When the Fair Go Fails: Power, Propaganda, and the People Left Behind

One of the achievements of the modern doctrinal system is that it allows a society to tell itself a story and believe it, even when the facts are moving in the opposite direction.

In Australia, the preferred story is familiar enough - the fair go, the decent society at the edge of the earth, muddling through but basically humane. It is a powerful self-image, and like all good propaganda, it rests on a grain of truth. There are authentic traditions of solidarity, of public provision, of people refusing to walk past injustice.

However, if we examine the record of the 21st century, what stands out is something different. What we find is a remarkably consistent pattern in which, when choices have to be made, policy is organised around property and control, rather than people and sharing.

What follows is a brief sketch of that record, and of how different the country might look if the opposite principle had been allowed to operate.

The Northern Territory “Intervention”: emergency as pretext

In 2007, the federal government announced what it called a “national emergency response” to child sexual abuse in Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory, invoking a report that had documented serious concerns. The result was the Northern Territory Emergency Response, which included bans on alcohol and pornography in “prescribed areas”, compulsory income management for welfare recipients, compulsory acquisition of Aboriginal townships, intensified policing, and the deployment of the army for logistics and surveillance.

The measures were explicitly racial in their targeting. The Racial Discrimination Act was set aside in the affected areas. Aboriginal organisations in the Territory proposed alternative responses centred on community-controlled services and long-term development, but these were largely ignored.

If the goal had been to maximise the welfare and autonomy of the people supposedly being protected, the shape of the response would have been different. It might have included long-term funding for Aboriginal-run childcare, health and legal services; housing programs under local control; police and child-protection practices designed with, not imposed on, communities. Instead, the central features were discipline (controls on movement, on spending, on substances) and dispossession (new forms of control over land and townships).

From the perspective of planners in Canberra, this is not irrational. A system that has long regarded Indigenous communities as an administrative problem and their land as a resource to be managed will reach for familiar tools. What is striking is not the choice itself but the ease with which the emergency framing allowed it to be sold as an act of benevolence.

A people-first intervention would have started from a different premise. It would have started with the capacity and authority to protect children and rebuild communities that already existed in those communities, and needed to be supported, not displaced. The state’s role, in that picture, is to supply resources and legal power to those who are already trying to hold things together, not to assume that only distant administrators and police can act.

The difference is not merely moral, it's practical. A policy based on consent and shared control creates the possibility of trust. One based on coercion reinforces the widespread view in remote communities that the Commonwealth arrives only to regulate and punish.

The Apology without reparations

The 2008 National Apology to the Stolen Generations was presented, with some justification, as a historic break. For the first time, a prime minister acknowledged in parliament the harm inflicted by decades of forced child removals and assimilation policies.

It is helpful to ask what did not happen. There was no national framework for reparations, despite clear precedents in other societies and the recommendations of commissions. No legislated right to compensation. No guaranteed, long-term funding for healing services under Indigenous control. The apology was explicitly decoupled from any material obligation.

Again, this is not hard to understand from the perspective of those who manage a system built on accumulated advantage. Symbolic gestures are often inexpensive and can even be beneficial. They burnish a country’s image at home and abroad, and they do not require any serious redistribution of land, wealth or decision-making. The line that must not be crossed is the one that leads from acknowledgment to repair, because repair implies that someone has a claim on what is currently considered ours.

A people-first version of the same moment would have looked different. The apology would have been attached to:

• a federal reparations statute establishing compensation schemes for survivors and descendants,
• a nationally funded network of Indigenous healing centres,
• legal guarantees of access to records and family tracing, and
• a timetable for reforming child-protection, housing and policing practices that continue to tear families apart.

The gap between these two possibilities is the gap between recognition as speech and recognition as power-sharing. The first can be absorbed by the existing order with little strain. The second threatens to redistribute authority and resources, and so does not occur.

