Dr Richard Denniss dismantles the gas industry’s favorite threat.
If taxes kill investment, why is the gas industry rushing to Norway to pay 78%? 🙄
“They are playing us for fools.” 🔥
Nationals’ Susan McDonald has no rebuttal & scrambles to change the subject. #auspol

This is overlapping with, and replicating, the Atlas Network model. That structure has trained controversial industries in how to metastasise front groups to create a chorus to fool the politicians and/or journalists and/or the populace that some opinion is valid.
Treat all with care until checked.

Because Australia gives so much of our gas away for free, Japan gets it so cheap that it makes a profit selling it on to other countries!

Add your name to the call to impose royalties on all gas exported from Australia ✍️ nb.australiainstitute.org.au/collect_gas_royalties

Intellect, education and curiosity.
Sourcing facts and applying critical thinking to misinformation requires all 3.
But there is also exhaustion. It's emotionally draining to live in high alert to nefarious intentions. Easier to abdicate responsibility and let an algorithm tell you what to think.

Amen

Don’t miss the chance to read this over the weekend because #Auspol needs to watch where strategists are hooking our ugliest influencers up with the worst of (posh) MAGA. Also pre-order @katherinestewart.bsky.social’s outstanding Money Lies & God. (Ebook now, paperback 🇦🇺 June release).

Your Vote Is Worth $3.39 to a Political Party. Here Is How That Works - and Who’s Gaming It. There is a public funding system operating in every Australian election that most voters know nothing about. It is worth understanding - because it changes what your vote actually does.

Your Vote Is Worth $3.39 to a Political Party. Here Is How That Works - and Who’s Gaming It. There's a public funding system operating in every Australian election that most voters know nothing about. It is worth understanding bc it changes what your vote does.

open.substack.com/pub/suebarre...

Jewish Australians speak – and contradict the government's antisemitism report A new grassroots study of Jewish Australians challenges the government-backed antisemitism report, exposing contradictions in its methodology and conclusions.

The government’s antisemitism report claims widespread prejudice – but its own data tells a different story.
A new study of Jewish Australians exposes the contradictions and stakes in how antisemitism is defined, Gwenaël Velge writes.
#auspol #Antisemitism #FreeSpeech #HumanRights #Australia

Claims about genetic superiority ignore the real drivers of human inequality Claims that genes determine intelligence, health and social outcomes are reappearing. But modern science shows environment and opportunity matter far more than genes.

Claims about genetic superiority ignore the real drivers of human inequality

I know I've said this a trillion times but I have to say it periodically to keep from going insane:

The right ran a huge, well-funded, & ultimately successful campaign to completely take over political media & the infosphere more generally. This is by far the most important political development...

Media framed Clinton’s “deplorable” comment about Trump supporters as scandal. Yet, it’s apparently not scandal for Trump to constantly lie and smear immigrants and minorities - dehumanising them, directing hate at them. This contradiction shows White people can only be victims, but non-white can’t.

Absolutely horrific attempt at an Australian accent. Otherwise fabulous

From @others98.bsky.social The Other 98% over on fb (they don't seem to post on their account here)

A discreet intellectual network has been reshaping the world for 70 years. Here's how A constant battle of ideas reshapes the world we live in, and few groups have been more successful in winning the war than the little-known Atlas Network.

Heard of Heritage and Project2025? Tip of the Titanic's iceberg. Wait until you hear about the Mont Pelerin Society and Atlas Network.

From ABC News. This is an Australian article, but mostly applies to the whole world

www.abc.net.au/news/2026-01...

Free-roaming lobbyists in Australian parliament could face tighter restrictions, Albanese says Prime minister outlines ‘security’ review of conditions for coveted orange passes that allow unrestricted access

Australians really dislike the unfettered access lobbyists have to politicians in Parliament House. Every day Parliament sits, hundreds of lobbyists roam its halls. We can't know which Ministers they meet with, or how they influence government decision-making.

“Australia has a gas export problem. Gas exports have led to the tripling of wholesale east coast gas prices and doubling of electricity prices, since exports began in 2015,” writes Ebony Bennett, Deputy Director of The Australia Institute.

Read more: https://theaus.in/47ise1i

Breaking: AG Michelle Rowland has announced today’s Standing Council of Attorneys-General (SCAG) will focus on one type of racism, Antisemitism.

I guess they can’t discuss other forms of racism when Jillian Segal, tied to extremist group Advance, is also attending.🙄 #auspol

And every one of the owners of the biggest platforms has allowed or ensured the severe enshittification of its service, & in many cases an increase in the abuse and disrespect of women & the endangerment of children. Boy billionaires, making the world worse for everyone else as fast as they can.

Re-upping this one...

The only people the IDF enjoys killing more than journalists are children

Contrary to Albanese’s word association games with the Murdoch press, I don't think Grace Tame is "difficult". She just doesn’t like dickheads and pedophiles, it's really quite simple.

The Jewish Council of Australia condemns Benjamin Harnwell's appalling comment at the Advance conference and call on our leaders and the Antisemitism Envoy to speak out in condemnation.

Time to end the lobbying protection racket The number of lobbyists seeking to influence the federal government has soared, yet they’re bound by secrecy that stifles honest business.

Politicians are outnumbered by lobbyists in Parliament House 15 to one; on sitting days hundreds of lobbyists roam the halls in Canberra, meeting with Ministers to influence government policies.

My Clean Up Politics Act would shine a light on lobbyists’ activities.

Thread to go through carefully

A discreet intellectual network has been reshaping the world for 70 years. Here's how A constant battle of ideas reshapes the world we live in, and few groups have been more successful in winning the war than the little-known Atlas Network.

Gareth Hutchens’ exceptional article gives you the background. You can’t understand the last 50 years of #Auspol without this article. Actually our political economy was shaped much earlier.

www.abc.net.au/news/2026-01...

The Advance conference: platforming hate groups and unsavoury international guests Another right-wing conference is on our calendar. This one is titled "Evolve: because being right isn't enough."

🧵Advance has 3 international guests at its conference this weekend. One promotes conspiracies including to Alex Jones. A second conducts messaging for Steve Bannon, ran his “gladiator school” in the Italian monastery. The 3rd reps a vile US hate group. #Auspol

lucyham29.substack.com/p/the-advanc...

Sports commentary should always be like this

Speaking on an Australia Institute webinar, Nobel Prize-winning economist Professor Joseph Stiglitz has urged the Australian Government to “follow the money” and start imposing a “a very, very high tax rate” on the country’s natural resources.

Read more on The Point: https://theaus.in/4qEs0bO

A 25% tax on gas exports could raise $17bn every year.

Aussies pay more tax on beer than the gas industry pay on gas exports.

End the scam: nb.australiainstitute.org.au/fix_gas_export_problem_b

I marched against apartheid in South Africa. The Sydney protests triggered me I did not spend my 20s protesting a regime using violence to silence its critics just to spend my 70s watching Australian governments do the same.

www.smh.com.au/national/nsw...