USS Charlotte was at periscope depth, but the periscope was down, reducing the chance of it, or the wake it creates, being seen by the enemy. It was a tense moment.
“Safe/Fire key to Fire”, ordered the captain.
The officer manning the fire control console repeated the order, “Safe/Fire key to Fire” and then advised the captain, “Safe/Fire key is to Fire”.
“Fire 4 tube at Target 1”, the captain stated in a raised and clear voice.
The officer repeated the order and hit the ‘Fire’ button. A low-level thud was both felt and heard throughout the submarine as the pressurise discharge system pushed the Mk 48 Torpedo from the tube. “Weapon running” the officer called.
As the weapon ran towards the Iranian frigate the submarine carried out a further visual set-up through the periscope to update the weapon. The updated targeting solution was transmitted down the very long and thin guidance wire connecting the torpedo to the submarine.
The update was also loaded into the second torpedo’s guidance system. “Fire 1 tube at Target 1”.
The first torpedo did not do its job. The second exploded directly under the target, lifting the hull out of the water and sending a violent shock wave through it. The structural damage was completed as the hull dropped back into the water.
The first the Iranian captain of the frigate would have known about the US submarine would have been when he felt the explosion underfoot.
Queuing
USS Charlote did not just stumble across the INS Dena. Rather, days before, it had been queued to the target by folks back in the US tracking where every surface ship in the world is located.
The submarine travelled at high speed, around 30 knots (55 km/h), for days getting from its routine Indian Ocean patrol area to the waters south of Sri Lanka. That’s one of the key advantages of a nuclear-powered submarine. They can travel long distances fast.
As it arrived in the area the submarine’s crew would have detected (found it) and tracked the contact (worked out its range, course and speed), and then classified (identified) it using a combination of acoustic and electronic emissions, and finally confirmed it was the INS Dena visually through the periscope.
“Then ‘bang’.”
AUKUS implications
The Iran War has shown that submarines are 21st century war fighting assets with ever relevant capabilities; they can collect intelligence, conduct reconnaissance, launch land attack missiles, covertly land special forces, covertly lay mines, and sink submarines and surface ships.
But the events from 28 February onwards have shown us other things.
AUKUS has been described by many as a program that facilitates close alliance and force integration with the United States.
As Donald Trump broke its written Free Trade Agreement commitments to Australia on ‘Liberation Day”, those in the Canberra bubble were blind to that breach’s relevance to the ANZUS treaty and AUKUS agreement. Surely the US’s defence treaty with Australia would be treated differently.
As the US initiated an AUKUS review, that was to see AUKUS sceptic Elbridge Colby recommend stopping the program until Trump realised the financial benefit in continuing with it and overrode Colby, those in the Canberra bubble breathed a collective sigh of relief and chose not to think it too much.
Ruptured
As Trump, to use the words of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, ‘ruptured’ the international rules-based order – carrying out a military operation in Venezuela, threatening Panama, bringing NATO to the brink by threatening to invade Greenland, attacking Iran and now threatening Cuba – those in the Canberra bubble didn’t seem to recognise the US Administration’s departure from Australian values; or perhaps likely they did but decided not to respond to it.
Only over the past month Prime Minister Albanese has responded properly to the ‘rupture’, not blindly committing Australian forces to follow the US into war, as has so often been the case (as a downpayment for US support for Australia if it needed it).
Albanese has despatched a RAAF early warning aircraft to support the air defence of the United Arab Emirates and other Gulf states, but we haven’t joined a US-led effort as has been the case in the past.
Sovereign thought
Albanese has it right. The US did not seek to build international support, and/or UN approval, for a strike on Iran. Instead it chose to plan in secret in cahoots with Israel and then launch a surprise attack to kill Iran’s leadership while negotiations with Iran were supposed to be ongoing.
Only when the going got tough did Washington call on allies for assistance, and under the circumstances where they rightly refused.
“Trump’s Iran War has caused harm to Australia.”
The impact of Trump’s war is causing economic harm right across the globe.
The war has also brought home Australia’s vulnerabilities. For decades distance has kept us relatively isolated from conflict, but this conflict directly affected us as world fuel supplies are disrupted and prices have sky rocketed. And the full extent of this new energy shock still lies ahead.
“Perhaps it’s the shock that we needed to have”
a chance to reflect on our need to take a more independent pathway in a world in which many past assumptions are being overturned.
US submarine shortages
Australia has long relied on the naval might of what Prime Minister Robert Menzies liked to call our “great and powerful friends” – first the British Empire and the Royal Navy; then Pax Americana upheld by the United States Navy. Now times are changing,
“and they are changing rapidly.”
The US Navy has gone from a Cold War era 1000-ship navy to a 600-ship navy during the Reagan era, to a current fleet of just 300 ships. China now has the world’s largest navy, 350 to 370 vessels, and Chinese shipyards are turning out warships much more rapidly than their counterparts in the US.
The US Navy still has a qualitative edge, but the US Navy is not what it was, and its well understood that quantity has a quality all of its own.
The US has been aiming to increase its number to 381 combat ships. 66 is the desired number for nuclear attack submarines – they have only 49 at the present moment.
Since 2011 the USN has purchased 2 submarines a year (this last year it was only one – because deliveries are so far behind).
The actual Virginia-class production rate has never reached 2.0 boats per year, and since 2022 has been limited to about 1.1 to 1.2 boats per year, resulting in a growing backlog of boats procured but not yet built.
They can’t build enough boats to meet their own needs,
“let alone ours.”
A school of thought in the US had been that submarines transferred to the Royal Australian Navy would be available for US in time of conflict, but the Iran War has speared that assumption.
And Trump noticed this week, first expressing disappointment at the UK’s refusal to become directly involved in the Iran War and then turning his thoughts to Australia, saying “Australia too, Australia was not great. I was a little surprised by Australia”.
Trump is well known to hold a grudge. The one thing that will keep him supportive of AUKUS will be the money flowing from the Australian taxpayers to US shipyards, with no contract in place for delivery and no claw back option for the Australian contribution is the US does not deliver. That’s the sort of deal that Trump likes.
UK submarine shortages
And the United Kingdom are in a worse position than the US. The Royal Navy has one nuclear attack submarine available for operations – a fact made obvious to Australians when that sole submarine cut short a visit to Western Australia to head towards the Iran conflict zone.
Retired Rear Admiral Peter Briggs, in an event at the Canberra Press Club, organised by Malcolm Turnbull, said it all, warning the UK had “dropped below the minimal sustainable force” for submarines and the country would be late in delivering its first SSN-AUKUS boat, a design which Australia is also hoping to start building in Adelaide in the 2030s.
“It is queued up behind the final two (Astute-class boats) and four critically important ballistic missile submarines, the Dreadnoughts, that are being built in the shipyard.”
“You cannot get the first SSN-AUKUS out until the fourth ballistic missile submarine is clear of the yard. That is the UK’s national priority.”
Defence incompetence
Listen to this story
12 min
The US war on Iran has exposed Australia’s incompetent defence and procurement. Rex Patrick reports implications for AUKUS submarine program.
A tense moment
USS Charlotte was at periscope depth, but the periscope was down, reducing the chance of it, or the wake it creates, being seen by the enemy. It was a tense moment.
“Safe/Fire key to Fire”, ordered the captain.
The officer manning the fire control console repeated the order, “Safe/Fire key to Fire” and then advised the captain, “Safe/Fire key is to Fire”.
“Fire 4 tube at Target 1”, the captain stated in a raised and clear voice.
The officer repeated the order and hit the ‘Fire’ button. A low-level thud was both felt and heard throughout the submarine as the pressurise discharge system pushed the Mk 48 Torpedo from the tube. “Weapon running” the officer called.
As the weapon ran towards the Iranian frigate the submarine carried out a further visual set-up through the periscope to update the weapon. The updated targeting solution was transmitted down the very long and thin guidance wire connecting the torpedo to the submarine.
The update was also loaded into the second torpedo’s guidance system. “Fire 1 tube at Target 1”.
The first torpedo did not do its job. The second exploded directly under the target, lifting the hull out of the water and sending a violent shock wave through it. The structural damage was completed as the hull dropped back into the water.
The first the Iranian captain of the frigate would have known about the US submarine would have been when he felt the explosion underfoot.
Sinking of INS Dena (Source: US Department of War)
Queuing
USS Charlote did not just stumble across the INS Dena. Rather, days before, it had been queued to the target by folks back in the US tracking where every surface ship in the world is located.
The submarine travelled at high speed, around 30 knots (55 km/h), for days getting from its routine Indian Ocean patrol area to the waters south of Sri Lanka. That’s one of the key advantages of a nuclear-powered submarine. They can travel long distances fast.
As it arrived in the area the submarine’s crew would have detected (found it) and tracked the contact (worked out its range, course and speed), and then classified (identified) it using a combination of acoustic and electronic emissions, and finally confirmed it was the INS Dena visually through the periscope.
Then ‘bang’.
AUKUS implications
The Iran War has shown that submarines are 21st century war fighting assets with ever relevant capabilities; they can collect intelligence, conduct reconnaissance, launch land attack missiles, covertly land special forces, covertly lay mines, and sink submarines and surface ships.
But the events from 28 February onwards have shown us other things.
AUKUS has been described by many as a program that facilitates close alliance and force integration with the United States.
As Donald Trump broke its written Free Trade Agreement commitments to Australia on ‘Liberation Day”, those in the Canberra bubble were blind to that breach’s relevance to the ANZUS treaty and AUKUS agreement. Surely the US’s defence treaty with Australia would be treated differently.
As the US initiated an AUKUS review, that was to see AUKUS sceptic Elbridge Colby recommend stopping the program until Trump realised the financial benefit in continuing with it and overrode Colby, those in the Canberra bubble breathed a collective sigh of relief and chose not to think it too much.
Ruptured
As Trump, to use the words of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, ‘ruptured’ the international rules-based order – carrying out a military operation in Venezuela, threatening Panama, bringing NATO to the brink by threatening to invade Greenland, attacking Iran and now threatening Cuba – those in the Canberra bubble didn’t seem to recognise the US Administration’s departure from Australian values; or perhaps likely they did but decided not to respond to it.
