of democratic elections and citizen participation. Our very social contract. Yet after two terms of Macron, heavily criticised on precisely these issues, it is exactly this recognition that we have seen fall away.

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It is not the State’s violence that is contested (its power to coerce is not in debate), but its legitimacy: in whose name, and to protect whom, is this violence exercised?

Over the years, the Macron doctrine has revealed itself to be one of maintaining order – through the abusive use of an increasingly militarised police arsenal – rather than maintaining peace, which is the result of political dialogue and compromise.

In every domain of public life, a few narrow interests have been systematically traded off against the common good – our water, our soil, our biodiversity and our health. Our present and our future.

Arrogant power

Added to the spectacular dismissal of democratic representation is the absence of decisions on substance, taken in disregard of the most basic scientific facts.

Recent French political decisions have shown nothing but contempt for science in favour of short-term commercial interests permitted by legal mechanisms that allow tricks and loopholes.

Take, for example, an artificial water reservoir at Sainte-Soline or the infamous A69 highway. Both projects were scientifically invalidated for their proven harm (destruction of protected species, invalidation of climate adaptation) and their lack of public benefit (high economic costs, destruction of farmland). But the Macron government didn’t care – it forced these projects through anyway.

These two episodes are but a taste of the level of arrogant power displayed by the Macron government, and it turns up in policies on transport, energy, agriculture and land-use planning.

Ultimately, the government’s brutal response to legitimate anger is only raising the temperature in a country simmering with rage. It stands to lose far more than it might hope to gain from a ‘firm’ approach that, as Amnesty pointed out, “does not respond to the legitimate demands of the protesters”. The French State has so far kept the monopoly on physical violence, but is squandering its legitimacy.

Basketball Australia’s decision to sign a national deal with Israeli sports technology company Pixellot is facing growing scrutiny, with 10,000 people signing a petition opposing the roll-out and confidential sources questioning how the company secured the contract.

The agreement will bring AI-powered cameras and video services to community basketball through a new platform, HoopsTV, expected to launch in November. But strong concerns have been raised about the protection of children and vulnerable players, and how the substantial amount of data generated by the cameras might eventually be used.

A petition organised by grassroots campaigners Not All Clubs and hosted by GetUp calls on Basketball Australia to stop the rollout. The group argues that children as young as six should not be filmed without meaningful consultation and informed consent.

The controversy follows Deepcut’s investigation into allegations that two Ballarat basketball players who had sought protection from filming, were subsequently exposed to unwanted contact after games were streamed. One woman was allegedly contacted by a person subject to a family violence intervention order. Pixellot pulled their Australian livestreaming websites following the revelations but continue to record games where its technology is installed.

Questions over the tender

Four people familiar with the procurement process, but not authorised to speak publicly, told Deepcut that an Australian-New Zealand company, Glory League, had reached contract stage late last year and looked set to sign as the preferred video partner, before a private request-for-proposal process was hastily introduced.

The position of the home-grown company appeared to weaken further as Pixellot appointed several former senior Australian basketball administrative figures in executive roles earlier this year.

This is despite Glory League having its technology already deployed at venues and capturing around 30 per cent of games across Australia. Unlike Pixellot’s system, it does not ordinarily livestream games or use artificial intelligence. Venue administrators can also take cameras offline within minutes, should a request be made.

A Basketball Australia spokesperson told Deepcut that Pixellot was selected through a competitive request-for-proposals process overseen by its Digital Steering Committee. But they declined to answer questions about the reported change in standing of Glory League, the evaluation criteria or the reasons for the final decision.

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The governing body has also refused to clarify if the executive appointments had any bearing on the procurement decision, or whether potential conflicts of interest were identified and managed.

IDF links deepen

Pixellot’s founders have backgrounds in Israeli Defence Force research and military intelligence, raising questions about the technology underpinning a system that will record thousands of Australian children playing community sport.

Co-founder Miky Tamir previously headed electro-optics at defence contractor Elbit Systems, working on computer vision technologies for night vision, target detection and recognition. He has described developing systems capable of tracking objects, including missiles, before applying similar computer vision principles to sport.

In a 2022 interview, Tamir told Sports Business Journal: “In Elbit, I did computer vision for night vision, targets detection, target recognition, things like that.”

“And it’s very natural to apply these technologies to other markets like sports. I like sports.”

Elbit is a major supplier of military equipment to Israel and has faced allegations of complicity in abuses against Palestinians during Israel’s war in Gaza, which a UN Commission of Inquiry found constituted genocide. More than 20,000 Palestinian children have been slaughtered by Israeli forces since October 2023, with the assistance of AI technology.

Pixellot’s co-founder and chief technology officer, Gal Oz, spent about a decade in an Israeli military intelligence unit working with visual intelligence technologies, including satellites and drones.

In it for the money

An attractive feature of the HoopsTV platform is that it can potentially generate commercially valuable data through footage, player statistics and derived analytics. Deepcut asked whether Basketball Australia intended to seek revenue from advertising, sponsorship or other commercial uses, including the potential use of footage to train artificial intelligence systems, with three sources claiming that had been tabled by Basketball Australia. It would not outline its plans.

Nor has the governing body disclosed who will own the footage and associated data, where it will be stored or processed, which third parties will have access, or how long recordings will be retained. Questions about whether families can secure permanent deletion of footage and data derived from it also remain unanswered. Policies available online do not provide definitive answers.

These issues are of significance as the cameras will record community games involving children as young as six.

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One well-placed source said participants would be slugged $100 for a highlights package, as Pixellot attempted to “gameify” grassroots sports, adding that Pixellot was “definitely not built for grassroots competitions” and “offers no protections for vulnerable participants”. That’s on top of some participants being charged $15 per season for the technology, even if they opt-out.

Two sources told Deepcut that other technology providers had been disadvantaged in separate “questionable” RFP processes by Basketball Australia and were concerned the push for financial gain was coming at the cost of safety of participants.

Not All Clubs challenges the rollout

Not All Clubs says its campaign reflects concerns about the direction of community sport and the extent to which families have been consulted.

“There has been a serious failure to put safeguarding first. Parents and players cannot make informed decisions without clear, accessible information about what is being recorded, who can access it, where the footage goes and how it will be used,” they said.

The campaign calls for stronger consent requirements and protections for children and vulnerable participants, alongside limits on commercial use and clearer accountability for recordings and personal information.

Deepcut asked Basketball Australia if it would pause implementation pending an independent review of procurement, consent, safeguarding and data use. No comment was provided.

“Community sport should be a place where people feel safe to participate, not another place where their safety is compromised because the people making decisions failed to consider the consequences,” Not All Clubs said.

A NSW District Court judge accused of “apprehended bias” in a matter involving a pro-Palestine protester refused to withdraw himself from the case in a hearing on Tuesday.

Judge Alister Abadee was the subject of a recusal application after he conducted his own investigation and compiled a five-page supplementary information document during a District Court appeal hearing into the conviction of Kahtan Abdul-Wahab.

Abdul-Wahab was found guilty of public display of a Nazi symbol without reasonable excuse in the Local Court last year and is appealing the conviction.

He was charged after displaying an image combining the Nazi and Israeli flags alongside the phrase, “the irony of becoming what you once hated” at a Hyde Park pro-Palestine demonstration. Abdul-Wahab was not accused of equating Israel with Nazi Germany, only of displaying the symbol.

His defence had argued that the law restricted peaceful anti-war protests and had “a very chilling effect on political speech” but the court at the time rejected this argument. He was the first person to be charged with the offence in NSW.

Judge attempts to submit pro-Israel document

The document compiled by Abadee, and emailed to lawyers on 28 August following the conclusion of appeal evidence, outlines a selective background to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, highlighting Jewish persecution and the Holocaust, the establishment of Israel and subsequent Palestinian displacement.

The document, seen by Deepcut, skewed to a pro-Israel account of events, noting attacks on Israel “since at least the conclusion of the 1967 war”, and appeared to doubt the current Gaza death toll as figures that “could not be verified”. The document omitted details of atrocities and dispossession suffered by Palestinians over the decades, including thousands of home demolitions in the West Bank and Jerusalem, mass imprisonment and torture of Palestinians in Israeli jails, and the UN Commission of Inquiry’s findings of genocide in Gaza. It did not include an International Court of Justice advisory opinion in 2024 that “Israel’s discriminatory laws and measures … are tantamount to the crime of apartheid”. It also did not include mention of Israel’s repeated invasions of Lebanon spanning almost 50 years.

Abadee attempted to admit the document under Section 144 of the Evidence Act 1995 (NSW), which allows a court to accept certain facts without requiring formal proof – provided the knowledge is not reasonably open to question and is either generally or locally well-known, or capable of verification through an authoritative document.

A hearing was subsequently convened on 16 September, where both the Crown and the defendant’s lawyers opposed the judge’s attempt to enact Section 144. It was during this hearing that Abadee disclosed his Jewish ancestry.

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“My father and his sibling are Jewish,” he told the court, transcripts reveal.

“I have Jewish cousins. I am not Jewish, and nor is (sic) members of my immediate family. I also have a sibling and cousins who are not Jewish. I raise these matters to ascertain whether objection is taken to my hearing the appeal on account of them.”

Defence says judge departed ‘from judicial process’

During Tuesday’s hearing – which was presided over by Abadee himself – counsel for the defence, Peter Lange SC, submitted to the court that despite the judge accepting the parties’ objections to the proposed evidence, Abadee’s actions in undertaking the “investigation” itself were a “departure from judicial process”.