Uluru, the Voice, and the normalisation of contempt

In 2017, hundreds of First Nations delegates at Uluru issued an invitation to the rest of the country. The Uluru Statement from the Heart called for three things: 

• a First Nations Voice to Parliament enshrined in the Constitution, 
• a Makarrata Commission to supervise agreement-making (treaty), and
• truth-telling about our history.

The request is, by international standards, extremely modest. It does not alter sovereignty. It does not create a second chamber. It creates an advisory body, dependent on parliament for its powers, but protected in the Constitution from being simply abolished at whim.

The 2023 referendum to implement this proposal failed, with approximately 60% of voters nationwide voting 'No'. A later analysis by the Jumbunna Institute and National Justice Project, drawing on hundreds of reports to the Call It Out register, found that racism towards Indigenous people surged during and after the campaign. The referendum “normalised” open hostility, especially online and in the media, and many First Nations people described profound psychological harm.

What is remarkable here is not only the defeat itself but the ferocity of the reaction to a minimal request for participation. It tells us something about the real content of phrases like “reconciliation” and “a fair go” as they are used in official rhetoric. In their doctrinal meaning, these terms imply nothing about ceding control. They license ceremonies, flags, acknowledgements, but they do not license an Indigenous body that might, even symbolically, claim a standing within the constitutional order.

In the alternate history - the one that was available but not taken - the political class treats Uluru as an instruction, not a suggestion. Governments invest, over the years, in civic education about the Statement and its limits and possibilities. Media are held to basic standards of accuracy and reliability. The referendum passes.

In that world, every piece of legislation affecting First Nations people must pass through an Indigenous advisory body, which holds public hearings and publishes its advice. The Commonwealth and the states are under pressure to negotiate treaties. School curricula incorporate the Uluru Statement as a foundational text. The cost of ignoring Indigenous views, even when legally permissible, becomes politically higher.

The point is not that a Voice would have solved the structural problems of colonisation. It would not. It is that the refusal even of this narrow concession is a clear statement about priorities. When the interests of existing power structures and the dignity of dispossessed peoples come into conflict, it is the latter that is discarded.

Inequality and the erosion of the “fair go”

The mythology of the “fair go” is especially instructive when examining how wealth is distributed.

Recent data assembled by community organisations and government agencies show that wealth in Australia is highly concentrated. By 2021–22, the top 10% of households by wealth held around 46% of all wealth. The next 30% held another 38% and the bottom 60% were left with the remaining 17%. A separate analysis found that by 2020 the bottom 40% held only 5.5% of the country’s wealth, down from 7.8% in 2004, while the top 1% held nearly 24%.

During the same period, the number of high-net-worth individuals and billionaires has increased sharply, with the combined wealth of the top 200 richest Australians nearly tripling over the past two decades, primarily driven by capital gains in property and other assets.

These are not the numbers one would expect in a society that organises its economy around sharing. They are precisely what one would expect in a system that treats housing as a speculative instrument, tax concessions on capital as a sacred right, and social spending as a regrettable cost to be contained.

A people-first approach to the same economic reality would look almost unrecognisable from current policy debates. It would begin with the observation that a decent life, including secure housing, adequate food, healthcare, education, and time, is not a luxury to be earned through success in the market, but rather the baseline for any legitimate order. From this premise, certain conclusions follow: large-scale public housing, rent controls or strong regulation in tight markets, taxation that actively reduces wealth concentration, and income supports set above any plausible poverty line.

Instead, we find that when the interests of the bottom 40% collide with those of asset-holders, it is the former who are asked to adjust. The doctrine of the “fair go” remains useful, but primarily as a way of describing what is supposedly under threat from migrants, welfare recipients or other convenient targets, rather than from the upward redistribution of the last several decades.

Measuring What Matters, so long as it doesn’t matter too much

In 2023, the Commonwealth introduced Measuring What Matters, advertised as the first national wellbeing framework. It identifies fifty indicators across five themes, including healthy, secure, sustainable, cohesive, and prosperous, and is explicitly presented as an attempt to move “beyond GDP” in assessing national progress.