Only over the past month Prime Minister Albanese has responded properly to the ‘rupture’, not blindly committing Australian forces to follow the US into war, as has so often been the case (as a downpayment for US support for Australia if it needed it).
Albanese has despatched a RAAF early warning aircraft to support the air defence of the United Arab Emirates and other Gulf states, but we haven’t joined a US-led effort as has been the case in the past.
Sovereign thought
Albanese has it right. The US did not seek to build international support, and/or UN approval, for a strike on Iran. Instead it chose to plan in secret in cahoots with Israel and then launch a surprise attack to kill Iran’s leadership while negotiations with Iran were supposed to be ongoing.
Only when the going got tough did Washington call on allies for assistance, and under the circumstances where they rightly refused.
Trump’s Iran War has caused harm to Australia.
The impact of Trump’s war is causing economic harm right across the globe.
The war has also brought home Australia’s vulnerabilities. For decades distance has kept us relatively isolated from conflict, but this conflict directly affected us as world fuel supplies are disrupted and prices have sky rocketed. And the full extent of this new energy shock still lies ahead.
Perhaps it’s the shock that we needed to have ;
a chance to reflect on our need to take a more independent pathway in a world in which many past assumptions are being overturned.
Australia has long relied on the naval might of what Prime Minister Robert Menzies liked to call our “great and powerful friends” – first the British Empire and the Royal Navy; then Pax Americana upheld by the United States Navy. Now times are changing,
and they are changing rapidly.
The US Navy has gone from a Cold War era 1000-ship navy to a 600-ship navy during the Reagan era, to a current fleet of just 300 ships. China now has the world’s largest navy, 350 to 370 vessels, and Chinese shipyards are turning out warships much more rapidly than their counterparts in the US.
The US Navy still has a qualitative edge, but the US Navy is not what it was, and its well understood that quantity has a quality all of its own.
The US has been aiming to increase its number to 381 combat ships. 66 is the desired number for nuclear attack submarines – they have only 49 at the present moment.
Since 2011 the USN has purchased 2 submarines a year (this last year it was only one – because deliveries are so far behind).
The actual Virginia-class production rate has never reached 2.0 boats per year, and since 2022 has been limited to about 1.1 to 1.2 boats per year, resulting in a growing backlog of boats procured but not yet built.
US Naval Shipbuilding Plan (Source: Congressional Budget Office).
They can’t build enough boats to meet their own needs,
let alone ours.
A school of thought in the US had been that submarines transferred to the Royal Australian Navy would be available for US in time of conflict, but the Iran War has speared that assumption.
And Trump noticed this week, first expressing disappointment at the UK’s refusal to become directly involved in the Iran War and then turning his thoughts to Australia, saying “Australia too, Australia was not great. I was a little surprised by Australia”.
Trump is well known to hold a grudge. The one thing that will keep him supportive of AUKUS will be the money flowing from the Australian taxpayers to US shipyards, with no contract in place for delivery and no claw back option for the Australian contribution is the US does not deliver. That’s the sort of deal that Trump likes.
And the United Kingdom are in a worse position than the US. The Royal Navy has one nuclear attack submarine available for operations – a fact made obvious to Australians when that sole submarine cut short a visit to Western Australia to head towards the Iran conflict zone.
Retired Rear Admiral Peter Briggs, in an event at the Canberra Press Club, organised by Malcolm Turnbull, said it all, warning the UK had “dropped below the minimal sustainable force” for submarines and the country would be late in delivering its first SSN-AUKUS boat, a design which Australia is also hoping to start building in Adelaide in the 2030s.
“It is queued up behind the final two (Astute-class boats) and four critically important ballistic missile submarines, the Dreadnoughts, that are being built in the shipyard.”
“You cannot get the first SSN-AUKUS out until the fourth ballistic missile submarine is clear of the yard. That is the UK’s national priority.”
Defence incompetence
At the same conference, our Defence Department’s incompetence was on full display.
A Defence representative laid it out., After decades of submarine procurement failures (including the spending of $4B on French submarines we never got), it’s still “full speed ahead” in the best spirit of Captain Smith on the bridge of the Titanic.
In response to a question from Turnbull as to “what’s the plan B if we end up with no new subs” from the United States, Deputy secretary for strategy and policy, Hugh Jeffrey, answered, “You know, it’s not my job as a public servant, to talk about Plan Bs that’s the prerogative of government”.
He went on to lecture AUKUS sceptics,” If you really want to be in a position where we have no submarines then ‘turn back’. I do think, speaking as an apolitical public servant, we need to get out of this relentless politicisation of defence capabilities.”
AUKUS end
He surely did not realise what he said. He warns we’ll “be left with no submarines if the project is dumped”. The problem is that we’ll also be left with no submarines if AUKUS isn’t dumped. And we will have paid a lot for those no submarines.
After a failure on fuel security, with a failure on procuring submarines, and with the rules-based order ruptured by the very country we’re relying in respect of the program, maybe Albanese will finally cut this foolish program and move towards a more realistic, self-reliant and sustainable strategic policy.
If we don’t, we may well find our sovereignty to be hollow and that others will decide our nation’s future.
An ambassador who calls dead journalists terrorists. A death penalty for Palestinians only. A government that says nothing. And a Press Club that provides the stage.
I. The Spectacle
On March 31, 2026, the National Press Club of Australia hosted Dr Hillel Newman, the newly appointed ambassador of Israel, for an address titled “Reshaping the Middle East.”
What unfolded was not diplomacy. It was propaganda. It was the marketing of genocide. And it was allowed to continue, uninterrupted, on Australian soil, under the lights of an institution that once stood for journalistic integrity.
Newman rejected a figure of 70,000 dead in Gaza – a number, he said, provided by Hamas. He claimed the ratio of civilian to combatant casualties was “the lowest in urban warfare” and that Israel should be “commended” for the “low number of uninvolved civilians that were actually killed.”
He was speaking over the bodies of 70,000 people. He was speaking over the findings of a United Nations commission of inquiry that, in September last year, found that Israel had committed genocide in the Gaza Strip – accusing the nation of having committed four genocidal acts, “namely killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of the Palestinians in whole or in part, and imposing measures intended to prevent births.”
The Press Club did not challenge him. The journalists in the room did not walk out. The broadcast continued.
II. The Death Penalty Law
On March 30, the Israeli Knesset passed a law imposing the death penalty for terrorism-related offences. Human Rights Watch has analysed the bill and found it explicitly discriminatory.
The law makes death by hanging the default punishment for West Bank Palestinians convicted of nationalistic killings. It also gives Israeli courts the option of imposing the death penalty on Israeli citizens convicted on similar charges – language that legal experts say effectively confines those who can be sentenced to death to Palestinian citizens of Israel and excludes Jewish citizens.
Within the military court system of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, the bill imposes the death penalty for killings classified as acts of terrorism as defined under Israeli law, even without a prosecutorial request. The bill only allows courts to order life imprisonment in unspecified exceptional cases where “special reasons” are found, limiting judicial discretion. It also prohibits commutation of sentences and mandates execution within an accelerated timeframe of 90 days.
Israeli citizens and residents are explicitly excluded from this provision: military jurisdiction applies exclusively to Palestinians, while Israeli settlers are tried in civilian courts.
Human Rights Watch has noted that military trials of Palestinians have “an approximately 96% conviction rate, based largely on ‘confessions’ extracted under duress and torture during interrogations.”
Adam Coogle, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, stated: “Israeli officials argue that imposing the death penalty is about security, but in reality, it entrenches discrimination and a two-tiered system of justice, both hallmarks of apartheid. The death penalty is irreversible and cruel. Combined with its severe restrictions on appeals and its 90-day execution timeline, this bill aims to kill Palestinian detainees faster and with less scrutiny.”
The Palestinian Authority has condemned the law as a “war crime” and a “flagrant violation of international humanitarian law, particularly the Fourth Geneva Convention, which guarantees protection for individuals and fair trial rights.”
At the Press Club, Newman defended the law. “Just like in the United States, in Japan and in India, which have capital punishment, Israel has the right, as a sovereign state, to decide … capital punishment,” he said.
He did not mention the discrimination. He did not mention the 96% conviction rate. He did not mention the torture.
III. The Journalists
Newman was asked about the killing of journalists in Gaza and Lebanon. The International Federation of Journalists has reported that 261 journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023. The Committee to Protect Journalists has accused Israel of killing a record 129 journalists in 2025.
Newman’s response was chilling.
He claimed that two of three journalists killed in an Israeli air strike in Lebanon were “100 per cent terrorist” members of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan force. He said they were “dressed up as journalists.” He claimed that both Hamas and Hezbollah “disguise themselves as press and remain terrorist operatives.”
When pressed on what percentage of killed journalists were not terrorists, he admitted: “The honest truth is that we have no way of knowing the exact amount of journalists who weren’t 100 per cent journalists who were killed.”
He has no way of knowing. Yet he called them terrorists anyway. On Australian soil. At the National Press Club.
The Committee to Protect Journalists has previously described such accusations as “smear campaigns” without “credible evidence to substantiate their claims.”
Newman also dismissed the broader death toll of journalists, saying: “When people outside quote 250, 300 journalists [have been killed], what they’re doing is they’re just buying [it] hook, line and sinker. If they would check, they would find that the majority of all the journalists, so-called journalists, that were affected were actually activists guised as journalists.”
He has no evidence. He provided none. The Press Club did not ask for it.
IV. The Frankcom Family
While Newman spoke inside the Press Club, the family of Zomi Frankcom stood outside.
Frankcom, an Australian aid worker, was killed by an Israeli drone strike on April 1, 2024, while working for World Central Kitchen in Gaza. Seven aid workers died. The convoy was struck three times.
Two years later, the family is still waiting for justice. They are still waiting for the release of critical drone footage audio that would establish motive. Former Defence Force chief Mark Binskin, who conducted an independent inquiry, was given access to unedited drone footage – but it did not include audio.
Newman was asked repeatedly whether the Israeli government would apologise to the Frankcom family. He refused. “Every incident of an innocent person or aid worker that is affected by a war situation is tragic, and we’ve expressed full sympathy with the family,” he said.
Sympathy. Not an apology.
He said reparations were “dependent on the final outcome of the interrogation.” Two years later, the interrogation is still not final.