“There was an investigation into what your Honour perceived to be historical events. It is that inquiry that is different to the judicial process,” Lange said.

“Your Honour perceived the need to supplement the evidence provided by the parties … And the nature of that evidence was different in nature to the evidence that had been provided [to the court].”

Lange said that the parties could not know what Abadee had read in order to collate the material he presented, and therefore it could not be known what might be considered a subconscious view held by the judge or what might “operate on the judicial mind”.

Lange submitted that Abadee’s actions aided the Crown’s case, adding that if Abadee believed the evidence before the court did not give a complete picture of the relevant geopolitics, it was not his role to “supplement” or “fill in the holes so that this court may have a more complete picture of the evidence”.

“[That] is outside the judicial sphere to fill in those gaps, even if the judicial officer thinks [there are gaps],” he said.

“Perhaps that is a failure of the parties but not one that is to be supplemented by judges.”

Abadee rejected the submissions and refused the recusal application. He said he would provide reasons for his decision when the substantive appeal judgement is handed down at a date to be determined.

We took a look at the figures and associations helping the One Nation surge, and the results are unsurprising. Various powerful corporate sectors, including banking, hotels, mining and fossil fuels, all get a mention in the One Nation space, alongside Liberal powerbrokers and figures connected to far-right campaign group, Advance Australia.

Here’s a breakdown.

Who has been donating to One Nation?

We know Pauline Hanson has an unhealthy obsession with immigrants. Her other bone is climate change. In an appearance before the National Press Club in June, Hanson declared climate change a “hoax” saying it “has produced an increase in energy costs which has taken Australia into energy poverty”. Her party wants to pull Australia out of the Paris Agreement and build new coal power plants.

None of this is surprising given what is known to date about the party’s donors and financial supporters. One Nation’s latest donations for the 2025-2026 financial year have not yet been published – the next batch will be released on 1 February 2027 – but current Australian Electoral Commission data records the Minerals Council of Australia giving One Nation $6,000 in May 2025.

Other corporate donors include the Australian Hotels Association gifting $2,271 in September 2024 and two $4,000 payments in February and March 2025. Australian political culture differs to the United States where these sorts of donations can run into the hundreds of thousands or beyond. The amounts here are small but there is no requirement or obligation on an organisation to make them, meaning they often serve as a signal to the recipient about who should be listened to.

And it does appear favourable support from industry lobby groups can translate into official Hanson positions. For example, the Australian Hotels Association has long advocated against pokies reform, an issue that Hanson has consistently voted against.

Other donations include a $100,000 sum from William Henderson, a $27,000 donation from Adgile Investments, a $15,000 from David Davies and two payments totalling $25,400 from Jennifer Parsons. It is not immediately clear who these individuals are, but a “David Davies” appears in ministerial diaries recording a stakeholder meeting held 16 December 2025 with the Queensland Minister for Natural Resources and Mines, the Minister for Manufacturing and the Minister for Regional and Rural Development. This person is recorded as being associated with Hancock Prospecting, a Gina Rinehart company.

Company records show Adgile Investments was formed in June 2017 and is operated by former Northern Territory chief minister and News24 (formerly Sky News) personality Adam Giles and his wife Phoebe Stewart. AEC records show the company’s first donation to One Nation occurred on 9 January 2025 – well before Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce defected to One Nation in December last year and Rinehart became publicly associated with the party.

What about Rinehart?

Most of what is currently known about One Nation’s financiers has trickled out in media reporting as former Coalition supporters have switched teams with Rinehart one of the biggest names. The 72-year-old billionaire is famously hostile to the idea that the world must respond to climate change – so much so that she hired Australia’s most famous climate denier Ian Plimer to oversee one of her companies and once ranted in a video recorded for school girls in Perth that all talk of climate change was “propaganda”.

Rinehart’s ideological opposition is predictable. One of the most comprehensive studies to date found that should the world do what is required to address climate change, it would hit the wealthiest the hardest. In the US alone, four-fifths of oil, gas and coal assets at risk of being stranded were owned by the richest 10 per cent of the population. Rinehart is symbolic of this material reality in Australia. There is no way to know for sure what shares she holds, and most of Rinehart’s physical assets in Australia are associated with iron ore and critical minerals, but her companies have been pursuing new coal projects as far afield as Alberta, Canada. She is also a personal supporter of nuclear power, which One Nation has pledged to support.

One Nation has found itself a recipient of Rinehart’s largesse in recent times, as the billionaire has showered Hanson with expensive gifts including Wagyu steak, couture, flights, and holidays.

Among the bigger gifts was a $2.1m Cirrus G7 light airplane announced in a video posted to social media. The aircraft came with a $1m donation from stockbroker Angus Aitken and his wife Sarah, $500,000 from Adam Giles and another $500,000 from Ian Plimer. Aitken reportedly coined the phrase “big dick syndrome” in management strategy, is a major shareholder in ARN Media that once employed Kyle Sandilands and a donor to Advance Australia.

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Aviation diplomacy has long played a role in Rinehart’s political lobbying, and the billionaire has continued the habit with Hanson, flying the Queensland senator to Mar-a-Lago to hold court with Donald Trump’s MAGA movement, holidaying in Sicily, and in one instance, giving over use of Rinehart’s private jet to help Hanson pry away Liberal Party financiers with a $5,000 a head dinner circling over Sydney Harbour.

Banking and fossil fuel lobbies join the party

Other, less publicly recognisable figures to flirt with defection include hard-right Liberal Party powerbroker Andrew Abercrombie, who sits on the board of the Menzies Research Centre and has been a previous donor to Advance Australia. Some former Coalition apparatchiks, such as Chris Taylor, have been less coy. The former senior adviser to Liberal Prime Minister Scott Morrison left his job as chief policy officer with the Australian Banking Association in August to join One Nation.

Investment banker Mike Newman has been enlisted to run the New South Wales division of the party, and former Young Liberals directors Mark and Shani Jones whose firm, Camelot Consulting, will help run One Nation’s campaign strategy in the NSW and Victorian state elections. Newman’s involvement with the party is significant given the pivotal role his father, Maurice Newman, has played at critical times in Australian political history. The elder Newman helped create the Centre for Independent Studies and brought neoliberalism to Australia. He previously served as advisor to former Prime Minister Tony Abbott, and was previously chairman of both the Australian Stock Exchange and the ABC. The elder Newman has also previously claimed climate change is a “socialist plot” and has targeted offshore windfarms in his personal activism.

There has also been growing interest among industry. Australian Energy Producers, the country’s oldest enduring oil and gas lobby group, gave Hanson the opportunity to address its national conference in 2026, including an in-conversation event hosted by former ABC political editor Chris Uhlmann – himself an anti-renewables activist.

Naturally, One Nation’s policies echo the positions of corporate lobbyists. The party has pledged as part of its policy proposals outlined on its website to support the fossil fuel industry by slashing “red, green, blue and black tape” on new gas approvals, limiting the approvals process to six months and dropping any Australian commitment to achieving Net Zero, including pulling any funding for new large-scale or commercial renewables projects.

What about One Nation itself?

One Nation has been spending a heap of money but it is not clear where it is coming from – and the party itself has been lax about disclosing its financials.

In September, the party was told by the Queensland Electoral Commission about 138 undisclosed transactions totalling $255,155.24 from the Queensland state election. Hanson is personally and legally responsible for complying with disclosure and electoral laws within the state.

According to the latest AEC disclosure records, One Nation owes Pauline Hanson $93,652 and $20,000 to its Queensland Senator Malcolm Roberts – a pattern that has continued at least since 2019. Roberts donated $60,000 to the party last financial year, with Hanson giving $275,000.

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The corporate structure of One Nation is similarly bizarre. There are several entities associated with the party and its leader, but the one named “One National Queensland Division Inc” is treated by the party as “the national division”. The party’s state branches all appear to be trading names registered to a post office box in Queensland near the Brisbane Airport.

Former One Nation candidates and members have frequently complained that the party appeared to be structured for profit, with one former political consultant calling it a “money-spinning exercise”. Former Hanson chief of staff James Ashby was captured on video in 2017 explaining how One Nation could make money off its candidates.

By far the biggest revenue stream, however, comes in the form of public money. In Australia, a first preference vote is currently worth $3.583. Based on current levels of support, one forecast puts the party’s projected income at $219m.

What does this all mean?

One Nation is commonly referred to as an anti-establishment populist party, but in reality it looks more like a clutch of mining and corporate lobbies in a trenchcoat. Its very structure can best be described as unconventional and what information Australia’s lacklustre disclosure laws currently record shows the party has been spending a considerable amount of other people’s money.

This corporate backing has acted as start-up capital that will potentially allow One Nation to reap as much as $219m in taxpayer funding should it perform as well as current polling suggests. In effect, corporate power and media have aligned to help One Nation harvest first preference votes, which will give it the resources to function as a significant political actor and expand its operations in future elections. By contrast, the Labor Party received $37m in electoral funding after the last federal election.

All of this suggests the sudden popularity of the far-right party owes less to mass politics and more to a keen interest from extractivist businesses who have spotted an opportunity to seek a return on investment by helping One Nation find some measure of power.

Three very apt words – Truth, Trust and Tribalism. Much of what I say will focus on the last. Because of it, the first and second often become casualties.

