A minority government is what Australia needs
And a wrap on what's happening in the US and West Asia
It's easy to see this election as "the most boring" in recent memory, with "no big ideas" being put forth.
And they're right. Australians are facing immense challenges, both home and abroad. Living standards are plummeting amid a cost-of-living crisis fuelled, in some respect, by price-gouging corporations, and exacerbated by a housing crisis where property developers and investors reign supreme and millions of Australians are shut out of affordable housing. But little vision has been presented from the major parties to tackle these challenges.
For much of the crisis, Labor have been missing in action.
The PM has:
rejected calls to break up the Colesworth duopoly;
rejected a Greens push to reform negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions to boost desperately-needed housing supply (a position it is taking to the election);
rejected a cap on rents;
committed to opening new gas fields without raising the tax paid by energy companies; and
refused to wipe all student debt and abolish university tuition fees – a privilege Albanese himself enjoyed when he completed, for free, his Bachelor of Economics at the University of Sydney in 1984.
It is clear that in this crucial moment, the Labor government has remained consistent in upholding the interests of the powerful – the billionaires, the corporations, the lobbyists, the donors – ahead of the priorities of the communities it was elected to serve.
Sure, it has offered policy options that trim the edges – such as proposing to wipe 20% of student debt and build 100,000 homes for first home buyers if elected – but neither offer significant change to the dismal status quo. The Salvation Army has, for example, identified a shortfall of 640,000 social housing properties alone, so 100,000 new homes for first home buyers is just shaving some cream from the top without addressing the underlying causes of the housing crisis (i.e. tax concessions for investors and property developers running wild).
As for Peter Dutton's Coalition, there is a reason why his campaign has been criticised for lacking ideas and policy specifics. They don't have any. Dutton misread the Australian room when Donald Trump ascended to his second term in January, and appears to have falsely assumed that a far-right wave would sweep him through to power months later. That hasn't been the case as many Australians look with fear upon the Trump trainwreck upending the global trade system and abducting people from US streets – a fear weaponised by the Labor campaign as its polling stabilises heading into Saturday.
Where Labor and the Coalition have been active is in inciting division through the targeting of vulnerable groups and protecting the powerful. Together, they passed draconian migration laws that Amnesty International says "blatantly violate Australia’s international obligations under the 1951 UN Refugee Convention". Together, they passed mandatory sentencing laws for "hate crimes" that risk bleeding into legitimate political speech – a move the Law Council of Australia criticised as having the potential to "disproportionately impact vulnerable groups".
Together, and perhaps most egregiously, the two major parties have stood firm in their support for Israel as it carries out its genocide in Gaza. There has been a stubborn refusal to explicitly condemn Israel, let alone fulfill Australia's obligations under the Geneva Conventions to prevent genocide, such as through the imposition of sanctions on Israel and halting the export of weapons parts to Israel.
Ultimately, Labor and the Coalition represent the status quo. A status quo that is failing millions of Australians and sending our foreign policy down a path that shields genocide and dangerously ties our national security to Trump – whom respected philosopher Slavoj Žižek described as a "liberal fascist".
All the more reason why a minority government is crucial for changing course. A boring election makes it no less important. It is boring precisely because we do not have major political players interested in changing the status quo. If Australians want bold ideas that excite, then they must vote in to parliament new, diverse voices direct from communities that have the public's welfare at heart – not those of powerful, special interest groups.
A wrap on US democracy, tariffs
Things that have stood out from across the pond this week:
US recession fears are mounting, with a new warning from Apollo chief economist Torsten Slok, who predicts a 90% chance of a recession if the tariffs on China remain at current levels.
The tariffs are already having an impact – Axios reports a drop in soybeans and pork sales, which make up 10% of US exports to China. And US consumers have started seeing price hikes on strollers and car seats, the bulk of which are made in China.
Jeffrey Sachs, renowned American economist and Columbia University professor, has slammed the tariffs as "so poorly targeted and inefficient". He warned in an interview with former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis that "the end of all of this is US isolation with the rest of the world basically continuing along".
The IMF has slashed its global growth forecast for 2025 by half a percentage point to 2.8% in its latest World Economic Outlook.
Elon Musk says he is stepping back from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) as of next month, citing a drop in Tesla earnings on the back of a popular protest campaign targeting the company due to Musk's role in the Trump administration. Tesla's Q1 quarterly profits slumped by 71%.
Bill Owens, the executive producer of CBS’s flagship 60 Minutes, announced his resignation after 37 years at the network, citing increased monitoring by parent company Paramount (which also owns Australia’s Channel 10) of the show’s coverage of Gaza and the Trump administration.
A Jewish mob in New York kicked and harassed a woman while chanting “Death to Arabs” as police attempted to escort her away. Watch the video. The Brooklyn woman is calling for a hate crimes investigation.
US authorities raided the homes of five pro-Palestinian student activists in Michigan, drawing condemnation from the Council on American-Islamic Relations. The body accused authorities of damaging property and handcuffing individuals in their homes without charges. No arrests were made.
Eight Brazilian coffee pickers are suing Starbucks over slavery-like conditions.
A wrap on West Asia
The UN World Food Programme says it has no food stocks left in Gaza amid a crippling Israeli siege that is refusing to allow in basic supplies. Israel's genocide has also resulted in thousands of indirect deaths through malnutrition and disease. Such deaths have not been included in official death tolls, but a recent estimate by US attorney Steven Donziger put the figure at 306,000, while The Lancet has previously noted the falling life expectancy of men in Gaza to just 40.5 years.
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, who is wanted by the ICC on war crimes charges, repeated his vow to establish "military control" of Gaza and expressed support for Trump's plan to drive Palestinians out of Gaza through "voluntary migration".
Israel appears to be making life uninhabitable for the Palestinians in Gaza as part of its "voluntary migration" plan, with Al Jazeera noting that safe zones in Gaza have disappeared from Israeli maps.
Syria's new Islamist leadership is still trying to court the US, this time by targeting the Palestinians. The Islamist authorities arrested two senior members of Palestinian Islamic Jihad – one of the main resistance groups fighting in Gaza – and expressed an interest in normalising ties with Israel through the Abraham Accords.
Sectarian clashes are continuing in Syria, this time gunmen affiliated with the Sunni Islamist regime attacked the mostly mixed Druze-Christian Damascus suburb of Jaramana on Tuesday local time. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says 14 were killed in the clashes - seven from pro-regime forces and seven local residents. The attack on the Druze community comes after government-affiliated forces massacred more than 1,000 Alawite civilians last month.
Saudi Arabia and Qatar have settled Syria’s $15m debt to the World Bank, paving the way for the Islamist regime to access much-needed funds to rebuild the war-ravaged country and consolidate its rule.
Human Rights Watch accused Israel of targeting Lebanese civilians in two attacks between September and November 2024.