Mal Frankcom, Zomi’s brother, said the family would like a formal apology, but he believed this was unlikely because it “could be seen as an admission of guilt.”
He met with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Tuesday. He urged the government to use all possible diplomatic levers to pressure Israel to complete its investigation.
The ambassador was asked about the audio. He said: “That’s not in my hands. It’s in the IDF’s hands.”
The IDF’s hands. Where it has been for two years.
V. The Australian Government’s Response
Foreign Minister Penny Wong told the Labor caucus that Australia opposes the death penalty “in all instances.” She pointed to a joint statement Australia signed alongside France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom that opposed the measure.
The statement said: “We are particularly worried about the de facto discriminatory character of the bill. The adoption of this bill would risk undermining Israel’s commitments with regards to democratic principles.”
A joint statement. Words. Not action.
The government has not summoned the ambassador. It has not imposed sanctions. It has not suspended military cooperation. It has not done anything that would cost Israel anything at all.
The same government that rushed to pass hate speech laws after the Bondi terror attack – laws that criminalise the phrase “from the river to the sea” – has nothing to say about a law that would execute Palestinian prisoners by hanging within 90 days, with no right of pardon, under a discriminatory legal regime.
The same government that welcomed Israeli President Isaac Herzog to Canberra has not condemned the man who wore a noose-shaped lapel pin while celebrating the passage of this law – Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s National Security Minister.
The same government that expelled Iran’s ambassador after ASIO concluded Tehran orchestrated the bombings of a synagogue and a kosher restaurant has not applied the same standard to Israel.
VI. The Question of Double Standards
In 2024, the Albanese government expelled Iran’s ambassador, Ahmad Sadeghi, after domestic spy agency ASIO concluded that Iran had orchestrated the bombings of a synagogue in Melbourne and a kosher restaurant in Sydney.
A top Iranian diplomat, Mohammad Pournajaf, defected from the regime and was granted asylum in Australia. The government acted. The ambassador was expelled.
Yet Israel’s ambassador calls dead journalists terrorists, defends a discriminatory death penalty law, refuses to apologise for the killing of an Australian aid worker – and the government says nothing.
Why was the Iranian ambassador expelled, but the Israeli ambassador remains?
The answer is the network. The donors. The lobbyists. The fear of being labelled antisemitic. The capture of our political class by a foreign ideology that demands silence in exchange for support.
VII. Has the Press Club Been Captured?
The National Press Club is meant to be a forum for robust journalism. For challenging those in power. For holding the powerful to account.
On March 31, 2026, it provided a platform for an ambassador who called dead journalists terrorists. Who defended a discriminatory death penalty law. Who refused to apologise for the killing of an Australian aid worker.
The journalists in the room did not walk out. They did not cut the microphone. They did not refuse to platform a man who accused the dead of being terrorists without evidence.
This does no credit to Australian journalism. It does no credit to the Press Club. It does no credit to Australia.
VIII. The Questions They Refuse to Ask
We will ask the questions they refuse to ask:
Why was Hillel Newman given a platform to call dead journalists terrorists?
Why did the National Press Club not challenge his claims in real time?
Why has the Australian government not summoned the ambassador to answer for the death penalty law?
Why has the government not condemned the law in the strongest possible terms?
Why has the government not suspended military cooperation with Israel?
Why has the government not imposed sanctions?
Why has the government done nothing that would cost Israel anything at all?
Why was the Iranian ambassador expelled, but the Israeli ambassador remains?
The Frankcom family deserves answers. The Palestinian prisoners facing execution deserve the world to speak. The Australian people deserve to know why their government is silent.
IX. The Larger Pattern
This is not an isolated incident. It is the same pattern we have been exposing for weeks.
The same network that brought us the Segal Plan – mandatory Zionist indoctrination in universities. The same network that brought us the police crackdown in New South Wales – eight armoured officers breaking down a woman’s door at 5am. The same network that is turning our public service into an arm of foreign influence. The same network that has captured our political class.
The same silence. The same complicity. The same refusal to act.
Israel is committing genocide. The International Court of Justice has found it “plausible.” The United Nations commission of inquiry has found it has committed genocidal acts. The world is watching.
And Australia says nothing. Or says a few words in a joint statement, then returns to business as usual.
X. What Must Be Done
The National Press Club must answer for its decision to platform Newman. Why was he not challenged? Why was the broadcast allowed to continue? Why were dead journalists slandered without evidence on Australian soil?
The Australian government must summon the ambassador. He must answer for the death penalty law. He must answer for his comments about journalists. He must answer for the Frankcom family.
The government must condemn the death penalty law in the strongest possible terms. A joint statement is not enough. Words are not enough. Australia must use every diplomatic lever to oppose this discriminatory, inhumane legislation.
The government must suspend military cooperation with Israel. Australia cannot claim to oppose the death penalty while cooperating militarily with a state that imposes it discriminatorily.
The government must impose sanctions. The time for words is over. The time for action is now.
The Frankcom family must receive justice. The audio must be released. The investigation must be completed. Those responsible must be held accountable.
XI. A Warning
What happened at the National Press Club on March 31, 2026, was not an aberration. It was the logical conclusion of a pattern.
A foreign ambassador called dead journalists terrorists. He defended a law that executes Palestinians by hanging within 90 days, with no right of pardon, under a discriminatory legal regime. He refused to apologise for the killing of an Australian aid worker.
And Australia was silent. The government was silent. The Press Club was silent. The media was silent.
This is what complicity looks like. Not active participation. Silence. The refusal to speak. The refusal to act. The refusal to hold accountable those who commit atrocities in our name, with our support, under the cover of our alliance.
The wire is not cut. The shells fall short. The men who send others to die do not walk the ground.
But we will not be silent. We will ask the questions they refuse to ask. We will name the names. We will expose the pattern.
And we will keep cutting the wire until there is nothing left but the garden.
This article is dedicated to my wife, who stands with me shoulder to shoulder, and I am so proud of her.
Climate information wars and fossil fuel dependency are national security threats that are undermining Australia’s ability to respond to crises like the Iran war, a new report says.
This battleground is actively undermining the country’s ability to reach energy sovereignty and protect Australians from external threats, says retired Australian Defence Force (ADF) admiral Chris Barrie.
“There has been a failure to understand how energy dependence on fossil fuels will cause both economic disruption and more perilous physical conditions for Australians,” Barrie said in a statement accompanying a new report outlining the scale of the threat.
“Now the two issues are colliding.
“We are facing an unprecedented energy crisis much worse by the world’s failure to face its fossil fuel addiction. Layered on top is a climate disinformation war globally and in Australia that is actively undermining the capacity to build a renewable, clean-energy future and curb coal and gas exports.”
The Climate Disinformation War report says Australia, and the world, have been engaged in an information war over climate change for at least two decades, as “anti-climate propaganda and disinformation networks” grew into multi-billion dollar permanent campaigns.
Today, power comes from dominating the information space and Australians’ perpception of the world is now warped by mis- and disinformation, says The Climate Disinformation War report author, intelligence analyst Anastasia Kapetas.
“This is no longer just a communications issue,” she said in a statement.
“It is a national security threat with consequences for Australia’s sovereignty, economic resilience, disaster preparedness, institutional trust and strategic autonomy. We are already seeing a drift toward authoritarian politics linked to climate denial.”
Responding to the scale of climate disinformation requires coordination across civil society and industry, and across security, economic, and governance institutions, Kapetas says in the report.
It calls for comprehensive anti-trust architecture, such as the current European Union Digital Markets Act, to stop tech platforms that amplify disinformation from becoming too powerful to regulate.
It also wants digital regulation that requires companies to take responsibility for online disinformation and other harms, and “urgent, enforceable” regulation of generative AI that can rapidly scale disinformation.
Marketing group Clean Creatives last year estimated the top 29 oil majors spent $US6.97 billion ($A9.9 billion) in 2024 on media management and PR.
They’ve created “a tidal wave of hostile messaging”, said California Energy Commission chair David Hochschild in Sydney this month.
Sadly, one of the culprits is Australia’s own Liberal and National parties, whose energy policies for two decades and claims of what renewable energy could, or would do despite evidence to the contrary, allowed disinformation and misinformation to flourish.
The impact of this wave of money and propaganda on Australians was made clear last year, when a Senate committee inquiry exposed just how deeply mis- and dis-information is now entrenched in this country, and how badly its damaging Aussie communities.
As Renew Economy managing editor Giles Parkinson put it, the Senate committee unearthed “harrowing evidence of abuse, threats, and intimidation – much of it driven by fear and loathing inspired by deliberate campaigns to demonise renewables”.
The anti-renewables “outrage machine” is even having a real impact on attitudes to Australia’s favourite technology, rooftop solar and home batteries, as noted by Populares boss Ed Coper at the EN26 conference last week.
Energy security starts at home
While some media commentators still scoff at the idea that renewables offer energy independence, governments and companies are taking note.
Last week, the UK fast-tracked balcony solar rules specifically to beef up energy security, and Australian electricity retailer Discover Energy finished a pivot that started after the 2020 Ukraine War-coal price spike to dump its gas licence to focus on solar-batteries and virtual power plants.
Indeed, “homegrown” energy sources are now equated with security, says International Energy Agency (IEA) chief Fatih Birol.
“We have seen, in Europe since 2022, the phenomenal growth of renewables mainly driven by security concerns,” Birol said.
“We have more options to deal with [this] crisis [than during the 1970s oil price shocks].
“Renewables have come to maturity… batteries, these will be a big game changer in terms of solar and wind becoming an even bigger part of the energy sector.”
In a blow to latent hopes in conservative circles, Birol doesn’t believe the way out for Australia is nuclear – even though he is a big fan of the technology and it’s rising again after the last shock in 2022.
He urges Australians to be “very, very proud” of what the country has achieved with solar and home batteries as “not every country needs to be nuclear power”.
Australian industry super funds are investing in companies involved in the Gaza genocide, and unions are not demanding they stop. Andrew Gardiner reports.
Protected by rules putting a member’s “best financial interests” over ethical, environmental or social considerations, the vast majority of Australia’s industry superfunds are all-systems-go on pouring money into projects connected to the decimation of Gaza, dispossession in the West Bank, and bombing Israel’s neighbours.
