The Spectator Australia

ROWAN DEAN | "We have now entered the beginning of the end for the Albanese government." This budget has been received with all the enthusiasm of a three-day-old sushi roll sitting in a sunny suburban shop window in the middle of summer. This government no longer has any credibility. It has sacrificed its reputation and its longevity on the electoral bonfire of its own ideological vanities. Article | spectator.com.au/2026/05/hubris…

The Teals should be afraid. Very afraid. Not of One Nation’s growing popularity, nor the swing toward economic conservatism in the wider community. That’s a problem for the Coalition, especially the Nationals. No, the Teals have a different reason to fear. This week they received the endorsement of Malcolm Turnbull to form a new progressive political party. Article | spectator.com.au/2026/05/turnbu…

This structural inability to scale production leaves Western economies dangerously exposed to shifts in global trade policy. Any escalation would strip away immediate alternatives. Beijing could raise tariffs or restrict exports without warning. Rebuilding domestic capacity would demand billions in new factory investment and several years of construction. Crucially, manufacturers would also need reliable supplies of specialist electrical steel. China dominates that market as well, leaving no easy shortcut. Article | spectator.com.au/2026/05/more-t…

To you both: this is your moment to say clearly that you will fix the tax system, not merely its symptoms. Not a marginal rate trim here and a lifted threshold there, an actual structural reform that any Australian could explain to their children in a single sentence. Adam Smith managed it in one sentence. Two hundred and fifty years later, it remains the right answer. Australians are ready to hear it. Are you ready to say it? Article | spectator.com.au/2026/05/an-ope…

Those who fled the horrors of socialism and communism have arrived in Australia only to find the hammer and sickle haunting them on the street... 😕 ---------------------- April 30 marked 51 years since the end of the Vietnam War. A group of Vietnamese people gathered outside Flinders Street Station in Melbourne to remember what they call the Fall of Saigon, when the North Vietnamese army rolled into the capital and captured the government of South Vietnam. Meanwhile, outside the State Library of Victoria on Swanston Street, international Vietnamese students gathered to celebrate what they call Liberation Day, when Vietnam was finally united as a single nation we know today. Two flags were flown that night – the yellow and red striped Republic of Vietnam flag (also known as the ‘Vietnamese Heritage and Freedom Flag’) at Flinders Street and the official Socialist flag of Vietnam at Swanston Street. There was little public commentary about this schism by either the government or media. Article | spectator.com.au/2026/05/where-…

It’s been more than a month since the apparent murder of a five-year-old Aboriginal girl in the Northern Territory and we still hearing stories about the neglect and abuse of Aboriginal children. There are many causes for why Aboriginal children are at a higher risk of neglect and abuse, and in this article, I focus on one that is rarely discussed. This cause relates to the Aboriginal Child Placement Principle (ACPP), or more correctly, the ideology underpinning the ACPP. Essentially, it is the belief that if an Aboriginal child is to be placed in out-of-home care, then other Aboriginal people are the best ones to provide such care. So, how did this (some may say biased) ACPP come into existence? It was done in the name of self-determination. Article | spectator.com.au/2026/05/is-abo…

Recognition of Palestinian statehood is not merely symbolic theatre. Under international law, it carries consequences. If exercised recklessly, it risks rewarding political violence, undermining long-established legal principles, and weakening confidence in the international system itself. The central legal problem is straightforward: what exactly is Australia proposing to recognise? Article | spectator.com.au/2026/05/recogn…

Talk of the Teals forming their own party and running more candidates in the next election complicates the make-up of the emergent rainbow in the House of Representatives, with a spectrum of orange, blue, red, green, teal, and brown looking very likely to result from the next election... While the level of community jaundice with the uniparty is understandable, do we really want a highly fragmented Parliament trying to lead the country out of the looming abyss? The idea of developing a coherent policy framework and ensuring good governance with a House of Representatives that looks like a Dulux colour wheel requires some serious optimism and has a nihilistic flavour. Article | spectator.com.au/2026/05/the-de…

As long as you 'change your position' - it's not lying. Does anyone honestly think that sort of defence is anything other than a masterclass in sophistry, casuistry and Jesuitical nitpicking? Would Albo & Co have won the last election with these tax policies??? Doubtful. Very doubtful. 🙃 Article | spectator.com.au/2026/05/sophis…