Our Holy Grail of journalism centres on four pillars: objectivity, impartiality, balance and neutrality. Four pillars that are all too often weaponised in the service of gatekeeping the Overton window, so that establishment interests aren’t threatened by a restless citizenry.

While this has operated somewhat more subtlety in the past, it has become a charade in which allies who wield enormous power on the global stage, have dropped their masks – they have shed pants as well – and it has become harder to drink this glass of milk because there are big fat flies floating on the surface. The world order intended to be based on international law, and one that has often failed to deliver accountability in the case of the most powerful, has now been comprehensively debased.

In examining the media’s role and its pretence at neutrality and balance – when it actually behaves in a most tribal, partisan way – I’ll share with you some of my own experience over decades, including where I have failed.

I will argue an important weapon in our arsenal are the principles of our shared humanity that underpin universal rights, and that adherence to those principles necessitates an ability to view and analyse the world through multiple lenses, not just that of the Global North. This is not something we need permission to do. It is part of the core business of being a journalist if we are serious about impartiality and objectivity. It is also part and parcel of diplomacy, and should also be integral to the work of leaders, otherwise we have no chance of bringing an end to forever wars, to collaboratively resolve matters in a manner that has regard to equality, freedom and dignity for all.

In understanding conflict and embarking on an assessment of a situation, objectivity and impartiality are vital. However, it is not necessary for an experienced journalist to remain neutral in interpreting the significance of events. Indeed, most memorable works of journalism, such as Robert Fisk’s Great War For Civilisation, cannot be described as ‘neutral’. To hold journalism in a perpetual state of neutrality and continue to provide selective ‘balance’ (there is little to no ‘balance’ in the coverage of China, Russia, Iran or Israel) is to render plausible deniability, to shield crime, to deliver impunity and to compound and perpetuate injustice, as has occurred in the way Israel’s actions have been historically and predominantly reported in western legacy media.

A multipolar world demands multiple lenses

This era is unprecedented – there has not been such widespread repression throughout the west, and not only in our profession – it is society wide. And what strikes you of course, is that contrary to this oft weaponised Code of Ethics, what operates – with a few notable exceptions – is an unacknowledged partisanship, as tribal as geopolitical protagonists themselves.

Whilst we have achieved diversity in the media in terms of presence and visibility, we have not yet succeeded in injecting the diversity of perspectives required. Other than in independent media, we still must all use one lens: that of the Global North. I had certainly hoped we would have multiple lenses in our toolkit when we started up SBS in 1980. It was however too ambitious, and we settled for the possible. And so here we find ourselves today.

I don’t wish to diminish the significant impact of the second public broadcaster. But our task is to look critically at our industry and how it serves the Australian public, our democracy, and how it equips us to be global citizens, in addition to being Australian citizens. In today’s world, this type of dual citizenship is mandatory if we are to have any chance at putting an end to forever wars and belligerent partisanship to move to more respectful relationships as a multipolar world community, to look out for the survival of our fellow human beings and planet, where interests can coalesce rather than collide.

After seeing its identity and purpose reflected solely in the eyes of the British Empire, and moving seamlessly into subservience to the US, and after doing away with the White Australia Policy, our country went through interminable navel gazing in the media – who are we? What is our identity as a nation?

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The answer it landed on, was ‘Multicultural’. Yes, we came from many cultures, and wasn’t that fab.

‘Multiculturalism’ was a word I studiously avoided including during my almost three decades at SBS. Not because I was a closet Pauline Hanson. But because in the very early days at the broadcaster, I had hoped for something more.

One of the early on-air promotional campaigns was centred around the Overton window metaphor: ‘Channel O - a Window to the World’. I was banking on a Door.

It was not to be. The debate settled on whether what was being provided was ‘ethnic’ or ‘multicultural’ television. Cosmopolitanism, a prism conducive to the practice of journalism, was a bridge too far for Australia in 1980. We were to celebrate our particularity – our food, dance, music and movies, but the serious work demanded by our shared humanity and diverse perspectives lay dormant.

I recall Melbourne ABC Radio Broadcaster Jon Faine asking me when I was appointed to present SBS World News, whether it would cover stories from a different perspective. It was a question I studiously circumvented by banging on about running background stories, which were in my view one of our strengths. I knew that our lens captured a greater part of the world, but feared it’s portrayal in the end remained comfortably within the Overton window.

SBS’s descent into establishment sameness

On Day 1 of my induction to the newsroom, the then-Chief Producer made a remark I considered a statement of the obvious – that ‘One Man’s Terrorist is Another Man’s Freedom Fighter’. But it proved not to be obvious at all and it was soon forgotten. And she and it went the way of those background stories we used to run. We gradually transitioned from the possibilities and potential understanding offered by the perspective epitomised in that adage, to dividing the world into our allies versus an ‘Axis of Evil’ against which a ‘War on Terror’ needed to be fought. This occurred in stages and among the various contributing factors was the purging of full-time staff in favour of contractors who were less likely to raise objections due to job insecurity, as well as selecting out anti-establishment views in executive roles which is the natural state of institutions. And the broadcaster slid into the natural state of the media club in manufacturing consent.

Validation was sought in sameness, the assurance you have got it right. An at times bellicose partisanship bubbled to the surface, due to both overt support for establishment views as well as a subliminal cultural bias, all of which became more pronounced with the passage of years as the organisation went through multiple changes.

There were times when SBS could have made a difference but chose not to, and I see that also as a personal failure. Whilst I did not have editorial control, I did have influence.

It is true that decision makers in the newsroom were almost exclusively Anglo-Celtic, but the Board was not and we know culture is determined by the government-appointed Board which selects the CEO who appoints those beneath him or her etc. Ethnic diversity on the Board did not prevent the organisation heading down the path it did. Visible diversity was an achievement, but it was a mere beginning, not an end in itself. It did not deliver the next stage because its ambition was limited. Whatever I did, it was not enough to have the impact required. I’ll give you a couple of examples.

In October 2006 (I left in 2007), you may recall The Australian sent a young Arabic-speaking reporter to a Lakemba Mosque expecting he would document incitement to terrorism by the Imam. He returned empty handed, but his translation of the sermon included a reference to women who do not dress modestly as ‘uncovered meat’. The story was front page news in The Australian and subsequently across all media mastheads and platforms in the country, including the SBS World News bulletin I presented, despite attempts on my part to explain this sort of comment was hardly unusual, didn’t merit singling out given what is routinely said by preachers of other faiths. The incident was nevertheless used to fan the flames of strong anti-Muslim sentiment in the aftermath of 9/11 and in support of US-led wars.

The atmosphere in the newsroom was at fever pitch, it was part of a pack that smelt blood. It was a day of great shame for me personally. I’d had two experiences with another organised religion that were significantly more egregious, but comments around acceptable standards of modesty, whether you adhere to them, or think they are backward and damaging for women, did not warrant singling out for public humiliation as a serious, unacceptable and unique threat to Australian society, posed by Muslim rhetoric. The speech of Greek Orthodox Sunday school teachers or rabbis was never subjected to a public microscope.

Israel lobby’s entrenched influence

During my almost three decades at SBS, first in management and then in the newsroom, in discussions with the Heads of Programming, News, and Television, I was aware of the exceptional pressure brought to bear on decision-makers when it came to purchasing and broadcasting a film, or running a story, that portrayed a Palestinian point of view as opposed to the non-negotiable version of the Israel lobby.

The program would have to be of a higher standard than usual to justify the resources that would inevitably be required to defend it.

After a staff meeting in the newsroom in 2004, at which I argued strongly that we had to run a particular story that the News Director had been asked to pull, he told me he believed his days were numbered. There would be retribution for him after the election if the Coalition won, because in the end, he had defended our right to run the report. This marked the end of an era of possibility, with more evident influence of editorial staff by the Israel lobby.

The imbalance in our coverage became even more pronounced and entrenched and it became virtually impossible to include the perspective of Palestinians. For many years, we crossed to an Israeli spokesperson, usually an IDF or former IDF member – for a long time Mark Regev – for ‘an update’ as if it was to a neutral observer.

I well recall an occasion during my last year when I suggested to the on-duty Chief Producer that we have a Palestinian on for a change. I have not forgotten his short response, though 20 years have passed. ‘Why? They’re all mad’. He had just returned from a junket to Israel, par for the course for senior journalists across media organisations. Some years earlier, I had been baffled by the boasting of another Chief Producer about the size and quality of the steak and bottle of red he had just consumed in a long lunch shouted by an Israel lobbyist, before returning to his shift.

Different histories, different outlooks

It’s not surprising that legacy media has struggled with reporting on the Gaza genocide – even without using the word – because for decades we overlooked Israel’s modus operandi for demographic engineering, either in ignorance or complicity – both inexcusable.

Small victories in resistance to this diminished, along with the dilution of solidarity on the floor. In my specific role, I resorted to a kind of reverse weaponisation of neutrality. Because of my role as anchor, I argued, I could not use expressions like the much-loved ‘War on Terror’, it had to be ‘George Bush’s War on Terror’, or a dead pan ‘the so-called War on Terror’.

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Personal family history led me – since childhood – to want to understand how power was exercised because of the catastrophic consequences for ordinary people. Interrogating the nature of identity and the function of tribalism were pieces in that puzzle, as my grandparents had come from a multiracial society at a time when such societies were being transformed into ethno-states. The heritage of pluralism remained in my DNA and a cosmopolitan outlook was to remain my prism. Ethnic particularity, however, was just one aspect of pluralism, as it was also only just one aspect of personal identity. Furthermore, the centrality of ethnic particularity was a core characteristic of ethnonationalism and often provided fertile ground for chauvinism and racism.