An MWM investigation has confirmed that just two of Australia’s 20 industry super funds are making modest changes to their investment portfolios. The other 18 remain invested in Israel’s war machine, with Australian Super alone funding corporations like Elbit Systems (drones), ICL Group (white phosphorus) and Palantir (AI/software for weapons systems).
This, even as the IDF is again using the banned white phosphorus in Lebanon, in which Australian super is invested.
The two funds which did divest – Vision Super and HESTA – still have some money tied up in Israeli projects in Gaza and the West Bank. “HESTA and Vision divested from Israeli banks (but) they still have money in companies listed on a UN database as operating from Israel’s illegal settlements”, Molly Coburn from the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network (APAN) told MWM.
Activist Jill Sparrow says even those modest changes could be quietly reversed “as soon as we look away”. “Divestment isn’t set and forget (and)
“there’s a lot of money to be made in dropping bombs,”
“so super funds could be sorely tempted”, she said.
If you’re in a union-partner industry super fund and have a problem with genocide, chances are you’re out of luck on the socially-conscious investments front. Unions routinely route members’ super into partner funds with little regard to the social or environmental impact when it’s invested.
Ethics ignored
Under 2005 rule changes, union members can transfer their super to retail super funds, Australian Ethical and Future Group, which shun companies whose work enables the carnage in Gaza. These funds show it can be done, so why have industry super funds not done it?
Instead, unions aligned with the Labor Party, under pressure from Zionist lobbyists, are content to send members’ money to super funds that aid the Israeli war effort, funding what the UN calls “a moral stain on us all”.
Like so many other ACTU affiliates, the United Workers Union (UWU), with 151,000 members, talks a good game on Israel’s actions in Gaza, but hasn’t put its members’ super where its mouth is. MWM’s efforts to ascertain how much the union had done to lobby its super funds – HostPlus, Australian Super and HESTA – yielded nothing.
What we learned from UWU members is that in early 2024, a rank-and-file motion including divestment was passed at the council level in various states before being “soft-blocked” by union officials, who reportedly sat on it. Later that year, a more formal “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions” (BDS) motion, requiring real action compelling divestment by the super funds, was defeated.
“Social issues are bread and butter issues, and funding war is a dead end. Our leadership – who are on the boards of HESTA and Australian Super – (need) to stop hiding behind ‘fiduciary duties’ to fund death and destruction”, UWU delegate (early childhood education) Nicki Toupin told MWM.
Fidiciary duties
Fiduciary duty doesn’t just provide cover for unions putting the bottom line first. “In the interests of members”, it’s cited time and again by super funds whenever there’s pressure to divest.
Buttressing their argument is case law precedent, which will raise the hackles of Australian republicans: Cowan v Scargill, a UK decision dating back to the Thatcher years (1985), helped redefine a member’s “best interests” as “best financial interests” (emphasis added). 2021 changes to fiduciary duty here in Australia reflect that new emphasis.
How do you define “best financial interests”? Wouldn’t a stable Middle East be good for the world’s economy, providing investment opportunities for our super funds that don’t involve genocide?
“Egregious war crimes, crimes against humanity and devastating environmental impacts mean you can argue that the financial interests of super fund members are undermined by investments that support the Israeli military”, Claire Parfitt, Senior Lecturer in Political Economy at Sydney University, told MWM.
It seems our super funds, and their investment managers, are ignoring these arguments in the quest for a quick return, their investment in the Israeli war machine rendering Middle East instability something of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
There are, of course, equal and opposite rules against super funds investing in projects “maintaining the situation created by Israel’s illegal presence in the occupied Palestinian territory”. But some rules, it seems, are more equal than others; successive Australian governments barely lift a finger to enforce international court rulings, human rights obligations and social considerations (ESG), which might trouble the bottom line.
To quote a famous movie line, “a foul is not a foul unless the ref blows his whistle”. The failure to enforce international and ethical obligations means super funds can go on hiding behind “fiduciary duty”; at least 18 of our 20 industry funds are doing just that.
The “fiduciary duty” chestnut, and “soft blocking” tactics by union officials aligned with an ALP which quietly supports the Gaza carnage, have rendered meaningful “change from within” on divestment all but impossible. So groups like ASU for Palestine and UWU 4 Palestine are taking matters into their own hands.
Following a 1000-strong “community picket” of the Israeli-owned ZIM Ganges cargo ship at Port Melbourne, ASU for Palestine started looking at divestment as a way to hit Israel where it hurts. After ASU secretary (now Senator) Lisa Darmanin, then a board member at Vision Super, inevitably advised ASU for Palestine of its “fiduciary and statutory obligations” (adding it wasn’t legal for her to “act as (a) representative” of ASU members on divestment) it became clear something more compelling was called for.
What did ASU for Palestine do? It began a campaign to raise awareness on divestment, suggesting ASU members “switch their super fund” elsewhere, while lobbying to change the default super fund in enterprise agreements to none other than Australian Ethical.
It’s amazing how the threat of losing thousands of ASU members (and untold millions) can motivate a super fund to abandon “fiduciary” rhetoric and do the right thing. A couple of months later, amid much fanfare at the ASU conference, Vision Super announced its limited divestment, full details of which are expected by the end of this month.
These kinds of ‘direct action’ appear to actually work, although (per APAN) the extent of Vision’s divestment was limited. “If it’s not good enough, we’ll just have to go again”, Sparrow told MWM.
For their part, UWU 4 Palestine sees divestment as a major social cause that it and Members First, a grassroots change ticket at upcoming union elections, can get their teeth into. “Building a rank and file, fighting union that isn’t remote from members gives us the power to push for the kind of world we want, not just on workplace issues but in investing our money in something other than genocide”, Toupin told MWM, adding
While the “Iran war” is fuelling Israel’s desire for Middle East chaos, Australia finds itself in strategic quagmire of confused priorities and escalating energy costs. Stuart McCarthy reports.
According to the 2023 Defence Strategic Review, Australia is confronting the “worst strategic circumstances since WWII.” A need to “pivot” from pointless “forever wars” in the Middle East towards the Indo-Pacific and counter a rapid build-up of Chinese military power evidently warrants an overhaul of our “not fit for purpose” defence force, expenditure of up to $368B on AUKUS submarines and a plan to enter the “missile age.”
No mention is made in that “strategic” document of this country’s most serious vulnerability. Namely, our systemic exposure to exactly the kind of global oil shocks triggered by the latest Middle East military fiasco.
Our lack of preparedness for these shocks is the result of at least two decades of inexcusable incompetence across the political spectrum.
The reality we face is that Australia has been caught with its pants down during a seismic but foreseeable shift in the global geopolitical landscape. The fallout from the current Middle East war will hit us hard, and we are not prepared.
Even if the Strait of Hormuz – the vital artery for 20% of global oil supplies – is miraculously reopened to merchant shipping within the next few weeks, an economic recession is already a safe bet. The 1979 oil shock saw a severe recession across industrialised countries. Australia saw a double-dip recession, and unemployment rose to more than 10%.
Oil dependency
Australia produces less oil now than it did in 1979, but demand has doubled over the same period, in line with economic growth. We are now 90% dependent on imported petroleum fuel.
The 20 years needed to transform our road transport fleet have been squandered, and we are at the tail end of a jet fuel-dependent global air transport system. The demand-led Covid recession saw a 7% decline in domestic petroleum fuel consumption, mostly as a result of the near total shut down of the aviation sector, but we now face a collapse in the availability of globally traded petroleum fuels, affecting the entire transport sector.
And there’s more. As much as two-thirds of the Urea fertiliser used by Australian farmers also usually comes through the Strait of Hormuz. There are already shortages of some essential medicines and other manufactured goods, which rely on fragile, just-in-time global supply chains.
The stability of our financial system remains as dependent on the assumption of perpetual economic growth as it did before the 2008 financial crisis. Oil supply and economic shocks such as these are blithely dismissed as “externalities” in business-as-usual finance and economic models. Much of the financial capital we need to properly transform our economy to a sovereign resilience model is sure to evaporate in equities and finance markets.
This shock will undoubtedly be much worse than what we saw in 1979.
“And who will pay the price? In short, we all will.”
The cost of war
Since the end of WWII, the human costs of Australia’s wars have been carried solely by the tiny proportion of our community who serve in the defence force, their families and the populations of countries “over there.”
For most of us, mere curiosities on the evening news or social media feeds.
Within military circles, Australia’s contributions to US-led wars in the Middle East and elsewhere have often been disparaged as niche wars. Relatively small contingents of “niche” capabilities were assigned to US-led military coalitions with little impact on overall strategic outcomes other than legitimising US hegemony, while minimising domestic political risk and accountability in case things went wrong.
Given this government reflexively committed us to this war with even less forethought than previous governments in the last several wars, it would more accurately be described as Albanese’s rubber-stamp war.
Within hours of the first Israeli and US air strikes against Iran on 28 February, Albanese regurgitated the Israeli pretext that Iran posed an imminent nuclear threat. This pretext has already been publicly debunked by the US Director of National Intelligence.
Unprovoked attacks
For the second time in less than a year, the attacks were launched even as US officials were negotiating with the Khamenei regime over its uranium enrichment program. Iran would be irrational to come back to the negotiating table because that is now proven indicator of the next Israel-US aerial bombardment campaign.
“The degree of Israel-US incompetence on display here is breathtaking,”
even before any moral or legal considerations are made.
Now facing a direct existential threat, the Khamenei regime, on the other hand, has responded with a coherent strategy of lateral escalation, for which they have been preparing since at least 2003.
From their perspective, to “win” this war, all they need to do is survive.
Their strategy is to inflict severe economic pain on the global economy by closing the Strait of Hormuz until the US eventually comes to its senses, and to drive a wedge between the US and the Gulf states, which host permanent US military bases that project power across the region.
These bases have been a growing source of tension in the Middle East since the Iranian revolution in 1979 and the Russian invasion of Afghanistan later in the same year. The US at the time saw a Russian presence in Afghanistan as a threat to its vital national interests in maintaining access to Middle East oil exports, responding with a permanent military presence in the Gulf states under its “Carter doctrine.”
Over time, this US support also allowed the Gulf states and Israel to contain the perceived threat to regional stability from the Iranian regime.