On the surface, this is a departure from the usual fixation on growth and deficits. The 2025 update, however, paints a less reassuring picture. Access to healthcare is deteriorating, with an increasing number of people delaying visits due to the cost. Perceptions of safety have declined sharply since the early 2000s. Emissions reductions have stalled, and inequality remains high by OECD standards.

More importantly, the framework primarily functions as a dashboard, rather than a set of binding constraints. Governments note that wellbeing is essential. They produce reports and media releases, but when priorities are set in the budget, traditional measures and interests still dominate. Projects that clearly undermine some wellbeing indicators, like increasing pollution, deepening inequality, or degrading public services, proceed so long as they do not offend powerful constituencies.

Here, the contrast between common-sense and doctrinal meanings is evident. In ordinary language, to say that we are “measuring what matters” would imply that the things measured actually determine decisions. In policy practice, the phrase means that additional statistics are collected and displayed, while the core logic of accumulation remains untouched.

A people-first use of the same framework would be straightforward. Any major policy would have to demonstrate how it improves the situation of those at the bottom across the five domains, or at least does not worsen it. Projects that fail this test would not go ahead, regardless of their contribution to short-term GDP. That is what it means to measure what matters and act accordingly.

Two trajectories

Set alongside one another, these episodes trace two possible trajectories for 21st-century Australia.

In the first - the one we are following - Indigenous communities are the object of periodic emergency interventions but denied durable constitutional power, apologies are offered. Still, reparations are avoided, wealth flows upwards, wellbeing is counted but not decisive, and racist narratives resurface whenever modest redistributive proposals appear.

In the second, which was always available in principle but seldom chosen, the logic runs in the opposite direction. Indigenous peoples determine the policies that govern their lives and lands. Recognition entails transfer of power and resources. Economic policy is judged above all by its effects on the least secure. Wellbeing frameworks are not ornaments but rules. The “fair go” regains something closer to its literal meaning, because the society is organised to ensure that nobody falls below an unacceptable floor.

There is nothing automatic about either path. They are the accumulated result of decisions made by governments, parties, bureaucracies, corporate interests, and the pressures, or lack thereof, exerted from below.

If one lesson emerges from examining these turning points, it is that people-first outcomes do not arise solely from enlightened leadership. When they occur at all, it is usually because organised groups, such as unions, community organisations, First Nations movements, and social campaigns, have imposed a political cost on continuing to treat human lives as incidental to profit and control.

Australia is not unique in this respect. It is a reasonably clear case study of how a society can coexist with two narratives: one about generosity and mateship, the other about the routine sacrifice of human well-being to the demands of capital and state power. To close the gap between those stories would require, not another slogan, but a willingness to insist that the phrase “people first” be taken literally.

Manifesto for the Living

There will be moments, perhaps many, when the fight feels hopeless. The machine of power is vast, faceless, and loud. You will feel small. You may be alone. And the scale of what you’re facing will try to convince you that resistance is meaningless.

However, understand this: the desire to be free is not something that can be taught. It is not a theory or a program. It rises naturally. Like breath. Like the tide. People across this planet, in places you may never hear about, are pushing back in ways both quiet and thunderous. These moments, scattered and spontaneous, are not isolated. They are evidence of something larger: the system is cracking.

Freedom does not need permission to exist. It emerges in the defiance of a teacher refusing to lie to her students. In a protestor holding the line against riot shields. In a worker walking out of a factory. In art. In truth. In refusal. Every act of rebellion, no matter how minor it may seem, strengthens the cause. Every challenge to injustice sends a signal: we are still here.

The revolution does not begin in capitals. It starts in conversations. In conviction. In courage. It does not need headquarters or hierarchies. It lives in gestures - small, persistent, unyielding.

Every system of control is built on fear: not our fear, but theirs. Those who grasp for power without consent, who surveil, imprison, silence, do so because they are terrified of what happens when people stop obeying. Tyranny does not sustain itself. It requires vigilance, endless energy, constant suppression. And in that effort, it reveals its weakness.

