Michael Leu

@Anthony_Klan @RonniSalt The first step in repairing Australias democracy is to ban all corporate donations to political parties. Full stop. Capped public funding will save a fortune in the medium term with policy decisions made in the interest of the country not the donor.

@AJEnglish @rorychallands Taking instructions from Putin. USA exit from NATO is a long term goal of Putins.

President Trump says he's strongly considering withdrawing the United States from NATO, exposing a widening rift in the Trans-Atlantic alliance over the war on Iran. Al Jazeera’s @rorychallands reports.

@AJENews @AJEnglish A man known for his great compassion.

BREAKING: Trump says "they won't hit Iran's oil" as it would give them "no chance of surviving" as a country.

In 2003, a German film crew followed a nomadic family in Mongolia's Gobi Desert. The film, The Story of the Weeping Camel, was nominated for an Oscar. A mother camel had rejected her newborn after a brutal two-day labour. Without her milk, the calf would die. The family knew one option. They sent their two young sons on a journey across the desert to find a musician who could perform a ritual called Hoos, a chanting ceremony passed down for centuries specifically for this moment. The musician came. The ritual was performed. The mother camel wept real tears and turned to her calf for the first time. The film crew had gone to document a way of life. They had no idea they would capture that. UNESCO added the Hoos ritual to its Intangible Cultural Heritage list in 2015, alongside flamenco, the Mediterranean diet, and the art of Neapolitan pizza making.

@AJEnglish Interesting concept. Start a war of choice without consultation, which also destroys your allies economies and then tell those allies as well as the perceived enemy that you attacked, that they are now paying for your war. The man’s a genius.

The White House has suggested that US President Donald Trump will ask Arab countries to cover the cost of the US’ war against Iran, estimated to be in the tens of billions of dollars. 🔗: aje.news/pqixr9

Every major supply chain of the 21st century runs through 65 kilometres of water. Not a metaphor. A measurement. The Strait of Hormuz is 39 kilometres wide. The Bab el-Mandeb is 26 kilometres wide. Both are now contested by the same axis. Iran holds Hormuz. The Houthis threaten Bab el-Mandeb. Together they declared solidarity on March 26 with “fingers on the trigger.” Here is what flows through those 65 kilometres. Oil. Twenty to twenty-five percent of global seaborne petroleum through Hormuz. Another 12 percent through Bab el-Mandeb. Combined: one-third of the world’s oil. Natural gas. Twenty percent of global LNG through Hormuz. QatarEnergy declared force majeure on March 24. Trains 4 and 6 are offline. 12.8 million tonnes per annum will not return for three to five years per QatarEnergy’s CEO. Helium. Qatar produced one-third of the world’s helium as a byproduct of that same LNG. Spot prices have doubled. Samsung and SK Hynix have six months of inventory. After that, semiconductor fabrication slows. Every advanced chip on earth requires helium somewhere in its manufacturing process. There is no substitute. Semiconductors depend on helium. AI training depends on semiconductors. Quantum computing depends on helium directly, cooled to millikelvin temperatures in dilution refrigerators. Post-quantum cryptography depends on the quantum computers that depend on the helium that came from the LNG plant that was hit by missiles fired from the country that controls the strait. That is not a supply chain. That is a dependency chain five layers deep terminating at a single geographic coordinate. Fertilizer. Qatar and Iran supply 20 percent of global urea exports. Urea hit $690 per tonne. American farmers are shifting from corn to soybeans because nitrogen fertilizer derived from natural gas is now unaffordable. Internet. Ninety-five percent of global data traffic travels through undersea cables buried one to two metres beneath the seabed in those same two straits per TeleGeography. FALCON. GBI. EIG. SEA-ME-WE 6. AAE-1. FLAG. The IRGC threatened to cut them on March 28. The financial data connecting every stock exchange on earth runs through the same water as the oil tankers. Money. Iran collected yuan tolls from vessels transiting Hormuz under IRGC escort per Lloyd’s List. The first non-dollar energy settlement imposed by force at a global chokepoint in the post-Bretton Woods era. Not replacing the dollar. Bifurcating it. Rockets. SpaceX uses 10,000 to 20,000 litres of helium per Falcon 9 launch. The Starship that carries the Starlink satellites that replace the undersea cables threatened by the same axis uses autogenous pressurization because Musk saw this dependency before the war proved it. SpaceX is filing the largest IPO in history this week at $1.5 to $1.75 trillion. Filing into a war that validates every thesis that built his company. Nuclear. Israel struck Ardakan, Iran’s only yellowcake plant, and Arak, its heavy water complex, on March 27. JSOC is planning contingency operations to seize 450 to 970 pounds of enriched uranium from underground tunnels per CBS and Axios. Three carrier strike groups, two Marine Expeditionary Units, and DEVGRU operators are staged for April 6. Oil. Gas. Helium. Chips. AI. Quantum. Fertilizer. Food. Cables. Settlement. Rockets. Satellites. Nuclear weapons. The largest IPO in history. The birth of a parallel monetary system. All of it through 65 kilometres of contested water. The market has priced an oil disruption. It has not priced a civilizational chokepoint. Full analysis: open.substack.com/pub/shanakaans…