Now, almost fifty years later and with the NATO-led Afghanistan and Iraq wars in the rear view mirror, US bases nonetheless remain, part of a self-perpetuating escalatory spiral with Iran.
Iran will not be content with Israel and the US merely stopping their attacks. They are now demanding that US bases in the Gulf be shut down permanently. The Gulf states – despite their serious diplomatic efforts to establish stable relations with Iran – are trapped in the middle of a war they didn’t want, and they have no clear way out.
War out of control?
On Wednesday night, Israel bombed South Pars, the world’s largest gas field jointly owned by Qatar and Iran. Iranian officials have vowed to launch retaliatory strikes against gas and oil infrastructure elsewhere in the region. This marks the next step up the escalatory ladder, and it means the duration of the energy and economic shock will be measured in years, not months.
Trump no longer has control of the situation, even if he ever did. Netanyahu has for many years envisaged not merely regime change but the fracturing of the Iranian state as a strategic win for Israel, and he – not Trump – is calling the shots.
For Australia’s part, our rubber-stamp contribution of an air force Wedgetail surveillance aircraft, ostensibly to help defend the United Arab Emirates from incoming Iranian missiles, has actually played into the hands of the Iranian strategic narrative.
Regardless of Foreign Minister Penny Wong’s nauseating semantics over this aircraft playing a “defensive” role,
“Australia is now party to the war with Iran,”
from our own base at Al Minhad in the UAE, which has already been targeted by the Iranians at least twice. We are one of only a small handful of Western countries with a permanent military presence in the Gulf, a presence that in and of itself is helping to fuel the escalatory spiral.
While all this plays out “over there”, for the first time in almost a century, some of the human cost of this war will be carried by the wider public here at home. Costs for fuel, food and utilities will continue to soar, as will mortgage payments and rents. Savings and investments will take a hit. Many people will lose their jobs. Some will lose their homes.
Among them are those who used to be considered Labor’s core constituents – the “Aussie battlers” who work hard but struggle to make ends meet – before the “workers’ party” abandoned its principles in favour of banal neoliberal economic rationalism, political careerism and mindless identity politics.
We can only hope that this shock might at last see a consensus emerge for a rational, sovereign, independent national security and foreign policy. Our policies of vassal state subservience to the US and, in this case, Israel are beyond unfit for purpose. They are directly undermining our vital national interests. In the meantime, we’re in for a rough ride.
Stuart McCarthy is a medically retired Australian Army officer whose 28-year military career included deployments to Afghanistan, Iraq, Africa, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. Stuart is an advocate for veterans with brain injury, disabilities, drug trial subjects and abuse survivors. Twitter: @StuartMcCarthy_
The dreams of the U.S. President, that it would all be over in days – that the Iranian people would rise against their tyrannical regime – is now a nightmare that Trump has visited upon the world.
The global economy is on the brink of disaster as oil dries up. America and Israel have further isolated themselves from world public opinion and, apart from an ever- shrinking clique of semi-vassal states like Australia, Trump appears to be alone and increasingly dangerous.
The war offers a great many lessons, but while life and history can be great teachers, there seem to be precious few pupils ready to learn those lessons. This applies equally to apologists for U.S. power, to governments of all stripes and to many of those who inhabit the Left and lay claim to Marxist credentials.
The war was never about “liberating” the Iranian people from the right-wing theocracy. It was about securing a compliant regime that would ensure the flow of oil and to make sure that the USA, as a fading imperial power, maintained global hegemony — both politically and economically.
The slogan that accompanied the wars of aggression against Iraq, that tore Libya apart and which laid waste to so much of the Middle East was simply, No Blood for Oil! The years have slipped by, and yet the same foul motivation for despoiling the globe and destroying a people remains.
Our mainstream media know this to be true, even as the “story” turns its focus to the retaliation by Iran and to the oil pressure that the blocking of the Straits of Hormuz entails. The same media focuses on potential oil shortages, and rightly so, but seems less keen to link that invasion to the fact that people are paying stupid prices for petrol and diesel.
Fewer voices can be heard that would remind the people of how the war started and who is responsible. That has become largely the responsibility of the Left — the Marxists, the campaigners against war and imperialism.
This is as it should be, but something is very wrong. Marxism is quite clear that economics is the defining factor and that politics works with and responds to economic demands. The war, then, can only be understood from an economic perspective. But is it being understood in this way? Sadly, no.
Some see it as a political gamble by a beleaguered and dangerously unhinged U.S. President. Some portray it as a means, by Israel, of destroying any potential risk to its domination of the region. Some come a step closer by recognising the strategic desire to weaken China, as it is a principal customer for Iranian oil.
Any and all of these considerations are enough to allow blame to be sheeted home to the USA and Israel, but there is a deeper, more worrying aspect to this. The United States has been and remains the single biggest military force and greatest economic power that the world has seen. It is, as the Marxist Left will say, an imperialist power. It is also a declining power.
For decades, its main preoccupation has been how to hold back the rising tide of its one great rival. China’s rise, accompanied by a global capitalist economy that has run out of ideas and resilience, ensures that wars are either finishing, beginning, or in the planning stage. A failing economic structure is driving the world to the point of no return. The war against Iran is one battle in this endless spiral into decay. The USA, as the central power in the capitalist global economy, is more than willing to destroy entire nations in its quest to keep the sinking ship afloat.
No crime is too much. The U.S. bombing the girls’ school in Iran, the Israeli destruction of oil facilities on the edge of Tehran that have led to acid rain and an unimaginable civilian health disaster, sicken all reasonable people. But those who plan such actions are not among the reasonable.
These acts need to be condemned. Governments need to show at least a modicum of decency. Our Prime Minister needs to stop slinking in the shadows and act. He needs to denounce such actions. He needs to find the courage to say “No!” and to work to secure the natural resources needed to keep Australia functioning. This is unlikely. Our political structures are such that we remain totally subservient to the demands and interests of the USA..
Those whose anger compels them to take to the streets deserve better than the Babel that has become the protest movement. The most recent action in Melbourne, which was dominated by ever more shrill denunciations of Israel, while mention of the USA and its causal responsibility for the war was at best an afterthought. Protest has merit, it is necessary and has purpose. It also needs focus, if it is to have either merit or purpose.
Protest is also about winning the hearts and minds of people. Sound and fury might be a therapy for some, but numbers count and numbers must grow, people must be educated, encouraged to talk to others, to build a movement that can go beyond noise.
Part of that building process must include the raising of collective consciousness. It must be able to show and convince people that this or that crime of the USA, of Israel, of imperialism, is not isolated, or in any way an aberrant thing, but is a symptom of a deeper, structural crisis. It is not enough for the ideologues to make demands that cannot be achieved. The protest movement, the anti-war movement, should aim at providing a vehicle, a voice for those who want something better than news screens full of war stories and a Federal Government pathetically marching to the fifes and drums of a fading U.S. empire.
European Union leaders have been prepared to stand back a little; to say that the war is not their war. It is hard to imagine an Australian government being daring enough to question anything that comes from Washington. As the sun sinks on U.S. hegemony, Australia seems ready to go down with the American ship.
After all, this is a man with the capacity to blunder into World War 3 without having any idea what he’s doing.
The complete absence of any plan or exit strategy in the escalating conflict with Iran demonstrates that even the most apocalyptic of unforeseen consequences cannot be ruled out
Trump’s Iran war raises fears of global conflict — while allies stay silent and diplomacy collapses, writes Mark Beeson.
U.S. PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP is the most dangerous man in the world. Why are we supporting him?
Many people were concerned about what a second Trump presidency might look like, but it’s uncontroversial to claim that it’s much worse than even the gloomiest pessimists feared.
It has been plain for a long time that Trump has little regard for the truth and is determined to silence independent media. But the one thing his supporters and the world in general might have hoped for was that he wouldn’t have gone back on his promise to not start unnecessary, ill-conceived wars, especially in the Middle East.
And yet, not only has Trump launched an illegal war with Iran, which has already resulted in the deaths of thousands, including innocent schoolgirls, but he is also displaying a psychopathic delight in using America’s overwhelming military might ‘just for fun’.
Given that the assault on Iran is being conducted with – or even on behalf of – Israel there is a breathtaking irony in the fact that Trump is displaying the same sort of indifference to human suffering that allowed individual Nazis to take part in the ‘final solution’ and the murder of six million Jews.
It is, of course, entirely possible that Trump doesn’t really know what’s going on given his increasingly obvious cognitive decline, but he has never exhibited much human empathy and is a compulsive liar and confabulator. These qualities arguably made him unfit to be a property developer, much less the most powerful man on Earth.
Given his famously child-like need for attention and adulation, which his courtiers and cronies are only too willing to provide, there is absolutely no chance of him changing. On the contrary, his belief that God is proud of him ought to alarm ought to alarm friend and foe alike.
After all, this is a man with the capacity to blunder into World War 3 without having any idea what he’s doing. The complete absence of any plan or exit strategy in the escalating conflict with Iran demonstrates that even the most apocalyptic of unforeseen consequences cannot be ruled out.
While an international economic crisis may not be the worst thing that could happen, for those of us fortunate enough to live in peaceful Australia it really ought to demonstrate that Trump is a threat to supposed friends and allies, as well as the innocent Iranians he promised to help.
If nothing else, Trump’s behaviour should make the danger and folly of relying on someone quite so delusional and self-obsessed clear to even our most unthinking policymakers. Trump will be satisfied with nothing less than the complete support and cooperation of allies, no matter how misguided or inhuman his policies may be.
Given the decades of uncritical fealty Australia’s leaders have displayed to the United States, it is no surprise that there has generally been an uncomfortable silence about ‘our’ response to the latest American-led fiasco.
‘We (sic) support the United States acting to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and to prevent Iran continuing to threaten international peace and security.’
It’s worth remembering that Iran was attacked while trying to negotiate a new agreement to replace the one Trump tore up, a tactic that may have allowed the U.S. to decapitate Iran’s leadership but won’t making resolving the conflict any easier. Truth, diplomacy and trustworthiness are clearly for losers. Might clearly does make right in Trump-world. This reality may help to explain why the Albanese government is keeping its collective head down.