What you are up against is unnatural. It is rigid. It leaks. It breaks. It cannot hold back the future forever.

There will come a moment - maybe in your lifetime, maybe beyond it - when all the pressure, all the resistance, all the flickers of dissent will combine into something unstoppable. The tide will rise above the dam. And all it will take is one spark too many. One refusal. One truth too loud to ignore.

That moment is only possible because of every act that comes before it.

So, here's what you must do: try.

Not because you are guaranteed to win. Not because the path is clear. But because refusing to try is surrender, and surrender is the dream of the oppressor.

Try, because others are watching. Try, because you may light a fire you never see. Try, because justice is not built in comfort, but in effort.

Try... and know you are not alone.

Israel-Iran and the Paradox of Threshold War: When Nuclear Deterrence Backfires

The recent escalation between Israel and Iran signals not just another flare-up in a long-standing rivalry, but the unveiling of a new phase in international conflict, the rise of Threshold War. This mode of warfare, defined by its strategic ambiguity and refusal to cross the line into declared war, now intersects with the global architecture of nuclear technology control regimes, presenting a paradox with long-term consequences.

Undeclared Powers and Declared Intentions

One of the central ironies of the Israel-Iran conflict lies in their respective nuclear positions. Israel is widely acknowledged to be a non-declared nuclear power, maintaining a policy of ambiguity that has shielded it from international scrutiny. Iran, on the other hand, is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and is subject to inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), despite persistent Western concerns over its uranium enrichment activities.

The paradox is stark: a state with nuclear weapons and outside the NPT launches preventative strikes to prevent a signatory state (ostensibly complying with the treaty) from acquiring the technological capacity that could, theoretically, lead to a bomb. These strikes, while framed as deterrence, actually validate the strategic logic of acquiring nuclear weapons for the targeted state. If nothing else, they confirm that a state remains vulnerable without a credible nuclear deterrent.

Threshold War and the Illusion of Control

The concept of threshold warfare is designed to avoid the costs and visibility of total war, operating just below the line of open interstate conflict. In practice, this has led to a slow-motion normalisation of hostilities: cyberattacks, proxy warfare, assassinations, and missile strikes conducted with strategic deniability.

But these shadow wars have undermined the stability technology control regimes were meant to enforce. There is no legal barrier in the NPT against a state developing nuclear power for peaceful purposes, including uranium enrichment. Yet once a country crosses a certain technical threshold, it is subject to coercion or attack ... even if it remains within the boundaries of international law.

Thus, the pursuit of nuclear capability becomes a rational survival strategy, especially when preemptive (or preventative) strikes become a routine occurrence. This is not just a failure of diplomacy; it’s a failure of the architecture designed to contain nuclear risks.

The Strategic Backfire

Each preventative strike carries an unintended strategic message: only full nuclear deterrence can guarantee safety. The logic of nonproliferation is turned on its head when countries that forgo weaponisation are punished while nuclear-armed states are shielded from consequence.

Iran's position is illustrative. Its technological advances in enrichment, combined with its ambiguous posture on weaponisation, place it in a “nuclear latency” state. Israel’s preemptive operations, whether through airstrikes or cyber sabotage, are meant to prevent weaponisation. But the deeper consequence is that they make achieving a credible deterrent appear more urgent to Iranian strategists.

Reimagining Control in a Gray-Zone Era

What this crisis reveals is that current technology control regimes are not equipped for threshold warfare. They rely on binaries - weaponised or not, compliant or not - while modern conflict operates in shades of ambiguity. The tools of cyberwar, deniable sabotage, and indirect strikes do not fall neatly into treaty frameworks.

A new strategic doctrine must emerge; one that recognises the paradox of deterrence, and that accountability must apply even to undeclared powers. Without that, the message to the world remains: develop nuclear weapons quietly, or risk annihilation.

