Paul J. Berating

Today's Top Stories

⚡ Top Story

SMH · Peter Hartcher

Boomer redemption arc meets the budget papers

Hartcher frames Albanese's looming budget as a generational reckoning with wealthy Boomers. The bar for 'political courage' has collapsed to whatever clears a press gallery column.

Hartcher's confessional genre is having a moment — the Boomer columnist absolving himself in print while the PM does the actual cutting. Albanese staring down wealthy retirees is the biggest political risk since someone suggested Menzies might have been wrong about something. Forty years of franking credits and negative gearing built the fortress. One budget night won't dismantle it — but the fact we're calling a modest trim 'redemption' tells you how low the bar has sunk.

Spectator Australia · Stephanie Bastiaan

Australia's shameful silence on youth gender medicine

A fresh peer-reviewed study on gender-affirming care for minors has landed, and Canberra has responded with the silence it reserves for questions it hopes will answer themselves.

Another peer-reviewed study lands on the desk and the political class reaches for the same drawer they keep the submarines paperwork in — the one marked 'deal with it after the next election.' The evidence turns up on time. The policy shows up when the cameras do.

SMH · Mike Foley, Nick Toscano

‘Changing ground rules’: Fury over bill change that could burst the battery boom

Governments spent billions of dollars to encourage home owners to buy batteries, but advocates say a change from the energy market rule-maker will cut uptake.

Billions out the door to get batteries on the roof, and the rule-maker's just moved the goalposts while the ball's in the air. Classic Canberra choreography — one department writes the cheque, another writes the fine print that cashes it back. The subsidy giveth and the tariff taketh away, and the punter's left holding a lithium brick wondering which arm of government to thank.

SMH · Brittany Busch

The NDIS gets a bouncer: 160,000 people about to fail the door check

Canberra's announced six criteria to tip 160,000 people off the NDIS. A scheme built as a right is being rewritten as a queue.

Six criteria to decide who stays disabled enough for the scheme and who gets shown the door. The NDIS was meant to be a right, now it's a queue with a bouncer. 160,000 people about to discover their disability failed the audit.

Spectator Australia · Matthew Lynn

Rachel Reeves is crushing the economy

Chancellor Rachel Reeves took office on a pro-growth platform, promising to make Britain the leading economy in the G7. She… The post Rachel Reeves is crushing the economy appeared first on The Spectator Australia. What to read next: Rachel Reeves may regret goading President Trump | Reeves is using Iran as an excuse to get closer to the EU | Is Russia’s economy really on its last legs? | Tariff refunds are a nightmare for Trump’s economy

The Spectator's discovered Reeves is crushing the economy six months after the bond market filed the same report in triplicate. Lynn's column reads like a bloke pointing at a house fire and selling you the matches that lit it — austerity didn't work, so try austerity. Thatcher at least had the decency to mean it.

Spectator Australia · David Shipley

Spectator runs out of culture war, starts arguing with itself

The Spectator Australia publishes a column opposing surrogacy for single men, one of several reactionary offerings filed the same week.

The Spectator's latest dispatch from the culture war trenches — a column against single men and surrogacy dressed up as moral philosophy, filed between a piece defending Michael Jackson and another explaining why flats beat houses. The magazine's editorial compass now spins so freely it's become a fidget toy. You can tell a publication's run out of ideas when the headlines start arguing with each other across the same masthead.

Spectator Australia · B.W. Jackson

Leigh does the maths, the Spectator calls it an ideology

Andrew Leigh defends the immigration numbers with actual numbers, and the Spectator treats this as an intellectual eccentricity.

Leigh's the Labor MP who actually reads the papers he cites, which in Canberra is enough to get you called a radical. The Spectator's framing this as professor versus politician — mate, the real contest is between a bloke who's done the numbers and a commentariat that treats arithmetic as a factional position.

SMH · Brittany Busch

'Sitting ducks': Hastie says overreliance on US has weakened Australia

Andrew Hastie uses an ANZAC-themed speech to warn that overreliance on the US has left Australia exposed, calling for a rebuilt industrial and defence base.

An ANZAC speech warning we're too tied to Washington, delivered by a frontbencher of the party that did the tying. The industrial base Hastie wants rebuilt was auctioned off by his predecessors for scrap value. The arsonist's turned up at the wake to complain the house was flammable.

news.com.au

Roberts-Smith confirmed for Anzac Day

Victoria Cross recipient Ben Roberts-Smith is set to join Anzac Day events amid ongoing legal proceedings.

The RSL's discovered a new use for the dawn service — pre-trial image rehabilitation with brass accompaniment. The bugle blows, the flag dips, and somewhere a defence brief quietly writes itself.

Spectator Australia · Robin Simcox

How Gaza became one of the biggest issues of the local elections

As Tony Blair contested a third election in 2005, the Labour government’s popularity was in tatters. The divisions in the… The post How Gaza became one of the biggest issues of the local elections appeared first on The Spectator Australia. What to read next: Apart from Mandelson, who is Labour’s biggest freebie lover? | My shameful confession: I’m not a good baker | Trump has underestimated the Pope | Flat out: the property squeeze crushing the young

A British commentator in a British magazine's Australian edition explaining British local elections to Australians — the Spectator's colonial franchise model is a bloke in Surrey shouting at a bloke in Sydney about a bloke in Bradford. Gaza's the subject; the nostalgia is the product.

Spectator Australia · Jawad Iqbal

Spectator Australia discovers Iran from three countries away

A British commentator in the Australian Spectator speculates on Iranian leadership from London — the colonial franchise model exports opinion and calls it analysis.

The Spectator asking who's really leading Iran is like a bloke who's never been to the pub demanding to know who's behind the bar. Jawad Iqbal in London, published in Sydney, speculating about Tehran — three degrees of separation and not one of them useful. Trump extends a ceasefire and a British columnist reckons he's cracked the code. Mate, nobody's leading Iran to you because you're not in the room.

Spectator Australia · Mark Harman

The Spectator discovers Kafka is dangerous, eighty years late

A literary warning about the perils of Kafka from a magazine whose real contribution to alienation is its subscription renewal process.

The Spectator's worried about the catastrophic consequences of reading Kafka. Mate, the catastrophic consequences are reading the Spectator — at least Kafka warned you the bureaucracy was the problem before he made you part of it.