Other leaders have not been quite so supine and gutless, however. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, after fruitless attempts at ingratiating himself with Trump, unambiguously stated that the “government will not participate in this war”. Moreover, Merz pointed out that Trump’s war had nothing to do with NATO, which was a defensive alliance, not one designed for wars of aggression.
Trump responded in his usual fashion with threats and bluster, suggesting a failure to support his ill-conceived war would be ‘very bad’ for NATO. Although we have learned not expect truth or consistency when dealing with Trump, suggesting that the foundation of the Western alliance may be in jeopardy is hardly a minor threat. Trump’s great friend Vladimir Putin must be delighted.
If our leaders are too unimaginative and cowardly to speak up in defence of international law, or to criticise unilateralism and the intensification of great power politics, civil society must do what it can. The absence of the sort of activism and protests that characterised opposition to the equally ill-conceived and pointless Vietnam War is disappointing and revealing, however. Perhaps it takes 500 actual combat deaths and the prospect of being called-up to bring home the reality of war to Australians.
Or perhaps rising interest rates, the cost of filling up a monstrous SUV, or re-routing your European holiday might do the trick. Either way, it’s reassuring to know that President Trump thinks the war with Iran is going so well that he gives if 15 out of 10. Nothing for our leaders to worry about after all.
‘…every day Trump and Netanyahu’s demands of Australia keep growing.’
She accused Labor of having ‘no red lines’. Australia’s significant Iranian, Israeli, Lebanese, and broader Middle Eastern diaspora communities bring both personal grief and political intensity to the debate.
Operation Epic Fury is exposing the true cost of alliance dependence, energy fragility, and strategic distraction from the Indo-Pacific, writes Vince Hooper.
ON 28 FEBRUARY 2026, the United States and Israel launched Operation Epic Fury against Iran. As the war enters its third week, the scale is staggering: at least 1,348 Iranian civilians killed and over 17,000 injured, 3.2 million displaced, approximately 6,000 U.S. strikes, and a new supreme leader – Mojtaba Khamenei – vowing to keep the Strait of Hormuz closed.
The International Energy Agency warns of the ‘largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market’. Oil has breached US$100 (AU$142.11) a barrel. More than 820,000 have been displaced in Lebanon as Israel–Hezbollah hostilities reignite.
For Australia, geographically distant but entangled through alliance commitments, intelligence infrastructure, energy dependence and a 115,000-strong diaspora in the Middle East, the ramifications are immediate. In financial economics, alliance membership functions like a call option — the right to draw on a protector’s military power, but at a price paid in sovereignty foregone, bases hosted, and conflicts joined.
The Iran crisis is Australia’s margin call. The price is suddenly, painfully visible.
The alliance reflex
The Albanese Government endorsed Operation Epic Fury with speed that surprised even American officials, while insisting Australia was “not participating” offensively.
By 10 March, that distinction had eroded: Albanese deployed an E-7A Wedgetail early warning aircraft, air-to-air missiles for the UAE, and 85 Australian Defence Force personnel to the Gulf. The Wedgetail’s capacity to map missile launch locations and coordinate battle management in real time makes it far more than a passive shield — the line between defensive and offensive enablement is, as one analyst observed, a blurry one at best.
It has since emerged that three Royal Australian Navy sailors were aboard the U.S. submarine that torpedoed the Iranian frigate IRIS Dena near Sri Lanka on 4 March — the first U.S. submarine torpedo attack since the Second World War.
Albanese confirmed their presence but insisted they did not take part in offensive action. Meanwhile, the Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap near Alice Springs – now hosting 45 satellite radomes and dishes – continues to provide real-time intelligence across the Middle East. A former NSA analyst confirmed in 2023 that Pine Gap was collecting data on the Gaza conflict and “surrounding areas”.
That intelligence flows to Washington and, in turn, to Israel. Having invested decades in this facility, Australia cannot credibly claim neutrality. It is infrastructure that commits the country irrevocably — a strategic investment with no exit clause.
The Indo-Pacific opportunity cost
Here is the dimension that should concern Australian strategists most. In what economists call “real options” theory, the value of an investment depends on keeping the opportunity alive until conditions are ripe. AUKUS is precisely such an option: a ticket to a credible submarine deterrent, but only if the U.S. industrial base and technology transfers remain available. The Iran conflict is degrading every one of those conditions.
The U.S. submarine industrial base produces around 1.2 Virginia-class boats per year against a combined requirement of 2.3.
An Iran war that diverts Navy priorities means no spare construction capacity for Australian boats. Congressional approvals, State Department licences, and Department of Energy support all stall when those agencies are managing Iran’s nuclear fragments. Australia’s planned 2030s submarine delivery could slip to the 2040s. We know the cost of American distraction: between 2001 and 2020, while Afghanistan and Iraq consumed U.S. bandwidth, China militarised the South China Sea, developed carrier-killing missiles, and built the world’s largest navy.
The U.S. has already spent over US$11 billion (AU$15 billion) in Epic Fury’s first week. As the Hudson Institute’s Zineb Riboua has argued, every dollar spent defending Red Sea shipping lanes is a dollar unavailable for Pacific basing or Taiwan contingency planning.
Fat tails at the fuel bowser
Australia imports roughly 90 per cent of its refined liquid fuel. The Strait of Hormuz, carrying a fifth of global petroleum, has been reduced to what the IEA calls ‘a trickle’ — global supplies down an estimated eight million barrels per day. IEA members have agreed to release 400 million barrels from emergency stockpiles, the largest coordinated release in history, but analysts warn this only partially offsets prolonged disruption.
For anyone who studies what statisticians call ‘fat-tailed’ distributions — events that are rare but devastating when they occur — this is a textbook case. Australia’s fuel supply architecture is built for normal times: 36 days of strategic reserves against an IEA benchmark of 90.
According to Westpac’s modelling, a one-month Hormuz disruption lifts the Australian CPI by approximately 1 percentage point; a three-month closure spikes it by 1.5 points and reduces GDP by 0.5 points. Petrol prices could rise 40 cents per litre. LNG prices have surged 12 per cent, and Qatari production remains halted. These pressures compound: higher oil costs flow through shipping, fertilisers, and manufacturing into broader inflation, landing on an economy where the RBA is already navigating delicate disinflation.
115,000 reasons to worry
An estimated 115,000 Australians were in the Middle East when the conflict erupted.
“This is a consular crisis that dwarfs any that Australia has had to deal with in terms of numbers of people.”
The closure of airspace across Bahrain, Iraq, Iran, Qatar, Kuwait, and Syria stranded thousands.
By 10 March, over 2,600 had returned on 18 flights from the UAE.
Tens of thousands remain, with Smartraveller now advising against all travel to the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Israel, and Lebanon. Bus convoys to Kuwait and Bahrain, overland routes to Oman, and limited commercial flights have been the improvised lifelines. Canberra also granted asylum to five members of Iran’s women’s football team who were in Queensland for the AFC Women’s Asian Cup — a gesture that only hints at the potential for larger refugee flows if the conflict deepens further.
The rules-based order — selectively applied
Operation Epic Fury was launched without UN Security Council authorisation. Ben Saul the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, has stated that Iran had not enriched uranium to the point of building a nuclear device — the case for self-defence, in his words, “does not fall anywhere close”.
Australia’s refusal to address the strikes’ legality places it in what ANU’s Don Rothwell calls a “say nothing” posture — conspicuously at odds with its willingness to assert the illegality of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
In my own work on alliance behaviour, I model geopolitical commitments using the same frameworks that price financial options. International law functions as a hedge — an insurance policy limiting everyone’s downside. When a country lets that insurance lapse for allies while enforcing it against adversaries, it is strategically exposed.
For a middle power whose influence rests on normative authority rather than military mass, this shapes standing in ASEAN, the Pacific Islands Forum, and every multilateral setting where Western double standards are a live issue.
Domestically, the Greens’ Senator Larissa Waters captured the mood of many when she warned:
‘…every day Trump and Netanyahu’s demands of Australia keep growing.’
She accused Labor of having ‘no red lines’. Australia’s significant Iranian, Israeli, Lebanese, and broader Middle Eastern diaspora communities bring both personal grief and political intensity to the debate.
The energy transition as strategic hedge
If the conflict carries a silver lining, it may be in strengthening the case for energy transition. Renewables and storage now provide nearly 45 per cent of electricity on Australia’s main grid and contributed to halving wholesale power prices in late 2025. Renewable energy is a natural insurance policy against geopolitical oil shocks: its fuel cost is zero and its supply chain is overwhelmingly domestic.
Accelerating electrification of transport, homes, and industry reduces exposure to precisely the kind of extreme energy price events that the Strait of Hormuz crisis illustrates. But the transition is capital-intensive: a one-year delay in wind or transmission projects could increase residential power prices by up to 20 per cent. The conflict sharpens both the urgency and the stakes.
The margin call
The Iran conflict is a stress test for Australian strategic policy on every front: alliance dependence, energy fragility, consular capacity, and commitment to international law. Most importantly, it reveals the opportunity cost in the Indo-Pacific.
Every month of Middle Eastern entanglement is a month in which AUKUS – and a credible deterrent posture in the Western Pacific – loses value. The conflict is not just consuming Australian resources. It is consuming the strategic future those resources were meant to buy.
For policymakers, the lessons are uncomfortable but clear. Diversification – of energy sources, strategic relationships, and economic exposure – is not merely desirable but urgent. The capacity to make independent strategic judgements, rather than reflexively aligning with allied positions, must be cultivated alongside the alliance itself. International law must be applied consistently, not selectively invoked when adversaries breach it and quietly set aside when allies do the same. The margin call has arrived. The question is whether Australia can pay it without liquidating the portfolio.
Vince Hooper is a proud Australian-British citizen and professor of finance and discipline head at SP Jain School of Global Management with campuses in London, Dubai, Mumbai, Singapore and Sydney.
The head of Australia’s peak network group has called for regulatory change and more flexibility for homes and their power assets, to help local networks manage the consumer-driven push towards 100 per cent renewables across the country.
Andrew Bills is the chair of Energy Networks Australia, and finds himself at the cutting edge of this transition as CEO of SA Power Networks, where the output of rooftop solar alone exceeds grid demand about every second day of the year.