Conclusion

The Israel-Iran confrontation is not just a regional affair. It is a warning sign of systemic instability, driven by the mismatch between old doctrines and new realities. In an age where preemptive strikes risk justifying the very threats they aim to eliminate, the path forward must involve renewed commitment to equitable enforcement of treaties and a recognition that the future of global security lies in resolving paradoxes, not exploiting them.

Holding Dutton Back? Let’s Name the Real Problem: A Broken System That Keeps Producing Him

Holding Peter Dutton Back - Every Seat Matters

If you're worried about Peter Dutton becoming Prime Minister, you should be. But not just because of him. Dutton is not an anomaly. He is a symptom - an unfiltered manifestation of a political system that runs on fear, corporate obedience, and manufactured ignorance.

Yes, he walked out on the National Apology, demonised refugees, backed indefinite detention, and voted against marriage equality. Yes, he is shilling for coal and nuclear while the planet burns. But let’s not pretend he emerged from nowhere.

He’s a product of a political class that, for decades, has treated cruelty as strength and climate denial as strategy. Dutton is what happens when you take everything ugly in Australian politics, scrape off the polish, and leave it to fester in the open.

The Myth of Opposition: Labor Without Pressure Is Just a Slower Decline

The idea that Peter Dutton must be “held back” by electing a Labor majority is a fantasy peddled by those who benefit from a two-party duopoly that exists to serve capital, not citizens.

Labor, we’re told, is the antidote to the right. But under Albanese, new coal and gas projects keep getting rubber-stamped. The housing crisis deepens while supermarket giants post record profits. Labor won’t even touch the grotesque tax cuts for the wealthy, but they’ll nickel-and-dime dental care.

Labor’s role isn’t to transform. It’s to manage decline. Smooth the rough edges. Tinker with symptoms. But never challenge power at the root.

This isn’t about incompetence. It’s about intent.

The Greens: An Inconvenient Force for the Status Quo

Unlike the major parties, the Greens aren’t playing to donors. That’s why their presence is so irritating to the establishment. It’s not that their ideas are radical - it’s that they threaten to make politics functional.

When Greens enter Parliament, two things happen:

1. Labor is forced to stop triangulating and start legislating.
2. The Liberals are denied the unchallenged space to radicalise.

Don’t ask what the Greens might do. Look at what they already have:

• Forced Labor to actually cap emissions and block some fossil fuel expansions.
• Secured billions for public housing and clean energy.
• Exposed the bipartisan rorts, the defence boondoggles, the corporate handouts.
• Pushed for truth in political ads and real-time donation transparency.

This isn’t idealism. It’s structural pressure. And it works.

“Safe” Seats Are a Lie. Every Vote Builds the Alternative

The fiction of “safe” seats is one of the system’s most effective sedatives. It tells people their vote doesn’t matter - when in reality, every Greens vote is a strike against complacency. Against the illusion of choice between two parties funded by the same corporations.

In the Senate, every Greens vote can decide whether a seat is held by a climate denier or someone who understands science.

In the House, every Greens swing sends a message: the public is watching, and we’re done waiting politely while the planet cooks and inequality spirals.

What’s at Stake? Only the Future

We are living through cascading crises - ecological, economic, democratic. And what do we get in response?

From Dutton: culture war, surveillance, fossil fuels, and punitive politics for the poor.

From Labor: incrementalism, fossil fuel appeasement, and a strategy of saying the right things while doing the opposite.

We’ve seen this movie before. It ends with disaster.

However, there is another script: people-powered politics. The kind that redistributes wealth and power, the kind that challenges entrenched interests instead of managing them.

Your Vote Is a Weapon. Use It Wisely.

Vote to keep Dutton out of power - not just symbolically, but systemically.

Vote to pressure Labor where it counts: on climate, housing, inequality, and truth.

Vote to end corporate rule, one seat at a time.

This isn’t about holding anyone back.

It’s about breaking the machine that keeps pushing people like Peter Dutton forward.

