⚡ Top Story
Guardian Australia · Ben Smee
Ben Roberts-Smith, Victoria Cross recipient, arrested on war crimes charges and remanded in custody. Former PM John Howard responded by calling him the modern personification of the Anzac tradition, deepening the national divide over military mythology and accountability.
Howard calling Roberts-Smith the 'modern personification of the Anzac tradition' might be the most damning thing said about that tradition since Gallipoli. The bloke's on remand for alleged murder and the former PM reaches for the mythology like a drowning man grabbing the anchor. Sixty years of politicians draping themselves in the flag at dawn services and this is where it lands — the cenotaph drafted as character witness.
Spectator Australia · Zoe Booth
Albanese's flagship social media ban is already cracking as teenagers find workarounds, driving their online activity underground and beyond parental sight — the predictable result of prohibition logic applied to a generation that learned to code before it learned to drive.
Every generation's parents have tried to ban the thing teenagers do when nobody's watching. The Albanese mob just spent a legislative session discovering what every publican learned in 1905: if you lock the front door, they climb through the window, and now you can't see what they're drinking. The ban didn't remove the hazard — it removed the visibility, which was the only useful thing the platforms provided.
Guardian Australia · Sarah Basford Canales
Australia's foreign minister urged the US and Iran to resume negotiations after historic direct talks in Pakistan collapsed following a marathon 21-hour first session, with the Strait of Hormuz remaining closed.
Penny Wong called the collapse of the first direct US-Iran talks in decades 'disappointing,' which is the word you use when the restaurant's out of the fish. Twenty-one hours of negotiation in Islamabad and Canberra's contribution is a adjective your mum puts on a school report. Metternich sent armies. Talleyrand sent spies. We sent a press release with the emotional range of a fridge magnet.
Spectator Australia · Steerpike
The Chagos Islands deal continues to unravel as Starmer is referred to the UN over allegations of crimes against humanity, adding an international legal dimension to an already politically toxic sovereignty handover.
Starmer handed sovereign territory to a country that'll lease it back to the Americans, got referred to the UN for the trouble, and somehow managed to make both the giving and the keeping look criminal. Talleyrand sold Louisiana once. Starmer's found a way to sell the Chagos twice — once as diplomacy, once as evidence.
SBS News
NASA's Orion capsule splashed down off California after a ten-day mission around the moon, returning all four Artemis II crew safely to Earth.
Four humans flew to the moon and back in ten days. Canberra can't get a railway from the airport to the CBD in ten years.
SMH · Nick Newling
One Nation's candidate has dismissed a contentious Facebook post attacking independent Michelle Milthorpe ahead of a pivotal byelection, calling it standard political fare.
One Nation calling a Facebook attack 'par for the course' is the most honest thing they've said all year — finally, a party platform that's just admitting the game is played in the gutter.
Spectator Australia · Leila Naseri
Spectator Australia runs an explainer on Iran's foundations alongside a sidebar of pieces advocating military escalation, creating an editorial corridor from cultural appreciation to regime change.
The Spectator's discovered Iran has foundations. Next week: countries have histories. The related reading list — 'it's about sulphur,' 'the death of decarbonisation,' a ground invasion — reads like a hawkish advent calendar where every door opens onto the same tank.
Guardian Australia · Josh Butler
Singapore's PM has pledged not to cut fuel supplies to Australia amid the Middle East energy crisis, with a new agreement to maintain flows of refined petrol and LNG between the two countries.
We ship them the gas, they refine it, ship it back, and we're celebrating that they've promised to keep doing so. Somewhere between Gladstone and Jurong Island, Australia became the only energy superpower in history that needs a pinky swear from its middleman to keep the lights on.