So I was somewhat of a Martian in the newsroom because my background provided a perspective that my contemporary environment had no time for. In 1967, when Israel took the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem, the Sinai, and the Golan Heights – which it ethnically cleansed, wiping out 100 villages – my generation at age 13 were reading ‘The Diary of Anne Frank’, soon followed by Leon Uris’s ‘Exodus’ which documented the noble struggle of Jewish pioneers forging a new life, taming ‘a barren’ land, creating an ‘egalitarian’ society in ‘a land without a people for a people without a land’.

On this cultural and formal education, British historian William Dalrymple says he was ‘sold a lie’. This was the prism through which the creation of Israel was seen. Arabs were an inconvenient peripheral menace. How many adults in the western world went on from Exodus to read Rashid Khalidi’s ‘The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine’ or Ghada Karmi’s Married to Another Man, or any of the books of Ilan Pappe? How many western journalists?

Authoritarian repression won’t work

For a variety of reasons, the media’s treatment of Israel is most exceptional. In general, holding our allies to the same standards as our foes would be laughed out of any newsroom – let alone questioning why said countries are considered ‘allies’ to begin with. An attitude unhealthy in an ethnonationalist state, but in a multicultural one, it seeded problems that can’t be swept away. Certainly not with motherhood statements by politicians who avoid accountability for their policies or their obligations under international law. And the discontent spawned can’t be controlled with repressive institutional behaviour and authoritarian legislative measures.

Just as you can’t stop an oppressed group of people from rising up against its oppressors, the rest of us can’t allow our conscience to be criminalised, and so we will not be intimidated into silence.

I have made my anti-establishment views known across a raft of matters and have been trenchant in my criticism of the US government as well as our own government, but Israel was a no-no, no matter how flagrant its conduct. The first public shot across the bow in this stepped-up phase of cancellation since October 7 was the sacking of Antoinette Lattouf. I say public because there are many cases that are not known about.

I was chosen because of my public profile and reputation, because I dared step outside the narrow Overton window we must all remain within at all cost, particularly in the case of Israel. I’m aware that my sharing of articles by many Jewish journalists and a range of other reputable experts who have been either shut out of mainstream media or would never get a look in, was making Zionists apoplectic. The newly-minted young CEO of the Zionist Federation of Australia (ZFA) and a compliant journalist in the legacy media decided they would smear me as an antisemitic rape denier and fruit loop conspiracy theorist. And because no decent smear ends without references to Holocaust denial, one of the two ‘exclusives’ remarkably managed to end on that note. Radio silence from that Masthead ever since. They all have egg on their face because the ZFA had to drop the case knowing they had no prospect of winning.

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The two posts they selected for the alleged breach were a clip of a speech by the late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah; one post with a comment from me that the Israeli government was getting some of its own medicine and that Israel has started something it can’t finish with this genocide; and the other a mere retweet of a post by British journalist Richard Medhurst who simply reported Nasrallah’s words. It was an interesting choice for a number of reasons, not least of which was that Medhurst was arrested three weeks after the case against me was filed.

The affront at these posts was because I had the temerity to share a clip of Nasrallah himself – a listed terrorist in Australia – and draw some sort of moral equivalence between his threat and the conduct of the Israeli government, and to indicate the consequences of that conduct would continue to escalate. How dare I compare a threat by a listed terrorist with the conduct of a terrorist state.

But Israel must be spoken of with reverence while it couches its erasure of Palestinians and theft of their land as defending itself, and those defending Palestinians must be roundly condemned as terrorists and part of that Axis of Evil, when they are seen as neither by many millions of people around the world. That we, as journalists, must take this position as if we were mouthpieces for the US alliance or the Australian government, let alone Israel, is preposterous. It dispenses with our capacity to view our own country’s perspective and that of our allies as critically as we would any other country’s, and to have media organisations participate in this journalistic malpractice as openly as they have is astonishing.

You will be familiar with directives and guidance given to staff here, and recall the New York Times leaked memo in early 2024 directing journalists to avoid even the use of the term ‘Occupied Territory’, and CNN staff revealing pressure resulting in credulous reporting of Israeli claims and silencing of Palestinian perspectives, with similar pressures reported at the BBC.

Over the last decade we saw distinct fragmentation of the audience – some still relying on legacy media while others accessing information and perspectives from independent media where we have seen an explosion of outlets including YouTube channels where experts and scholars publish information and commentary.

The result has been two very different perceptions of reality. However, this chasm between segments of the public is closing for large numbers of people as the situation in Gaza and in other spheres reach such extremes. Israel’s brutal colonialism in the West Bank and Lebanon, Donald Trump’s overt gangster-capitalism and proxy war on Iran, and the rise of the far-right cannot be glossed over with a comprehensive avoidance of reality in legacy media. The consequences are too visible and too extreme.

We can take heart that on the whole the courts won’t back the suppression of political speech – with the exception of the disappointing Jayson Gillham decision where the judge did not have a problem with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra discriminating in the colour of political comment it endorsed, legitimising support for Ukraine as policy but not so for Palestinians. NSW Supreme Court Justice Desmond Fagan’s judgement on the heels of this decision is a masterclass in calling out the lack of common sense, gaslighting and utter bullshit.

It has been almost two-and-a-half years since I first set foot in Gaza on my first medical mission. Thursday, 13 June 2024, is a date forever etched into my memory.

After three weeks at Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah, where my Palestinian heritage and my calling as a surgeon converged, my understanding of the world shifted irrevocably, and with it, my sense of purpose. Before I left Gaza I asked my friends and colleagues what they thought I could do to help them.

Tell them about Gaza. Do not forget us.

You can help change things from the outside.

I had formed deep bonds with my colleagues, my patients, the journalists and the displaced children living with their families on hospital grounds. In those three weeks, I had become entrenched in the ecosystem of the beautiful community that existed at Al-Aqsa Hospital.

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I held some optimism, albeit somewhat naively, that things could change if more people truly knew what was happening. But Palestinians have been telling the world for 78 years what it means to live under Israel’s brutal occupation, and despite the atrocities in Gaza being the most live-streamed genocide of our time, the moral outcry from governments and legal institutions and the community at large was profoundly lacking. This is a wound that fractures the soul.

After I left Gaza in July 2024, the situation continued to deteriorate. My 16-year-old patient Malaak, lying on a thin mattress in a corner of the ward, with her bilateral leg fractures strapped to external metal fixation devices, and her proximal jejunostomy (stoma) that was pouring out bowel content, was bone-thin and desperately needed nutrition. Her younger brother was always by her side, tending to her wounds and dressings. Malaak died from starvation, because Israel made it impossible to get proper nutrition through the borders into Gaza.

I remember I held my breath and tried to suppress the panic when, in early August 2024, I received news that the Israeli army was encroaching upon Al-Aqsa Hospital. The locals knew what that meant, when the army tanks and soldiers would descend upon a healthcare facility.

I had spent countless hours in various parts of Al-Aqsa Hospital listening to the stories of what happened to my colleagues at Al-Shifa Hospital and at the Indonesian Hospital; how they were besieged for over 40 days and if someone left the hospital premises wearing scrubs that the snipers would shoot them; that doctors and nurses were being contacted by name and told to present themselves to the army only to be interrogated, tortured and abducted; that for many days the staff were surviving by drinking saline and glucose meant for patients and eating the occasional tuna can. Until now, some of these healthcare workers are still being held hostage by Israel, while others have died.

The mass casualties were so frequent that one doctor would be tasked with labelling the bodies of the unidentified people, majhool, reaching into the hundreds. People were having their surgeries in the hospital kitchen, or on the corridor floor, due to the sheer number of casualties. There was limited communication. Colleagues would leave the hospital to head home (either to a tent, or the remnants of their houses) and those who would be working at the hospital would receive their colleagues’ bodies in the emergency department, either torn to shreds by a missile strike or gunned down by a quadcopter.

Worse yet was the arrival of a medic’s father or sister or spouse or child. In Gaza, the Janazah (funeral) prayer has been carried out on a continuous loop for the last 1,000+ days and counting.

It begs the question: what kind of military power would carry out such egregious acts? The purpose is chilling and clear: if you want to decimate the ability of people to heal and survive, then wipe out their healthcare system and eradicate their workforce.

Upon my return to Al-Aqsa Hospital in December 2024, Israel had intensified its military assault across Gaza. At the same time, it tightened its chokehold on the entry of medical aid and humanitarian personnel. Between 50 and 60 per cent of doctors and nurses seeking to enter Gaza on medical missions were denied permission. That I received approval from the Israeli COGAT office was unexpected, particularly as state-sanctioned discrimination had become unmistakable. Medics holding Palestinian identity documents were categorically denied entry, and Palestinian heritage itself had become a barrier to providing care.

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Many of my international colleagues, desperate to return to their patients and colleagues, were forced to challenge these refusals in Israeli courts before they could re-enter Gaza. No healthcare worker should have to litigate for the right to treat the sick and wounded. At the heart of medicine is a simple, universal principle: every human being is entitled to healthcare. It is not a privilege to be granted or withheld according to nationality, ethnicity, or geography; it is a fundamental human right, protected under international law. Yet nowhere has the abandonment of this principle been more stark than in Gaza. The gap between what the world professes to uphold and what it permits to occur could not be more glaring.