Propping Up Plutocracy: Australia's Hollow Democracy and the Corporate Boot on the Throat of the Public

"Democracy™": How Australia Became a Corporate Playground Disguised as a Nation-State

You don’t need to read between the lines anymore. The lines themselves scream it: this system is not broken—it’s working exactly as designed.

You know something is wrong. You feel it when a scandal breaks and not a single head rolls. When the politician who once regulated a sector is suddenly employed by it. When multimillion-dollar contracts land in the laps of political donors while hospitals are understaffed, schools crumble, and services in your community are slashed.

Australians have come to a bitter realisation from coast to coast: it doesn’t matter who you vote for if both major parties are taking money from the same corporate interests. Democracy has become an empty ritual. Elections are held, yes - but their outcomes are predetermined by the machinery of money, power, and influence.

This isn’t a conspiracy. It’s the architecture of Australian politics.

Bipartisanship at Its Ugliest: Corporate Capture

The ALP and the Liberal Party are adversaries only in name. Behind the scenes, their campaigns are fuelled by the same toxic cash. Since 1999, the two have jointly accepted nearly $300 million from fossil fuel companies, the Big Four banks, supermarket monopolies, defense contractors, and consulting behemoths like PwC and KPMG.

These aren't donations. They're investments - with expectations.

And what do these donors get in return? Billions in fossil fuel subsidies while Australia burns. Entire public policy sectors outsourced to private consultants. No climate plan. No anti-corruption watchdog with teeth. And no consequences.

Meanwhile, the revolving door spins ever faster: politicians slide seamlessly into cushy corporate gigs when they leave office. The public interest? It’s not even a footnote.

The Illusion of Reform: How "Integrity" Became a Punchline

Public trust in politics is in free fall - and for good reason. Integrity is spoken of like a quaint relic. We get headlines, inquiries, reports, and promises. But never justice. Never real reform.

And when the system is criticised, the defenders of the status quo clutch their pearls: “You’re undermining faith in democracy!”

But faith in democracy is being systematically exterminated by the very people who claim to defend it. Each scandal they ignore. Each lobbyist-written bill they pass. Each backroom deal they cut.

This is not dysfunction. This is doctrine.

The Greens: Actually Doing What the Others Pretend To

Enter the Greens - the only party in federal Parliament that refuses corporate donations. Not just a symbolic gesture. A structural line in the sand.

This isn’t about political purity. It’s about power. The Greens can challenge the corporate stranglehold on our politics precisely because they’re not owned by it. That makes them dangerous - not to the public, but to the powerful.

Their platform isn’t radical. It’s what a functioning democracy should look like:

• Ban corporate donations from fossil fuels, gambling, alcohol, arms, and banking.
• Cap all political donations and enforce real-time transparency.
• Extend lobbying bans on ex-ministers from 18 months to five years.
• Publish all ministerial diaries.
• Make lying in political ads illegal - with penalties.
• Boost the power and independence of public watchdogs.
• Fund participatory democracy initiatives to give people - not just corporations - a seat at the table.

If that sounds extreme, ask yourself: Who benefits from the current system? Who would lose if politics were actually accountable?

Why the Status Quo Fears Democracy

The most dangerous idea in any elite-controlled society is that ordinary people should govern themselves.

And the most feared thing in Canberra isn’t extremism. It’s hope. It’s the idea that the public might start demanding not just representation but power, that we might tear down the revolving door, break the donor-politician feedback loop, and reclaim democracy from the corporatocracy.

That’s what the Greens represent. Not just a policy agenda. A threat to business as usual.

It’s Not Enough to Change the Players. We Have to Change the Game.

Labor won’t clean up politics. They rely on the same donors as the Liberals. The Liberals fear integrity like it’s a contagion. Both parties will tinker around the edges while the machine keeps running.

The Greens want to tear out the rot at the roots.

This election isn’t just about booting out one lousy government. It’s about whether you believe democracy should serve people - or profit.