Throughout history, Iran was repeatedly attacked by different powers and invading peoples, from the Romans to the Mongols and the Muslim Arabs... 😒 Yet what kept Iran alive was not only military strength, but the depth of Iranian culture and the tradition of kingship itself; a culture built on ethics, order, justice, royal glory, and historical identity. Article | spectator.com.au/2026/05/the-ir…

This opinion is deeply controversial ... but let us consider: I am beginning to form the opinion that governments and political leaders view #ClimateChange politics in the same way the middle-class see charity for starving children in Africa... 🙄 A harmless, low-cost means to attain popularity and purchase virtue in a market where social currency can be traded for power. Does the occasional child get fed? Probably. I’m sure a few trees were planted too. But that does not mean the net sum of the enterprise was worth it. The path Australia took toward the Paris Agreement is a journey of some 50 years of global bureaucratic environmentalism and the behaviour of our government appears to fall somewhere between misguided naivety and political expediency. At no point is the process intelligent, considered, or costed. Is it a coincidence that the Coalition went on quest for relevancy at a time when the conservative forgotten people were at their most comfortable and wealthy? Did the Coalition fail their people when they were no longer in need of saving? The Coalition’s political identity crisis might explain why so much bad green policy was adopted by their leadership and why conservatives bought into overreaches of centralised global governance. #netzero #ClimateEmergency #auspol #parisagreement #UN #IPCC Article | spectator.com.au/2026/05/alex-a…

No matter how much money taxpayers throw at the Treasury, the problems created by a big - overbearing government - can NEVER be solved. It has become the problem. Article | spectator.com.au/2026/05/our-bi…

If the rich want to pay more taxes - let them. If the 'always was, always will be' activists think they live on stolen land - let them give it back. But don't inflict these viewpoints on other taxpayers. Article | spectator.com.au/2026/05/policy…

Why is the media having a fit over Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price’s podcast interview? Senator Price appears to be a favourite point of outrage – their snack food when they’re giving Pauline Hanson a break. Having watched various meltdowns and outlandish statements from Labor in the past few months on this topic, it feels as though outrage over migration criticism is the last stand of the Labor Party. A sort-of pathetic, dying wail. Article | spectator.com.au/2026/05/angus-…

On April 24, 2026, 11-year-old Nesya Karadi of Bnei Brak died from wounds sustained in an Iranian cluster-munition attack three weeks earlier. On April 1, hours before Passover, a submunition struck her family’s home, critically injuring her and wounding others, including her father. The facts were reported, the loss was mourned, and then, as with so many such cases, the story began to fade away... Article | spectator.com.au/2026/05/the-ch…

Under the clarion call of a greater democratisation of the arts, Revive calls out for our creative industries to align with the UN Declaration of Human Rights. Noble aspirations, but small comfort for the Australian arts worker on an average salary of $14,000 per annum. Article | spectator.com.au/2026/05/revivi…

Another weekend, another disturbed young man making an attempt on President Trump's life. Would-be assassins used to be famous. These ones have all faded away to the point many cannot recall their names, if they ever knew them in the first place. Why is that? Article | spectator.com.au/2026/05/why-ar…

The civil service is quivering in fear as the Nigel Farage #REFORM government approaches. The so-called bureaucratic 'blob' is not afraid to fight back. Their plan? To use industrial action AGAINST democracy. Civil servants’ largest trade union, PCS, has been debating a motion to ‘counter a hostile Reform government’ with ‘sustained industrial action’. If the motion is approved, the union’s ruling NEC would draw up a resistance strategy by the end of the year. In other words, they are considering going on strike if Farage wins the next election. In response, Reform warned the civil service that an unlawful strike would result in them having no job at all. No pension either. "And save the taxpayer huge sums in redundancy pay! Everyone wins!' said Zia Yusuf. Article | spectator.com.au/2026/05/the-bl…

"Aero arrived in Melbourne after a month in transit blind, dehydrated, unable to walk and carrying an untreated infection. She had lost 20 per cent of her body weight. For the first three days after I brought her home from quarantine, I was certain she would die." 🥺 #pets #travel #cats #cat #catlovers #catlife Article | spectator.com.au/2026/05/my-pet…

The scope of the investigation into the former Duke of York for possible Misconduct in Public Office was being widened to include questions of sexual misbehaviour. #PrinceAndrew #Royals #RoyalFamily #UKPolitics spectator.com.au/2026/05/the-an…

Is Aboriginal child safety being compromised for cultural reasons? spectator.com.au/2026/05/is-abo…