South Australia is expected – within 18 months – to become the first gigawatt-scale grid in the world to reach 100 per cent “net” renewables (the net refers to the fact that it imports and exports at times and is not an isolated grid), and is already running at a 75 per cent share of wind and solar.
Much of that solar comes from households, with nearly half (48 pct) of all homes supporting a total of 3.2 gigawatts of rooftop solar capacity, which is significant in a grid with average demand less than half of that.
That solar penetration is also world leading, and at a level that stuns network peers in other countries. It is rapidly being followed by a faster uptake of home batteries (double that of the country average), and a growing interest in electric vehicles.
This has required South Australia to be at the forefront of key technologies designed manage this home energy revolution, initially with the blunt and rarely used “solar switch-off”, required by the market operator as a last resort to help maintain grid security.
That has been followed, more successfully, by the rollout of innovative technologies that allow for flexible exports for solar households, and no longer limits the amount of rooftop solar that can be installed.
Palantir represents a new phase in Silicon Valley’s evolution, a shift from consumer platforms to sovereign infrastructure. From apps designed to distract us to systems designed to govern us.
Palantir’s software deployment in Australia comes ahead of a coordinated lobbying push to expand adoption of its systems, positioning them to become a de facto operating system for governments globally through sheer market dominance.
Australia is making an unspoken admission: that social democracy is now seen as too slow and inefficient for an AI-driven world, where speed is quietly replacing human judgment. This is the great deception of hasty AI adoption.
These are the quiet admissions of a society steered by populist fear: the myth that productivity driven growth is limitless, and the delusion that automating human empathy will not edge us toward autocracy.
So where do we stop?
Do we outsource judgment. Do we automate trust. Do we accept a black box view of reality in exchange for speed.
The result is a feedback loop. Data feeds the system. The system reshapes perception. Perception justifies more data. Slowly, the world begins to look exactly as the software expects it to.
There’s a familiar feeling after a software update.
Nothing looks different. The icons are where you left them. The system boots. The coffee still tastes the same.
But something subtle has shifted.
Menus rearranged. Permissions altered. A few options you used to have simply evaporated.
We’re expected to accept a system that doesn’t reason, doesn’t ask permission, operates without consent, and collapses the complexity of human context, nuance, and lived experience into binary outcomes.
No announcement. No apology. Just a new normal.
The quiet inversion Orwell warned about: not brute force, but soft machinery. Not the scream, but the hum.
A world where seeing everything replaces understanding anything, where speed outranks judgment, and probability passes for truth.
The system doesn’t need to lie.
It just decides what is perceived as real.
Palantir isn’t a surveillance scandal. It’s a design choice.
Who’s Watching the Watchers?
One day, sitting on a bench, watching light move through trees, you realise something small but irreversible.
You’re no longer being seen by people.
You’re being interpreted by infrastructure.
That’s not a crisis moment.
It’s an installation moment.
And installations, once embedded deeply enough, rarely come with an uninstall option.
Australia didn’t choose authoritarianism. It chose efficiency
We didn’t suspend democracy. We quietly routed around it.
You don’t lose freedom all at once. You outsource it, piece by piece, to systems that promise to manage burden for us.
The pitch is seductive to politicians and bureaucrats: efficiency, seamless integration, prevention over response. But this isn’t a routine upgrade. It’s a Trojan Horse, quietly ushering in a new era of global corporatocracy.
Palantir does not merely process data; it installs a proprietary “ontology” with a map of clusters of a calculated reality that dictates to a government what is considered relevant or risky.
It replaces the presumption of innocence with algorithmic probability, shifting justice from what you did to what you might do. Once a sovereign nation relies on such a system, it no longer acts as a customer but as a dependent, outsourcing responsibility and accountability.
Authors note:I don’t mean to be nasty but…
I’m not in the habit of playing the man/woman/person instead of the ball but, this is the age of disruption in a period of brazen populism that rewards narcissism.
People like Trump, Musk, Altman, Karp and Thiel routinely make statements that are disconcerting, extreme, misleading, and at times plainly unhinged.
They face little consequence because wealth and power insulate them, reinforcing the belief that billionaire status equates to insight – despite being far removed from the lived reality of the people most affected by the chaos caused by the systems they shape.
Buyer Beware: To understand the creeping authoritarianism we as Australians just installed, we must look at the radically unhinged ideologies of the architects who designed it.
Peter Thiel: The Sovereign Dream
Founder Peter Thiel has been unusually candid about his beliefs. He has stated that he no longer believes freedom and democracy are compatible.
His worldview, influenced by René Girard’s theory of mimetic conflict, treats human society as inherently unstable, something to be managed, contained, and overseen by a competent elite.
Thiel’s Zero to One philosophy celebrates monopolies. Competition, he argues, is wasteful. Governance by consensus is inefficient. The future belongs to singular systems operated by those smart enough to bypass friction.
This worldview is not theoretical. Thiel is now a New Zealand citizen and has publicly acknowledged preparing for large scale civilisational disruption.
He owns property on New Zealand’s South Island, widely reported as part of a network of fortified survival infrastructure intended to function during a catastrophic global event, often described in Silicon Valley as an H2 scenario, a hard reset moment involving systemic collapse.
This may sound like a dramatic interpretation of his intention however, considering the dots we are joining, Palantir is the practical expression of this thinking.
Its a monopoly on state intelligence designed to operate beyond the slow checks and balances of democratic process, resilient not just to crime or terrorism, but to political instability itself.
This is mostly true for all disruptive big tech firms. They grow and evolve so fast that the consequential fallout of the technology lags years behind legislation. They operate in the wild west at the expense of law, privacy, social cohesion, mental health, criminality and human rights till the sheriff arrives.
Alex Karp: The Dialectical Justifier
CEO Alex Karp presents differently. He speaks the language of philosophy, progress, and reluctant necessity. He frames Palantir through a dialectical lens, civil liberties on one side, a dangerous world on the other, resolved by a system powerful enough to neutralise chaos.
In this framing, surveillance is not abuse but compromise. Dominance becomes protection. Efficiency becomes morality.
Karp has acknowledged that bad times are very good for Palantir. The company is built for crisis. It thrives on instability, on moments when societies are willing to trade uncertainty for control.
The contradiction is hard to miss. In claiming to prevent fascism by enforcing order, the system quietly adopts fascism’s core mechanism, total visibility, preemptive control, and the reduction of citizens to managed statistical variables.
It is not win lose. It is domination.
It is founder Peter Thiel who pushes this idea of world domination into the realm of absolute madness.
If you strip away this ridiculous theatrical charade, you don’t find a philosopher. You find the Nero of Silicon Valley, a wanna be digital dictator actively engineering the end of inconvenient democracy.
Here is the actual plumbing behind the smoke and mirrors:
A: The Hypocrisy of the “Anti-Satanist” Thiel preaches that global governance and regulation are the “Antichrist” of our era. Yet, his primary engine of wealth, Palantir, is the ultimate weapon of the administrative state.
Palantir provides the data-mining backbone for ICE, the Pentagon, and global police forces. He decries the global surveillance state while acting as Big Brother’s lead software engineer.
He isn’t fighting the system as a small government libertarian; he just wants the monopoly on its operating system.
B: The Untruths of “Stagnation” In his lectures, Thiel claims the world is trapped in scientific “stagnation,” literally labelling anyone who advocates for climate change mitigation, environmental survival, or AI safety guardrails as a “Luddite” and a “legionnaire of the Antichrist”.
This is a blatant untruth used to mask regulatory capture. He doesn’t care about stagnation; he simply demands a world where his tech monopolies can operate without the friction of human empathy, environmental protection, or legal boundaries.
C: The Puppeteer Behind the Chaos Thiel presents a false binary choice between total “Armageddon” and a stagnant global state.
But he is not a prophet warning us of the fire; he is the arsonist selling the fire extinguisher.
Operating through dark money donor networks, Thiel is the primary financial engine behind figures like J.D. Vance and organisations such as the Heritage Foundation – the architects of the Project 2025 blueprint.
He is one of the chief puppeteers behind the Trump-era chaos. Thiel actively funds anti-establishment disruption to dismantle regulatory frameworks, intentionally manufacturing the very societal chaos he claims only Palantir’s mass surveillance can manage.
D: The Delusion of Superiority and Human evolution Driven by René Girard’s “Mimetic Theory,” Thiel views the general public as a mindless, moronic mob that must be controlled by elites like him.
Embracing the delusion of the Sovereign Individual, Thiel has no intention of fixing the democratic systems he helps break. Instead, he is hoarding fortified doomsday bunkers in New Zealand, actively preparing for an “H2 scenario” heralding a catastrophic, systemic global collapse.
This deep disregard for humanity culminates in an obsession with redesigning human evolution itself. Thiel treats human limitation and death as defects to be solved, pouring massive investments into transhumanism, cryonics, and young blood transfusions.
His endgame is a complete evolutionary split: engineering a future where the billionaire class achieves digital eternity as a sovereign, immortal species, leaving the masses to burn on an unregulated, collapsing planet.
This may be hard to grasp but thats the type of people Australia has entrusted their government data to.
The Verdict
Australia didn’t choose authoritarianism; it chose efficiency. We are quietly outsourcing our reality to an unaccountable technocracy.
Thiel’s lectures aren’t a warning about a coming digital dictator; they are a job application for the position.
He is the man who sells you the matches, then offers to build you a fireproof bunker for the price of your freedom.
Palantir isn’t just software. It is an installation moment. And installations this deep rarely come with an uninstall option.
While Palantir refines its “kill chain” in Gaza, Australia is engaged in the largest military transfer of wealth in its history.
The submarines will not arrive until the early 2040s. In the meantime, Australia has established an export licence-free environment with the UK and US, allowing military and dual-use goods to be transferred between AUKUS partners without oversight. This includes AI and autonomy technologies
The line between Australian defence procurement and U.S. military-industrial interests has effectively dissolved.
On December 10, 2025, Responsible Statecraft published a report that should have shaken capitals around the world. Buried in the details of President Trump’s 20-point “peace plan” for Gaza was a revelation: two American surveillance firms, Palantir and Dataminr, had embedded personnel inside the U.S.-run Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC) in southern Israel.