Vote to ban corporate donations. To jail corrupt politicians. To make the powerful accountable - for once.

Because democracy doesn’t die in darkness.

It dies in broad daylight - when people stop believing it can still be theirs.

Affordable Insurance in a Changing Climate: A Fair Go in Hard Times

The Bill Comes First, the Fire Later: How Climate Policy Got Turned Into a Shakedown

In Australia, we like to talk about “a fair go.” But try telling that to the family in Dickson whose insurance just tripled, or to the pensioner deciding whether to cover their home or keep the heater on. Because while climate-fuelled disasters rip through Queensland year after year, one thing comes without fail - your bill. Before the storm, before the fire, the invoice has already arrived.

Bushfires, floods, mega-storms - they’re no longer rare events. They’re routine. And for most Australians, especially in working-class suburbs, the question isn’t if the next disaster will hit—it’s whether they can afford to be insured when it does.

Spoiler: many can’t. But that’s not an accident. That’s policy.

Why Are Insurance Premiums Exploding? Simple. Fossil Fuels Still Run the Show

Let’s not pretend this is complicated. The reason insurance premiums are skyrocketing is because disasters are. And disasters are skyrocketing because fossil fuel corporations are being allowed - encouraged, even - to keep torching the planet like it’s shareholder bonfire night.

Labor knows this. The Liberals know this. But instead of stopping it, they’ve pulled out the red carpet. Over 25 new coal and gas projects green-lit. $11 billion a year in subsidies handed straight to the same corporations setting the planet on fire.

And then, in a dazzling feat of political theatre, they look shocked when the cost of recovery lands on the public instead of the polluters.

Peter Dutton’s contribution? Deny the problem, blame the Greens, and dangle the keys to a nuclear utopia that won’t show up until the year 2045, if at all. It’s not policy - it’s climate cosplay.

This Isn’t Incompetence. It’s Protection Racket Politics

The government isn’t failing to respond to the insurance crisis. It’s facilitating it. It protects fossil fuel profits, hands them billions, and leaves everyday people to foot the bill - twice. Once through taxes and subsidies. Then again through skyrocketing premiums and out-of-pocket disaster costs.

That’s not a policy gap. That’s a business model.

The Greens: Making the Polluters Pay, Not You

The Greens are the only party refusing to play along with this racket. They’re not pretending the market’s going to save you from the next firestorm. They’re not waiting for a magical future reactor. They’re offering something shockingly rare: a plan rooted in cause and effect.

Here’s what it looks like:

• Expand the government’s reinsurance pool to cover all climate disasters - not just cyclones. Yes, floods, fires, storms. All of it.
• Make fossil fuel corporations pay into that pool. They broke it. They can help fund the mop-up.
• Give the ACCC real teeth to monitor insurance prices and demand clear explanations for premium hikes. If you’re getting gouged, you’ll know - and they’ll answer for it.
• Create a national disaster risk map that the public can actually see. Because you deserve more than vague warnings and a shrugged shoulder.
• Cut regressive stamp duties that inflate insurance costs for no good reason.
• Build a national Climate Response Service - because if disaster’s coming, you need more than empty slogans. You need sandbags, warning systems, and someone on the ground who gives a damn.

This isn’t just fair. It’s functional. For once.

Because Right Now, Security Is for the Rich. Everyone Else? Best of Luck

Try buying a home in a high-risk area and getting affordable insurance. You won’t. And that’s by design. As the climate gets worse, security becomes a luxury good - only available to those who can pay. That’s not just immoral. It’s medieval.

It’s the opposite of resilience. It’s abandonment with a policy number.

Working people didn’t cause this crisis. Pensioners didn’t profit off gas exports. Renters didn’t pour billions into coal expansion. But they’re the ones being hit hardest - again.

The Greens have a simple principle: recovery shouldn’t depend on your bank balance.