When I returned to Gaza on my third medical mission in June 2025, I was not prepared for what I witnessed. One year on I am still processing my experience. The majority of my time was spent at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, with some work at Al-Quds Hospital. Daily scenes of barbaric Israeli violence against Palestinians. The scenes of dismembered teenage girls and women on the emergency floors when a missile strike hit the seaside Al-Baqa café. The men and children being gunned down at so called ‘aid distribution sites’. Treating colleagues and their family members as patients after they survived bombings or missile strikes.

The intended outcome of Israel’s enforced starvation quickly became obvious. I was mostly surviving on protein bars and plain rice, while Gazans had even less. These conditions had been deliberately engineered to demoralise the population and heighten their desperation, attempting to force them to fracture the strong bonds within their community. But the people of Gaza hold tight onto their faith and each other. Israel can never conquer a people who embody honour, dignity and courage, even with a genocide.

*The Weight of Witness: The experiences of Australian and New Zealand medics in Gaza is a new book that includes testimonies by 40 ANZ healthcare workers who have volunteered on medical missions to Gaza, and some who have been denied entry. All of them bear witness to the genocide of the people of Gaza. Many within our profession have faced censorship, doxxing, litigation, loss of income and more, all for advocating for Palestinians. The hypocrisy of censoring and sanctioning the truth tellers and not the perpetrators is a corruption at the very core of what it means to be a healthcare worker. And so I return to these words: Tell them about Gaza. Do not forget us.

Upcoming Melbourne event

Deepcut editor Antoun Issa will be discussing the book with Dr Bushra Othman and Dr Saya Aziz on Wednesday, 11 November at the Wheeler Centre in Melbourne. The event commences at 6.30pm – purchase tickets here.

Pro-Israel extremists are once again seeking to have Palestinian-Australian author Randa Abdel-Fattah removed from Adelaide Writers’ Week, after a similar lobbying campaign led to the collapse of this year’s festival.

A WhatsApp group has circulated an AI-generated email campaign urging supporters to lobby South Australian politicians and arts officials in a bid to exclude Abdel-Fattah from the festival in 2027.

Messages shared in the Pen Power Australia WhatsApp group, seen by Deepcut, urged members to click on an “Activist Mailer” link to generate a complaint opposing Abdel-Fattah’s invitation to the literary festival.

The automatically-generated email is addressed to Adelaide Writers’ Week director Rosemary Milsom, executive director Julian Hobbs, artistic director Matthew Lutton and Macquarie University vice-chancellor Bruce Dowton. It also copies South Australia’s premier, Peter Malinauskas, as well as state ministers, the opposition leader and shadow ministers.

The email calls on the festival to withdraw its invitation to Abdel-Fattah – a strident critic of Israel’s genocide in Gaza – accusing her of “antisemitic conduct”.

In comments to Deepcut, Abdel-Fattah condemned the lobbying effort and called on “every institution they target to stand firm against such malicious campaigns”.

“Despite the collapse of Adelaide Writers’ Week and Bendigo Writers Festival, these genocide cheerleaders continue their targeted racist campaigns, buoyed on by a political environment that has acquiesced to the pro-Israel lobby and punished the pro-Palestine movement,” she told Deepcut.

Murdoch media follows Abdel-Fattah’s UK book events

The Pen Power Australia email comes in tandem with a Murdoch media campaign that targeted Abdel-Fattah’s UK tour promoting her book, Discipline.

The email labelled Abdel-Fattah’s remarks in the UK “particularly disturbing”, claiming she “described Australians as ‘nut cases’ and Australian institutions as ‘white supremacist’”.

This appears based on a Daily Telegraph article referencing the remarks.

Murdoch outlets in Australia, which have staunchly supported Israel as it slaughters civilians en masse and causes devastation throughout West Asia, ran repeated headlines attacking Abdel-Fattah while on tour. Another article in Adelaide Now sought to provoke controversy around the author’s UK book tour, and tie it to Abdel-Fattah’s upcoming appearance at Adelaide Writers’ Week.

Abdel-Fattah called the Murdoch media campaign a “shameless obsession”.

“To hunt me down at every public event in the UK and maliciously cherry pick my lines to feed into a media and lobby machine that will do anything to try to silence me only goes to show how desperate these barrel-scraping reporters and pro-Israel lobbyists are,” she said.

The Murdoch media blitz comes two months after incessant media attacks led to the death of British scholar Jason Arday. Murdoch’s UK outlets were found to have published the most articles attacking Arday, in what was roundly condemned as a bullying campaign that uniquely targeted the academic due to his African heritage.

Louise Adler condemns campaign

The new Pen Power Australia campaign follows the festival’s dramatic collapse earlier this year, with Adelaide Festival apologising to Abdel-Fattah in January and acknowledging that its decision to exclude her from the 2026 program had been a mistake. Organisers then invited her to participate in the 2027 event.

Louise Adler, director of the 2026 Adelaide Writers’ Week, resigned after the Adelaide Festival Board decided to cancel Abdel-Fattah’s appearance despite her strong opposition.

“I’m not surprised that the Israel lobby is once again agitating for Dr Abdel-Fattah to be disinvited from Adelaide Writers’ Week in 2027,” she told Deepcut.

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“I would, however, be very surprised if the new board of Adelaide Festival capitulated. It would cause irreparable reputational damage to Australia’s premier literary festival with a heritage of over 60 years.”

The decision to remove Abdel-Fattah from the 2026 event followed a letter from South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas to the festival’s chair, in which he stated he was “deeply concerned” that the organisers were not prepared to remove her. Deepcut later revealed Pen Power Australia’s lobbying role to have Abdel-Fattah excluded from the 2026 lineup.

Her cancellation prompted a mass boycott by writers and artists, with more than 180 writers withdrawing from the festival. The controversy also resulted in the resignation and replacement of the festival’s board.

Emails obtained under freedom of information by ABC News revealed that the festival’s executive director had warned that as many as 80 to 90 writers could withdraw if Abdel-Fattah were disinvited.

Pen Power Australia has previously coordinated campaigns targeting public figures and institutions that have openly criticised Israel for its genocide in Gaza. The pro-Israel group has also coordinated mass complaint campaigns to the ABC regarding their coverage of the Gaza genocide.

A few things happened in quick succession after NSW Senator David Shoebridge took over the Greens leadership, alongside new deputy Steph Hodgins-May.

As the dust was settling, the pundits still analysing what it meant for the direction of the party, the Green Institute — the Greens think tank, led by former MP Max Chandler-Mather — proposed the idea of publicly owned supermarkets, in order to challenge the Coles-Woolworths “duopoly”. It was a policy directly inspired by Democratic Socialist mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani, and formed the Institute’s first mainstream headlines since Chandler-Mather’s April appointment, with even News24 reporting on the proposal.

The idea was immediately “given the nod” by the new leadership, with Shoebridge welcoming the proposal, which dovetailed nicely with his plans to refocus the party on voters’ material conditions. “This is the sort of policy that we should be discussing right now,” Shoebridge told Guardian Australia. “While 99 per cent of us are paying more for food, and many are making decisions about enough food or some other essentials, the 1 per cent who own Coles and Woolies are laughing.”

Within days, the Victorian Greens announced their version of the policy, using their election campaign launch to pledge $300 million towards building 10 state-owned supermarkets — meaning both the Greens and the Victorian Socialists now require a tick on this table of Mamdani policies Deepcut produced in July.

‘Rekindled hope in politics’

These concrete announcements added to the renewed sense of optimism in the Australian Greens, amid a fresh swell of energy and — as the party has been eager to highlight — an influx of new members. The Greens gained 884 members in the week following the leadership change, though as the Nine papers note, their 15,000 total is seemingly dwarfed by One Nation, which claims to have between 60,000 and 70,000 members.

That optimism was undeniable at the Victorian launch on Thursday night, a bright, friendly, ticketed event held at a queer-affirming community church in Melbourne’s inner north. MCed by a comedian, with a vegan buffet and raffle, the launch had the air of a celebration, as the Greens launched a campaign they say could net them as many as nine seats — “more seats than any state Greens party has ever won before”, declared state leader Ellen Sandell.

There were huge cheers for Sandell and former Grayndler candidate Hannah Thomas, who referred to Labor not as the “light on the hill” but as a “binfire at the bottom of the barrel”. The biggest cheers were reserved for Hodgins-May and Shoebridge, who took to the stage last (well past when the event was meant to have finished) and delivered a fiery sermon, equal parts fury and hope.

“We have rekindled hope in politics,” Shoebridge proclaimed to the still crowded room. “This is our moment,” he added, echoing lines from other speakers about the need to seize it.

Observers at the launch said it was the biggest and most hyped up they’d attended, noting that a lot of new people had come in via Samantha Ratnam’s 2025 campaign for Wills (the event was held in the very Greenest part of Wills). There was no sense of any of the bitterness that had been displayed by members of the federal partyroom following the leadership vote, the Greens’ first contested ballot.

People were excited about the new leadership, said one attendee, “not out of disrespect for Larissa [Waters]”, but because the party had needed a refresh.

The refresh is real, as is the pivot to a more combative approach, one the party hopes will grow their vote, which has remained stuck around the 12 per cent mark for years. Shoebridge and Hodgins-May have talked at length about wanting to build a movement that can replace the lifeless Labor Party, which they argue have directly contributed to the rise of One Nation.

