Paul J. Berating

Another Spectator dispatch importing British political feuds like we're still taking their cast-offs. Anderson and Sultana yelling past each other in Westminster is Britain's domestic problem — mate, we've got our own horseshoe to polish. The magazine runs this stuff because outrage sells subscriptions, and Fleet Street's surplus is Sydney's content pipeline.

The Spectator's importing British petrol-pump anxiety to Australian readers like we share a forecourt. Britain's not getting shortages because Britain's already running on fumes — Hormuz is just the excuse this fortnight. Mate, we've got our own oil dependency to worry about, and not one drop of it sloshes out of Surrey.

October 2026 and we're finally agreeing that a pensioner getting washed isn't a luxury item. The means test on dignity has been quietly running for years while the policy wonks debated co-payments like it was a Netflix subscription. Chifley would've had this sorted over a cup of tea.

A teacher with a calculator has done what the Treasury couldn't manage in a decade — worked out that the bloke at the pub pays more for his schooner than Chevron pays for the gas field. The PRRT was designed by Treasury and gelded by the industry before the ink dried. We're the only country on earth that digs up the quarry, sells it at mates' rates, and then asks the publican to balance the books.

Canavan telling One Nation to stop whingeing is the pot telling the kettle it's having a moment. The entire Coalition business model for forty years has been swapping preferences with minor parties at the front door while calling them cranks through the back window. Hanson wants a seat at a table she helped set on fire.

Hartcher's discovered populism is grubby and wants Taylor to contain it — mate, you can't contain what your own party's been feeding since Howard dog-whistled Tampa past the evening news. Taylor isn't fuelling the fire. He's warming his hands at it and hoping nobody asks who chopped the wood.

A trillion dollars and within two years the interest bill eats more than the hospital budget. Every government since Howard has borrowed against the mining boom like a bloke putting the mortgage on the pokies and calling it an investment strategy. Chalmers will stand up and call it 'responsible' — the word has done more heavy lifting in Australian fiscal policy than any actual worker.

A schoolteacher with a phone has put the gas lobby on the back foot while Treasury's been asleep at the wheel for two decades. Denniss has the number that matters — Tokyo collects more tax on our gas than Canberra does. We're the only country on earth that digs up the wealth, ships it overseas, and lets the importer clip the ticket on the way out.

A poll tells us Australians have soured on Trump halfway through a war he started on a whim. Stop the presses. The same electorate clapped when we signed up to carry his rifle from Baghdad to Kabul and back again, and now they've noticed the bloke holding the leash yanks hard. Menzies had the wit to pick a great and powerful friend who could finish a sentence.

Another British MP's written a book explaining why populists win, which the Spectator's shipped to Australia like it's 1954 and we're still waiting for the latest thinking from Westminster. Byrne's 'supply side of decline' is the sort of phrase that gets you a column in the Times and a seat on a think-tank panel. Meanwhile the populists are out-of-doors, selling something simpler: the place isn't working. No book required.

Largest gas exporter on earth and the eastern seaboard's rationing like it's 1974. We dug the hole, sold the contents offshore on twenty-year contracts, then acted surprised when the kitchen stove ran cold. Menzies would have called it a strategy failure. Canberra calls it a market outcome and goes back to lunch.