@Rail_splitter1 @agentsmart You won’t get the chance to vote them out. A military coup is the only way. Give gitmo a quick paint job and get on with it.

“We just told Zelensky the guarantees won't kick in until he does what russia wants.” This is the Secretary of State of the United States telling the victim of aggression that it must do what the aggressor wants. Never forget. Vote them all out.

@AngelinoIndo @Newprompt Is death a better result? Nice to see some humanity for someone who clearly has mental health issues.

@Newprompt I couldn't watch after the 2nd minute. What a waste of everyone's time. If this was the US, the cops would have been on their way home for dinner and the asshole on the way to the morgue.

Questo è uno dei risultati del NO, i giovani hanno lottato pur di ottenerlo

@Newprompt Very fat Labrador.

@CunningInsights @QuentinDempster @AlboMP That’s the challenge. Now’s the time to get into it.

@ItsFarmfella @QuentinDempster @AlboMP I don’t think, on balance, there is one.

As PM @AlboMP and national Cabinet grapple with conserving our petrol/diesel stocks as US /Israel-Iran war remains unresolved, here 👇veteran observer Shaun Carney reckons it’s time for Australia to shift away from our dependence on the USA - Trump or no Trump. Good thinking.

@AmeliaBee7 Can someone whisper in his ear that if he canned Aukus the Aussies would be really pissed off.

And now Trump has turned on us. Wonder what took him so long?

@CunningInsights @QuentinDempster @AlboMP We certainly shouldn’t ditch the US alliance before we have a better one signed up and locked in.

@ItsFarmfella @QuentinDempster @AlboMP Understand this position and indeed it may be true. Middle power agreements are an option, or continuing to provide incentive for the US to support. Quid pro quo regardless - real world. I don’t think people quite understand the cost of not having this alliance. Seriously.

@CunningInsights @QuentinDempster @AlboMP I can’t share your optimism about USA security. They are just as likely to turn on us as support us. If we do request support be sure there will be a quid pro quo. A Nato type agreement between a group of middle power nations who share similar values might be an option.

@QuentinDempster @AlboMP Our relative safety is guaranteed only because of the US. Like them or not, we are a small island with very limited capability and lot to plunder. Albeit politicians have pretty much opened the gate from the inside.

@TheConservati19 Those the complain most about the shortage and cost of fossil fuels are often the same ones who complain most about the creation of sustainable local fuel production.

@AmeliaBee7 And just as the maga movement is collapsing as it gets more toxic it’s not even clever politics.

What an unoriginal, MAGA wannabe cliche One Nation are No ideas, no substance, no plan Just mindlessly copying the most disastrous political movement on the planet right now as their main selling point Bunch of pathetic losers

@BobKnezevic @alexbhturnbull You’re right both major parties are useless. It took David Pocock and a fuel crisis to even get it on the agenda.