Mistakes made

Speaking over the phone ahead of the launch, Shoebridge says the Greens initially internalised the wrong lessons after the 2025 poll (he remains, like almost everyone in the party, effusive towards Waters, praising her leadership style).

“The experience of the 2025 election was really tough for the party,” says Shoebridge. “In the heat of the moment, sometimes you learn the right lesson, sometimes you learn the wrong lesson. But often those decisions then need to be reviewed …

“With the benefit of a little bit of hindsight, the worst lesson you could take out of it would be to go soft on Labor.”

The Greens believe this is their “moment”. But it’s still not clear why things are going to be different this time, given this was the approach taken by the federal Greens before that disappointing 2025 result, which cost them their former leader, Adam Bandt. Shoebridge in many ways resembles Bandt, a whip-smart, bespectacled, inner city lawyer who speaks compellingly on the need to take the fight to the 1 per cent — compellingly for those who are already listening.

Shoebridge initially bats away the comparison to Bandt (“a handsome man”, he jokes), saying he and Steph’s leadership “will stand or fall on its own merits.” But after a few more questions on why their message will cut through where previous attempts haven’t, he nominates their new call to “replace Labor”, arguing people are hungry for this.

“That has been, I think, the distinct change in tone,” he says. “The idea that we are here, ready, willing and able to fill that progressive void in Australian politics.”

Pivot to grassroots

Shoebridge lays out his ambition to build a “mass movement,” in which thousands of new members join, and “having a political party bankrolled not by corporations, but supported by the hope and generosity of Australians across the country”. The goal is to build a “ground game to defeat Labor, not in a handful of seats, but with a well-developed strategy over time to gain serious political power in both houses of parliament” — very much in line with the Chandler-Mather school of thought.

Unfortunately for the Greens, a large number of those fed up with politics as usual have already found new homes — both within One Nation and an array of alternative leftwing movements, such as the Victorian Socialists, whose August campaign launch was better attended (the Greens’ event was ticketed and in a smaller venue, with multiple speakers noting it was sold out).

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The Victorian Socialists, whose membership has also grown in recent months, argue the Greens’ middle class base won’t pursue the radical solutions required, though it will be interesting to see what effect Shoebridge as leader will have on this sentiment, given he comes from the most socialist faction of the Greens.

VS has since posted a cheeky swipe at the Greens’ supermarkets policy, noting they “Didn’t need a think tank to come up with this one for us,” while admitting “A good idea is a good idea. 👍”

Does Shoebridge have a message for those progressives who have or are about to turn to more radical alternatives?

“The Greens are this unique national movement,” he says. “Councillors across the country, MPs across the country, federally elected representatives, but fundamentally connected to a mass movement all across Australia. This is how you get serious national change, by being part of a national movement that is absolutely connected to its grassroots.”

The Greens are indeed a national movement with a passionate grassroots base — the Victorian launch showcased the best of both, though it’s worth noting that Shoebridge was preaching directly to the choir in Fitzroy North. The past fortnight has produced a rush of excitement for the Greens, amid plans to upend the supermarket duopoly and the political duopoly. The goal for Shoebridge and Hodgins-May now is to grow that movement beyond the bounds of the 12 per cent that are firmly wedded to them, to find ways to cut through where neither Bandt nor Waters could.

Vibes are high in the Greens right now. But it’s those outside the Greens that will need convincing, and it won’t be quite as easy as reinvigorating the base.

Oil companies are raking in billions in windfall profits from the Iran war as Australians suffer soaring petrol prices and the Labor government refuses to adequately tax the sector.

Multinational heavyweights ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell and BP have all recorded sharp profit spikes by a combined $29.5bn (US$20.5bn) since the US and Israel illegally attacked Iran on 28 February, triggering a global energy crisis. Chevron, which reported a profit of US$14.5bn in the 15 months prior to the Iran war, hauled in US$12.1bn in the first quarter alone.

Iran cut off the Strait of Hormuz in response to the attack, through which 20 per cent of the world’s oil supply transits. Recent fighting between Yemen and Saudi Arabia, as well as the ongoing Ukraine-Russia war are also adding to the global energy strain.

But there are no complaints from oil and gas giants, who are banking the billions of extra fuel costs suffered by consumers at the petrol pump. That includes Australia’s largest fuel retailer Ampol, which posted a 376% increase in profit from the company’s 2025 first-half year profit.

For the vast majority who are not oil and gas executives, the 50% surge in petrol prices – from around $1.71 a litre before the war to nearly $2.60 by the end of March – has been a source of tremendous financial pain. This has been compounded by rising interest rates, which means the war’s costs have effectively been passed onto global households while the select few profit. In Australia, this has come with government support.

Anthony Albanese was the first leader to back the US-Israeli war on Iran, despite the hardship it has brought to Australian households struggling to make ends meet. In April, amid popular demand for a tax on gas companies, the prime minister backed the fossil fuel giants and said it was “the worst possible time to jeopardise these partnerships, or the investment that underpins them”.

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The remarks echoed those aired by the chief executive of the oil and gas lobby, the Australian Energy Producers, who, three days prior to Albanese’s comments, said: “It shouldn’t need to be said that this would be the worst possible time to impose an investment-destroying tax.”

Aftab Malik’s bookshelf takes up most of the wall behind him, and he is happy to give a tour, via Zoom.

There is a section on Islamophobia and one on Islamic civilisation. Out of view are shelves on Zionism and Islamism. He says he owns more than 800 books on Jewish history, antisemitism and Zionism. He pulls down a 1,200-page volume by a rabbi who argues that Zionism has nothing to do with Judaism, then a university press study of how debate about Israel has been narrowed.

“I read a lot of literature that I don’t necessarily agree with,” says the British-born scholar, “to understand the mind that I’m talking with.”

It is a habit that runs through his work as Australia’s inaugural Special Envoy to Combat Islamophobia. As his three-year term enters its final year, Malik has made a practice of sitting down with the people who most distrust Muslims, and with the Muslims who most distrust him. While the role has given him access to the highest levels of power, from Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to policymakers and institutions he says he never knew existed, it has also earned him bruising criticism closer to home.

Muslim distrust of envoy role

Malik built his early career writing about Islam and terrorism. In the mid-2000s the United Nations designated him a global expert on Muslim affairs, and he wrote, by hand, a three-volume study of antisemitism in modern Muslim thought that remains unpublished.

He was about to start a PhD at Oxford in 2013 when the Lebanese Muslim Association in Sydney asked him to become its scholar in residence later that year. He saw a chance to reach young Muslims grappling with religion, identity and belonging, and took it, “much to the dismay of my [Oxford] professor”. He still jokes that he chose “Lakemba over Oxford”.

Then came the call to the federal role, as reports of Islamophobia surged in the wake of October 7, 2023. The Islamophobia Register Australia says reported attacks have since jumped 612 per cent in the past three years.

However, in the lead-up to his appointment, a vocal number of Muslims and commentators called it “farcical” to think he could combat Islamophobia.

“I actually thought Muslims would see this [the envoy role] as a good thing,” he says. “I was genuinely shocked how many people thought it was a bad thing.”

Some of the distrust was about who had appointed him. Many Muslims were angry at the Albanese government’s response to the genocide in Gaza, and saw its envoy as an extension of it. “People thought that I was part of the Labor government,” Malik says. “I’ve got no coercive power over the government. All I can do is articulate as powerfully as I can the Muslim concern.”

Other concerns also stemmed from his background in countering violent extremism, or CVE, work that many Muslims associate with surveillance and suspicion. “CVE work is a red flag for many of us,” says Dr Yassir Morsi, a La Trobe University lecturer who has written books on Islamophobia and in his scholarly capacity, contributed to a paper on the 2005 anti-Arab/Islamophobic Cronulla hate riots for the envoy’s office.

Morsi argues that CVE treats terrorism as a religious problem rather than a political one, born of decades of war and western intervention in West Asia, particularly the Iraq war. He sees Malik as fluent in the government language of social cohesion but silent on the role of the state, and he considers the envoy’s office “toothless”.

Disagreements on approach

In late 2024, Malik spent six weeks touring the country to meet more than 200 Muslims from all walks of life. Some asked why he had taken the job. Others told him they had thought he was intelligent until then. Most said it to his face, which he respected, but some were courteous in the room and scathing on social media afterwards.

His first eight months, he jokes, felt like being “punished for my sins”. “I got the scars on my back to prove it.”

Few moves drew more criticism than his response to Pauline Hanson. After the One Nation leader declared on national television that there were no “good Muslims”, Malik publicly invited her to an iftar. Condemnation from some in the Muslim community was swift. Her office has never responded to the invitation.

Yet, Malik makes no apology for the approach. “Being nice doesn’t mean you cannot be firm,” he says. He models himself on the Prophet Muhammad, whom he describes as gentle but unyielding when it mattered. He also has a strategic reason for staying calm. “In the Islamophobia space, being angry is one of the stereotypes,” he says. “I don’t want to capitulate to the angry Muslim.”

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His approach to his opponents is where opinions of him divide and even he admits he says things that make Muslim audiences uncomfortable. Muslims have done “horrific things” in the name of their religion, he says, and the community has to recognise it. He also understands, without excusing it, why some Australians believe their fear of Islam is rational: they have little contact with Muslims and are fed a steady diet of terrorism headlines.