This Election: Call Time on the Fossil-Backed Insurance Cartel

Labor will keep dancing around the fire they helped light. The Liberals will keep pretending there’s nothing burning. The Greens are the only ones pointing at the arsonists and demanding they pay for the damage.

Vote to make insurance affordable, and disaster protection real.

Vote to end handouts for polluters and hold them accountable.

Vote to push Labor to stop protecting profits over people - and keep Dutton in the bunker where he belongs.

Because in a climate crisis, honesty isn’t radical. It’s necessary. And someone’s got to say it.

Bring Down Your Power Bills: Climate Action That Saves You Money

High Power Bills Aren’t a Bug—They’re the Business Model

Every month, Australians are hit with another energy bill that looks more like a punishment than a charge for service. You use less, but pay more. You switch off the lights, unplug appliances, cut back on comfort - and still, you fall further behind.

This isn’t bad luck or poor planning. It’s design. The Australian energy system is built not to serve households, but to extract from them.

Fossil Fuels: High Prices by Political Design

Why are your bills rising? Simple. Because coal and gas are still at the center of our power grid, not because of necessity, but because of obedience - to corporate donors, fossil fuel lobbies, and the politicians who serve them.

Labor has approved over 25 new coal and gas projects since taking office. At the same time, they hand out $11 billion in subsidies to fossil fuel corporations - while telling families they can’t afford a proper heater in winter.

Peter Dutton’s answer? Fantasyland nuclear plants, decades away and hundreds of billions over budget. In reality, it’s a stalling tactic, engineered to protect the fossil fuel status quo while deflecting from solutions that already exist.

Meanwhile, households pay the price. The economy of fossil fuels is volatile by nature. Prices are determined not by what we need but by what markets and monopolies demand. And Australia, one of the most sun-drenched nations on Earth, remains tethered to 19th-century fuels because both major parties have decided that profit for a few trumps affordability for all.

Labor and the Liberals: Two Faces of Corporate Capture

What unites both Labor and the Liberals is their refusal to sever ties with the industries driving up costs and driving the climate crisis. The public picks up the tab - through bills, subsidies, and disaster recovery. Fossil fuel corporations keep the profits. That’s not oversight. That’s collusion.

The Greens: Disrupting the Energy Cartel

The Greens are the only force willing to name the enemy: an energy system run by profiteers, propped up by politicians, and insulated by media silence.

Their plan?

• Direct investment in household and community energy - solar panels, batteries, and efficiency upgrades that actually reduce bills and give people energy independence.
• Electrification grants and loans - not as charity, but as a public right to live in homes that aren’t energy traps.
• Expansion of publicly owned renewable energy - not to enrich shareholders, but to return profits to communities.
• A Climate Response Service - paid for by ending fossil fuel subsidies - to prepare for and recover from climate-driven disasters.
• Making fossil fuel corporations pay for the damage they cause - through levies that fund recovery, not dividends.
• Coordinating with states to cut insurance costs, enforce resilient building codes, and stop price-gouging.

In short: clean energy, in public hands, with the costs and benefits shared fairly. It’s not radical. It’s what a functioning democracy would do if it wasn’t compromised by fossil capital.

Energy Is a Right, Not a Commodity

When pensioners sit in the dark to save money, when renters pay outrageous bills for drafty, uninsulated homes, while CEOs of fossil fuel companies post record profits - this is not a policy failure. It is a moral failure. And a political one.

The idea that the market will solve this crisis is a myth maintained for the benefit of the few. What’s needed isn’t more competition - it’s confrontation.

This Election: Break the Cycle

Labor props up fossil fuels. The Liberals offer nuclear distractions and climate denial. Only the Greens are fighting to dismantle the energy racket and deliver clean, affordable power for all.

Vote to make energy efficient, clean, and public.

Vote to tax fossil fuel giants and fund real climate resilience.

Vote to end corporate control over your power bill - and your future.

Because the cost-of-living crisis and the climate crisis are not separate battles. They have the same culprits. And it’s time we stopped paying them.