BS - your daily reminder that subsequent ALP governments did NOTHING to reverse this ! Subsequent **Australian Labor Party (ALP)** governments (Rudd/Gillard/Rudd 2007–2013, then Albanese from 2022 onward) did not immediately reverse or override the Howard-era approach of allowing unrestricted east coast LNG exports primarily because of a mix of economic ideology, industry lobbying, investment concerns, and a long-standing bipartisan consensus on free-market resource development. For many years, both major parties shared the view that imposing domestic gas reservations (like Western Australia's 15% policy since 2006) would deter major foreign investment in LNG projects. The Howard government explicitly rejected reservations in the early 2000s to encourage massive LNG development in Queensland, and Labor governments largely continued that hands-off stance. During the Gillard/Rudd period (when Albanese was a senior minister), the east coast LNG export boom was already underway—projects like Gladstone LNG were approved without mandatory local quotas, locking in long-term export contracts that tied much of the supply overseas. Key reasons Labor hesitated for so long include: - **Avoiding investment chill** — Industry groups (and governments at the time) argued that reservations or heavy-handed interventions would make Australia less attractive for multibillion-dollar LNG projects compared to other exporters. This fear persisted into the 2010s and early Albanese years, with critics warning it could reduce future supply or scare off capital. - **Bipartisan inertia and free-market leanings** — Until recently, there was broad agreement across Labor and the Coalition that unrestricted exports would deliver royalties, jobs, and economic growth—even if it exposed domestic users to global prices. Labor didn't see a strong political or economic case to disrupt existing contracts or risk being labeled anti-investment. - **Reliance on temporary measures** — Instead of structural change, governments used short-term tools like the Australian Domestic Gas Security Mechanism (ADGSM, triggered in emergencies) or the 2022 Heads of Agreement/price caps with exporters. These were seen as sufficient to manage crises without permanent reservations. That changed in late 2025. Facing persistent east coast shortages, soaring prices (exacerbated by events like the Middle East conflict disrupting global ammonia/LNG flows), factory closures, and political pressure from manufacturers, unions, and even the Coalition's own policy shift toward reservations, the Albanese government announced a **domestic gas reservation scheme** in December 2025. Under the plan: - East coast LNG exporters (mainly the three Queensland projects) must reserve **15–25%** of production for domestic use (roughly 200–350 petajoules/year). - It operates via export permit conditions. - Applies prospectively to new contracts (not retroactively rewriting old ones). - Takes full effect from **2027**, after consultations. The government described it as "historic" to give Australians "first rights" to local gas and insulate against global spikes, while still supporting LNG exports. Critics (including some unions and manufacturers) called it too little, too late—delayed rollout means limited immediate relief, and it doesn't cover existing long-term export deals. In short, earlier ALP governments stuck with the status quo for fear of killing the golden goose of LNG investment and revenue. Only when domestic pain became politically unsustainable (shortages threatening industry and households, plus electoral risks) did Labor move to a reservation policy—though one that's gradual and negotiated with industry rather than a sweeping reversal. This reflects how deeply entrenched the export-first model became over two decades of bipartisan support.

Your periodic reminder that thanks to John Howard and others we do not have gas reservation in the East Coast of Australia which is also why fertilizer plants were shut and why farmers do not have enough fertilizer. #auspol

@BinsaeedRashid @anders_aslund Beware those countries looking for military solutions under AUKUS.

@Russputin2 @QuentinDempster Sootie Campervan 😆😆

@QuentinDempster Breaking News Update! Sootie Campervan has declared that he will turn abandoned Coal mines into Oil Wells & Gold mines, because any idiot knows that Coal Oil & Gold all come out of the ground😂

Matt Canavan, now leader of the federal parliamentary National Party, is a no-net-zero climate change denier. He wants to drill for oil in the Great Australian Bight. He will not vote for windfall tax on export gas.

@may_flowerpot @QuentinDempster Drilling baby and then not properly taxing the companies who take the resources is never going to make us prosperous.

@QuentinDempster I hope we get a hard right wing government at the next election and we drill baby drill and bring back prosperity to this nation.

@AmeliaBee7 Fingers crossed today.

Most idiotic tweet of the day and a powerful reminder of the kind of hateful morons backing Hanson

@Baumann_Mac @AngusTaylorMP Unprincipled swill.