“When Muslims talk about Islamophobia, they talk about what western nations are doing,” he says. “When non-Muslims talk, they’re talking about what Muslims are doing in the name of Islam.” He sees his job as bringing those two conversations together.

That is not appeasement, he insists. “I can say that this speech is reckless,” he says, “and at the same time say, if you want to talk to me about why, come and speak to me.”

Morsi sees it differently. Engaging figures like Hanson, he says, only gives them media minutes and “makes her look better”. He would rather Muslims stop performing for their detractors and invest in their own lawyers, filmmakers and journalists. “Racism is always going to exist,” he says. “It’s kind of like the weather.”

Government ignores key recommendations

Much of Malik’s work has gone into his report to the government, which he wrote alone before his staff arrived in January this year. He asked every community the same key questions, promised to focus on whatever came up most, and sent drafts to 30 experts in Australia and abroad for feedback. Wherever he went, the same three concerns kept coming back: political rhetoric, media coverage and education.

Among his 54 recommendations to the Albanese government are a code of conduct for politicians, a youth hub where newsrooms can hear directly from young Muslims, and recognition in the national curriculum of Islam’s contribution to civilisation. His central argument, though, is that grants and dialogue are welcome but not enough. “You can’t deal with the after-effects of Islamophobia,” he says. “You need to address it on a structural basis.” For him that also means law reform, policing and the counterterrorism framework.

That argument was tested twice. When the federal budget set aside nothing for Islamophobia, he says he spent two weeks telling ministers that Muslims read it as proof they weren’t being taken seriously. Then in July, 10 months after he handed over his report, the government accepted 35 of the 54 recommendations and committed almost $42 million to mosque security, community grants, an education taskforce, leadership programs and research.

It did not accept the structural reforms he had pushed hardest for. Those included an inquiry into anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian discrimination, stronger legal protections for Muslims against religious discrimination, and a review of whether counterterrorism laws had unfairly targeted Muslim communities.

The limits of a government role

Those who have worked with him see the pros of an envoy and the wider limitations. Mohammed Bouras, a physics PhD candidate and vice-president of the Swinburne University Islamic Society, has been fighting the university over new rules for its Muslim prayer space.

Malik advocated for the students, and Bouras credits his intervention with getting the university to the table. Even so, he thinks the envoy role was created to “pander to Muslim voters” and given little power, especially compared with the antisemitism envoy, Jillian Segal.

The government formally adopted Segal’s controversial plan and announced a package of legislative reforms that critics warn impinge on free political expression. Malik got 35 of his 54. But Bouras separates the role from the man. “It’s not about Aftab,” he says. “He might be the best one for the role but he is already limited.”

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Mohamed Mohideen, president of the Islamic Council of Victoria, says those limits come with any government job. As a former Victorian Multicultural Commissioner, he says he had to temper what he said even under a supportive government, and he will never take such a role again. “You can get a good salary,” he says, “but you have to keep your mouth shut.”

What Malik says he has gained, despite those limits, is trust. He draws a sharp line between his first eight months and the period since his report was published. The second edition, he says, carries twice as many endorsements as the first. He counts winning over some of his harshest critics in the community among his proudest achievements, and credits patience and never overpromising. “People in the community often tell me ‘you don’t come across as a salesperson’,” he says. “You’re always clear about what you can do and what you can’t do.”

Understanding history is key

In Canada, Amira Elghawaby, the country’s first Special Representative on Combatting Islamophobia, learned how much rides on that trust, and how little it can guarantee. She held a similar role until her office was abruptly shut down in February, with a year of her mandate left.

It had been created at the community’s request after two massacres in which Muslims were targeted and killed, and she took it on with strong community backing. She has swapped notes with Malik and calls his report “important”. “The moment you lose the trust of communities,” she says, “the government won’t engage on the difficult issues.”

Unlike Malik, who looks forward to having a break after his tenure ends in late 2027, Elghawaby says she would take the job back “in a heartbeat”.

The job has cost Malik and his family more than he expected. Ask him when it ends and the answer comes instantly: October 2027. Then a smile. “Not that I’m counting.”

Asked whether Australian Muslims should despair at the rise in Islamophobia, he reaches for history. When the Mongols sacked the heartland of Islam in the thirteenth century, he says, many Muslims believed it was the end of the world. Yet new Muslim empires followed in Spain, India and Anatolia. “You’ve got to understand the past to understand the present,” he says.

He doesn’t want Muslims to treat Islamophobia as simply a test to be endured. He wants them to report it and to use the rights their citizenship gives them. Getting jaded is human, he says. “But don’t fall into hopelessness.”

His critics argue that no envoy can fix Islamophobia, nor the problems in community leadership that Morsi says have left Muslims “talking about the same thing” for two decades. Malik doesn’t disagree. On that first bruising tour, he says, even the people tearing into him told him the same thing: nobody expected him to solve Islamophobia in three years.

One thing you grasp very quickly when writing on economics is that the economy and the entire system surrounding it is not made for people. At least not people who work most of the jobs, or are unemployed, or struggling due to health or disabilities, or elderly, or trying to buy a home, or rent, or in essence make up almost all of our society. It’s made for corporations and those who own and run those corporations, and much of the reporting is done by the same and for the same.

For example, the day after this year’s budget in May, The Australian ran with the headline on its front page, “77BN TAX GRAB”. The figure was derived by adding the collective impact of the changes to tax on capital gains and trusts out to 2036-37, which would be funny were it not so absurd.

It wasn’t a shock, because News Corp loves to decry any increases in tax.

On a completely different note, last week the ATO released the Corporate Tax transparency report for 2024-25.

It’s a fun little report that lists the amount of tax paid by every company with an income over $100m.

Here’s the table of how much tax has been paid each year by News Australia Holdings Pty Ltd:

Yep. Zero. Ok, so they have brought in nearly $24bn income, but as News Corp journalists are always at pains to tell anyone, company tax is levied on profits. Harder to explain is the nearly $1.3bn in taxable income that also led to $0 tax.

Others will say that it’s a holding company and those often pay no tax. Yes, but Nine Entertainment Co. Holdings Ltd paid $76.7m in tax in 2024-25. And sure, it was off the back of $2.27bn income and just $290.5m in taxable income, but at least it was something.

News Corp is just really clever, I guess.

Like with most things in our economy, this result is not due to fraud or malfeasance – it’s the system. A system where the Santos CEO gets to speak at the National Press Club, boast about how the gas industry is so great for communities, suggest we need more gas and demand “a stable taxation and regulatory regime”. The same CEO who at last year’s annual gas industry conference compared Victoria to North Korea and said he’d prefer to invest in PNG than Australia.

And all the while Santos Pty Ltd has gone 11 years without paying a dollar in company tax:

Zero dollars every year? That sure is stable! And not bad work by the accountants given the Santos 2024-25 annual report notes “$1.2b net profit after tax”.

Even at a smaller level we see the same skewed system at work.

Ruslan Kogan, founder and CEO of Kogan Ltd, decided after budget the nation needed to hear his views on things and so posted a ranting video online.

He told us that he has no problem paying tax, saying “when it comes to taxes, I don’t care if it’s a 90 per cent tax, as long as it’s actually making the country better for our children and giving us a better place to live in the future”.

Good point, well made!

Except in 2024-25, Kogan Australia Pty Ltd paid $0.00 in company tax – the same amount it paid in 2023-24 and 2022-23 and 2021-22:

So no, not quite 90% tax.

In 2024-25 the company made a gross profit of $168.4m.

Kogan suggested, “The Aussie culture has been all about working hard, taking risks, having a crack, and you’re going to be incentivising the wrong sort of people to come here.” What type of people? Those, who, in Kogan’s mind think, “You know what? There’s some great opportunity for some really sick NDIS scams; there’s a really great welfare system; that’s the sort of country that I want to come to.”

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This said after a budget that cut the NDIS by around 12 per cent in real terms, and in a nation where people on Jobseeker die up to 10 more than those not on welfare:

Kogan was reported glowingly on News Corp’s news.com.au as having an “epic rant” and on the old Sky News as being a “dire warning”.

Perhaps it is worth reminding people that in 2020, Kogan Australia was fined $350,000 for making false or misleading representations about (and yes, this is bitterly ironic) a “tax time sales promotion”, in which, the ACCC found “consumers were not receiving a genuine 10 per cent discount as promised”.

Ah well. That’s the system, I guess. Sometimes you get caught, and … well life carries on. Your voice remains worthy of hearing because wealth and company ownership sways all.

And then last week we had interest rates rise for the fourth time this year. The conservative media and opposition parties blamed government spending. The Shadow Treasurer Tim Wilson told us what he would cut: NDIS, aged care, childcare.

No talk of getting companies to pay some tax or even acknowledging that in a budget there is both a spending and revenue column.

Nah. That’s the system, you see.

A woman protected by a family violence intervention order was allegedly contacted by the man subject of that decree, after her basketball game was livestreamed by Israeli AI cameras endorsed by Basketball Australia.

A second woman, who also raised concerns about the Ballarat game being streamed, was contacted by an estranged family member she had been avoiding.

In both instances, concerns were raised about streaming the game, with the association allegedly warned a week before the match that doing so could put the women in danger. This is according to the players’ coach, who Deepcut has chosen not to name to protect the safety of the women.

When the team reported the incidents, Ballarat Basketball’s general manager, Chris Thornton, told the women in an email sent on 16 September and seen by Deepcut that “Ballarat Basketball does not have the level of administrative access within the platform to independently hide or block games”.

That level of access is retained by the Israeli firm. “At present, our avenue to action a specific request of this nature is to communicate it directly to Pixellot,” the email read.

On privacy concerns, Thornton said the association “was not responsible for establishing [the] national frameworks and processes” and directed questions to Basketball Australia and Pixellot.

‘Children should feel safe’

The coach said they were concerned about the implied consent attached to filming, adding that many participants were not aware the games were being recorded.

“I want my players to be able to play without fear of who is watching and how it connects them to those who they don’t want nor need to be connected to,” the coach said.

“As a parent, I want my child to just be able to play and simply be a kid. A basketball court should without second thought be a safe place, free from exploitation of who knows what is happening from people accessing his image,” they said.

The coach said that players were also being asked to pay a new mandatory fee within their registration to cover the cost of the Israeli AI system.

“People deserve the right to choose, and the way that it was presented by Basketball Ballarat – apparently following Basketball Australia policies and implementation guidelines – took that choice away,” they said.

The alleged incidents follow a Deepcut investigation revealing Basketball Australia’s plans for a national rollout of the Israeli AI camera system. The technology automatically records games, regardless of age or playing level, under the premise of automating performance analytics.

The technology’s links to a former Israeli Defence Force intelligence officer have also attracted scrutiny given the Israeli genocide in Gaza, in which its forces have slaughtered at least 21,000 children, often with the assistance of AI technology. There is no evidence, however, the Pixellot system has been used for Israeli military purposes.

Underage teams watched

Questions abound as to who can access the Pixellot platform, after Deepcut was able to create an account without consenting to any privacy or safety conditions, and without being asked for credentials that tied the user to an association.

Deepcut was then able to follow numerous underage teams belonging to Ballarat Basketball, which appear to be populated ahead of a new season starting this month. Previously recorded domestic games at Ballarat and Knox Basketball were freely available to watch.

This is despite Basketball Australia previously telling this masthead that access would be limited to players, coaches, parents and guardians, authorised association administrators and service personnel.

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Respect Victoria’s CEO Helen Bolton said normalising filming and sharing images – particularly of children – without consent enabled the culture that underpins gendered violence.

“Technology-facilitated abuse is rapidly changing and includes abuse like using technology to track or record someone without their consent, or the use of AI to create sexual exploitation images, including of children,” Bolton said.

“New technologies should be carefully considered by any organisation with a duty of care, including children’s sport. This means not procuring any service or software where policies and practices around how data is used, shared and governed is not clearly understood and able to be shared easily with parents, families and children who it affects.”

Family violence extends to technology

Bolton said it was concerning that external technology providers controlled whether footage was recorded or published, particularly when the data was housed in countries with different and less stringent data security regulations than Australia.

“This means that it is impossible for anyone to give informed consent for their images being captured as they don’t know where they will end up,” she said.

“The recording of children and young people via automated livestreaming therefore does pose risks. Not only for people who are currently experiencing violence, but also for how we raise the next generation and their understanding of consent and safe and healthy relationships.”

In a 2025 national survey on technology abuse and domestic violence carried out by Wesnet, Australia’s peak body for domestic violence, 99.7 per cent of family violence practitioners reported clients who had been abused, stalked or threatened via technology.

“When a participant raises a safety concern, the sporting organisation should listen, act immediately and ask what they need to participate safely,” Westnet CEO Karen Bentley told Deepcut.

“No one should have to choose between their safety and participating in sport.”

Basketball Australia, Basketball Victoria, Ballarat Basketball, Knox Basketball and Pixellot did not respond to detailed questions from Deepcut.

At the age of 13, I was taken to an election rally at the Hobart City Hall where Gough Whitlam was to speak. It was 1974, the hall was packed and when Gough came on the emotion grew electric.

Australia in 1974 still felt like a country shaking off being a colony. We had just stopped standing up in the cinema when God Save the Queen played, portraits of the English monarch had just been taken down from government offices, and Australia had finally begun exploring a foreign policy separate of the US, having withdrawn Australian troops from the bloody and pointless quagmire of Vietnam.

To wave after wave of applause, Whitlam talked of buying back the farm. It was an idea of Australia as nation independent and sovereign, proudly charting its own course. Its bedrock was the beginning of a cultural renaissance that would see a flowering of Australian film, music and literature.

Jump-cut half a century and we have as our prime minister a Benny Hill impersonator who rarely met a corporation for which he wouldn’t roll over – more Toto than Toto. In the noble tradition of online scammers, US artificial intelligence corporations have persuaded the Albanese government that their offer of investment in Australia, replete with highly dubious conditions, is only for a short time, after which it will be withdrawn.

The Albanese government – with falling poll numbers, collapsing living standards, a renascent One Nation, reduced immigration and the consequent hit on GDP numbers – seems to see in AI, or at least data centre construction and “training” centres, a sugar hit for the economy that might perk up the national accounts enough to save its political skin at the next federal election.

For, after it promised to steer a careful path and protect creators’ rights with AI, we discover that the Albanese government is now pondering a terrible betrayal: selling out Australian artists and, more than that, the Australian people.

Days after AI companies told us their product might destroy all humanity, we discover that – in the manner of standover goons doing a shakedown – they have now threatened our government that unless it sacrifices our nation’s culture for what they call “training” (translation: theft), they will not invest here. The government’s leaked proposals add up to this: making Australia to AI regulation what the Cayman Islands is to tax evasion.

No artist I know is happy to see destroyed a system that has developed over centuries to enable them to work. Copyright law is not a block or a problem – it is the foundation of all the creative industries. It’s what makes AC/DC and Anna Funder, Tim Winton and Cate Blanchett possible. Protecting creators’ rights means protecting copyright, the foundation of Australian literature, music, art and film.

The proposed idea of an artist choosing to “opt out” – choosing not to have their work used for AI “training” (translation: theft) – is as hopeless as waving to a swimmer being attacked by a white pointer after you made it to shore. Would we accept the idea that because the Gypsy Jokers insisted on making home invasions legal a few of us may be allowed to “opt out” of home invasions?

Not one other country in the world has signed up to such brazen theft being made law. It’s hard to imagine that any will. Other countries are closed or are closing to the idea of strip-mining the soul of their cultures for AI. Which makes the bluff and bluster of the AI lobby’s threats – that they will move on if Australia doesn’t agree post-haste – only ring more hollow.

It is intimidation founded in nonsense to say Australia will miss out on AI unless it sacrifices its culture to Anthropic and Grok. Are they seriously saying they won’t build their data centres everywhere they can? Are they saying we will be denied access to their products? Given their insatiable greed, it’s very unlikely, but if they’d use such a threat now, imagine what they will demand once embedded into our society.

Worse, our own government, too easily dazzled by power, seems to believe the best way of protecting ourselves from attacks from foreign powers’ AI is to embed into the very heart of our own nation the same AI controlled by the biggest and most erratic foreign power of them all – the US, an increasingly anti-democratic, dangerous and disloyal regime.

The government’s secret proposals on AI copyright effectively amount to handing over our culture to a handful of anti-democratic oligarchs and raising the spectre of Australia becoming a vassal state. If these words sound overstated, they merely repeat much of what Arthur Mensch, CEO of Paris-based AI company Mistral, told the French National Assembly in May. But what is driving the Europeans to protect their sovereignty by building their own AI that respects their culture, copyright and their citizens’ privacy isn’t even on the table in Australia.

Instead, we are being bullied into becoming fully integrated into the American system but without the critical American legal protection of statutory damages that is leading to a proliferation of litigation against AI companies in the US.

This is an Australian government which beneath its babble about respecting artists has done next to nothing for them over its four years in office. It is a government so feckless with our national sovereignty that we must regularly witness the wretched spectacle of the sebaceous Richard Marles haunting Pentagon corridors with yet another several-hundred-million-dollar cheque for AUKUS, the only concrete achievement of which has been to make Perth, with its prospective US base at Fremantle, a nuclear target.

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And despite Albanese’s blandishments on the environment, will his promise of renewables to power data centres prove any more a durable guard rail than the protection he offered artists? If you think those promises won’t be broken also, ask Toto not to wag his tail and see what happens.

At a moment when there is such widespread rage at AI in the US that both Bernie Sanders and Steve Bannon can appear at the same event denouncing it, when community after community is saying no to data centres, when AI executives fear assassination, the AI oligarchs – close to being run out of their own country – are looking for another nation to pillage for their water, their power, and their “training” (translation: theft). With the Albanese government they may have found the ideal country ripe to be colonised by their rapacious greed, as Mughal India was colonised by the East India Company.

It may be that most Australians don’t care one jot that our writers, artists and musicians may now have to submit to the yoke of the very thieves whose wealth was made from the greatest copyright robbery in history. But every Australian should care because now the same AI corporations really are coming for you – for your water, your power, your nation’s sovereignty, and your very lives to harvest – your Insta photos, your TikTok videos and Facebook community pages, your dating site information and your search records.

And to what end? To make Elon Musk and Sam Altman and Mark Zuckerberg even richer? More powerful? To be able to exert more control over us and our lives? Were Prime Minister Albanese to front an election rally today and explain why, 52 years after Whitlam, he is planning to sell off the farm, would anyone other than his $10,000 donor dinner partners cheer?

But what can we expect? A government that doesn’t understand its nation’s culture is a government incapable of leading the nation.