Their presence was not incidental. Palantir’s Project Maven – an “AI-powered battlefield platform” that collects surveillance data from satellites, drones, and intercepted communications to “optimize the kill chain” – was being positioned to shape Gaza’s post-war security architecture. Dataminr, which scans social media to provide “event, threat, and risk intelligence” to governments and law enforcement, was also inside the room.
This is not conspiracy. This is confluence – the quiet alignment of corporate interests, military objectives, and political capture. This article traces that confluence from the battlefields of Gaza to the boardrooms of Australia, and asks a simple question: Who benefits?
Part One: The Business Model – AI as Occupation
Palantir’s “Kill Chain” Optimisation
Palantir Technologies has been explicit about its ambitions. CEO Alex Karp has described the company’s technology as “optimising the kill chain.” Project Maven, for which Palantir recently secured a $10 billion Pentagon contract, sucks information from multiple sources and “packages it into a common, searchable app for commanders and support groups.” It has already been deployed to guide U.S. airstrikes across the Middle East, including in Yemen, Syria, and Iraq.
Since January 2024, Palantir has been in a “strategic partnership” with Israel’s military for “war-related missions”. The company has expanded its Tel Aviv office significantly over the last two years. Karp defended this collaboration amid international concerns over war crimes, saying Palantir was the first to be “completely anti-woke”.
The Gaza Laboratory
For the last two years, Gaza has functioned as an incubator for militarised AI. Israel’s Lavender system, an AI-assisted surveillance tool, used predictive analytics to rank Palestinians’ likelihood of being connected to militant groups, based on an opaque set of criteria. Public sector workers – healthcare workers, teachers, police officers – were included on kill lists because they had ties to Hamas by virtue of working in a territory the group governed.
The Gospel system functioned as a “mass assassination factory.” One source admitted spending only “20 seconds” per target before authorising bombing – just enough to confirm the Lavender-marked target was male.
Under Trump’s proposed “peace plan,” these technologies would be scaled up. The plan envisions “Alternative Safe Communities” – fenced, heavily monitored compounds where Palestinians would be relocated, their movements tracked by AI systems, their online activity scanned by Dataminr, their phones monitored by Palantir’s platforms. Entry would be contingent on approval by Israel’s Shin Bet, with criteria that could disqualify hundreds of thousands based on algorithmic “risk scores.”
For tech companies, war is opportunity. Access to vast datasets, real-world testing for new military systems, and long-term contracts for post-war surveillance infrastructure.
For Israel, the arrangement offers a way to outsource occupation while maintaining control.
For Palestinians, it promises more of what they have already endured: unremitting horror, dragnet surveillance, and death by algorithm.
Part Two: The Australian Connection – Wealth Transfer and Complicity
AUKUS: The $368 Billion Commitment
While Palantir refines its “kill chain” in Gaza, Australia is engaged in the largest military transfer of wealth in its history. The AUKUS nuclear submarine program is estimated to cost $368 billion over coming decades, with $53–63 billion allocated for the first decade alone.
The submarines will not arrive until the early 2040s. In the meantime, Australia has established an export licence-free environment with the UK and US, allowing military and dual-use goods to be transferred between AUKUS partners without oversight. This includes AI and autonomy technologies developed under Pillar 2 of the agreement, which focuses on “artificial intelligence and autonomy, quantum science, advanced cyber, and electronic warfare.”
The same technologies being tested on Palestinian populations in Gaza are, under AUKUS, being integrated into Australia’s defence infrastructure.
The Ghost Shark Precedent
In September 2025, the government announced a $1.7 billion investment in “Ghost Shark” autonomous submarines – underwater drones developed by Australian company Anduril, whose U.S. parent has close ties to the defence establishment. Assistant Minister Matt Thistlethwaite described the technology as so impressive that “the Americans have invested in the company.”
The line between Australian defence procurement and U.S. military-industrial interests has effectively dissolved.
The Cost of Living vs. The Cost of War
While this wealth transfers to the United States, Australians struggle with a cost-of-living crisis that the government refuses to adequately address. The Robodebt scheme – an automated system that raised unlawful debts against welfare recipients – offers a template for how algorithmic governance can devastate vulnerable populations .
The National Anti-Corruption Commission recently found two public servants engaged in “serious corrupt conduct” in relation to Robodebt. But as Economic Justice Australia noted:
“The system punishes only the vulnerable. The main sanction for damaging behaviour at the top levels of the Department has been naming and shaming.”
No one went to jail. No one lost their pension. The system protected itself.
The same pattern is now repeating at scale: algorithms making life-and-death decisions, with no one accountable when they fail.
Part Three: The Segal Nexus – Silencing Critics, Enabling the Agenda
The Envoy’s Role
Jillian Segal AO, Australia’s Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism, occupies a unique position at the intersection of power. Her credentials are impeccable: former ASIC deputy chair, board member of the Sydney Opera House Trust, the Garvan Institute, and the Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce. She is deeply embedded in the networks that connect Australian business to Israeli interests.
In December 2025, the Albanese Government formally adopted Segal’s Plan to Combat Antisemitism, accepting all 13 recommendations………………………………………………………………………………………..
The framework created by the antisemitism envoy – however well-intentioned – provides cover for those who would shut down debate. Critics are not engaged; they are managed. Those who persist are not answered; they are silenced.
The Business Connection
Segal’s husband’s company, Henroth Investments, donated $50,000 to Advance Australia, a right-wing lobby group that has shared anti-immigration content and claimed Palestinians in Australia were a “risk to security.” She has disclaimed knowledge of the donation, and government ministers have accepted her statement .
But the appearance matters. When the antisemitism envoy is married to a donor to an organisation that promotes anti-Palestinian rhetoric, it feeds a perception that her role serves a particular political agenda rather than a genuine anti-racism brief. When her networks connect Australian business to Israeli interests, and when those interests align with the very AI companies testing their technologies on Palestinian populations, the confluence becomes visible.
Part Four: The Alignment of Values
In a bizarre way, the values of Palantir’s leadership align with the values of Australia’s political class…………………………………………………………………………………
What if they were, instead, a mechanism to enable and facilitate Israel’s transition to an AI-driven economy independent of the United States?
Consider the logic:
Israel seeks economic independence. Netanyahu has announced plans to “taper off” U.S. military aid, pivoting toward AI sovereignty. A $200 million joint AI and quantum science center with the U.S. is in development.
A state reliant on a single product must ensure demand. If Israel’s future exports are AI-driven surveillance and warfare technologies, it needs customers. It needs a demonstrated market. It needs a proof of concept.
Gaza provides the laboratory. The technologies tested there—Lavender, Gospel, the Maven platform – are refined in real-world conditions, with a population that cannot resist, cannot refuse, cannot escape.
Critics must be silenced. This is where the antisemitism framework becomes essential. If criticism of Israel’s actions can be reframed as antisemitism, if legitimate concerns about algorithmic warfare can be dismissed as hatred, if the very people documenting war crimes can be delegitimised – then the business model is protected.
Australia plays its part. By adopting the antisemitism envoy’s recommendations, by embedding the IHRA definition into policy, by creating legal frameworks that can be used to silence critics, Australia becomes an enabler of this system. Not through conspiracy—through confluence. Through the quiet alignment of interests that requires no coordination, only opportunity
Part Six: The Accountability Vacuum
The Robodebt scheme offers a template for what comes next………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..Conclusion: What We Have Discovered
This article has traced a network of connections that is not conspiracy but confluence:
Palantir and Dataminr embedded in Gaza, testing AI systems on a captive population, refining technologies that will be exported worldwide.
AUKUS transferring Australian wealth to the U.S. military-industrial complex, integrating the same AI and autonomy technologies into our defence infrastructure.
Jillian Segal positioned at the nexus of Australian business, government, and Israeli interests, her office providing the framework that silences critics.
The antisemitism claim deployed not against genuine hatred, but against legitimate criticism of Israeli policy – protecting the business model, enabling the silence. · The accountability vacuum ensuring that when things go wrong, no one is responsible.
The pattern is consistent. The players are visible. The evidence is documented.
Australian news analysis
What remains is for Australians to ask themselves: Is this who we want to be?
Do we want our wealth transferred to corporations that “optimize the kill chain“? Do we want our government to enable the testing of AI warfare on a captive population? Do we want our political class to silence critics while profiting from death?
The answer, for those with eyes to see, should be clear.
But the system is designed to keep those eyes closed. To cry “antisemitism” at anyone who questions. To ensure that the only voices heard are those that align with the business model.
An Australian charity receiving over $200 million in tax-deductible donations is ignoring international law, while the Government looks the other way. Stephanie Tran reports.
Jewish National Fund Australia (JNF Australia) has remitted more than $125.4m to Israel since 2009, according to financial records, while receiving $213m in tax-deductible donations since 2013.
In 2024 alone, the organisation reported $12m in donations and bequests, with $10.4m transferred to Israel.
Despite JNF Australia’s assertion that it operates independently of its Israeli parent, Keren Kayemet LeYisrael (KKL-JNF), an investigation by MWM has revealed that tax-deductible donations raised by JNF Australia have been directly transferred to KKL-JNF. Some of these funds have been used to support IDF soldiers and fund illegal settlements.
Independent really?
NF Australia has repeatedly stated that it operates independently of KKL-JNF in Israel.
In 2017, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanded that KKL-JNF transfer 80% of its revenue to the Finance Ministry to help fund state-run infrastructure projects or risk losing its tax-exempt status.
Following the announcement, JNF Australia declared that it was a “separate independent entity” from KKL-JNF. They stated that “funds raised by JNF Australia go directly towards these projects, with not one dollar used to fund KKL”
In 2021, KKL-JNF’s board voted to officially permit the purchase of private land in the occupied West Bank for settlement expansion, a decision that was criticised as an open violation of international law.
Shortly after the decision, JNF Australia’s president and CEO again attempted to distance the organisation from its Israeli parent, stating that the Australian body was “an independent entity from KKL”.
“JNF Australia only applies donor contributions towards JNF Australia projects and priorities [and] is therefore unaffected by any changes to KKL’s priorities and policies, whether in respect to land acquisition or elsewhere,” they said, adding that the organisation “has no representatives on the KKL board, nor is it involved with or bound by any of their decisions”.
However, our analysis of Israeli financial filings shows that JNF Australia has transferred millions of dollars directly to KKL-JNF (also known as the Israel National Fund) since making these statements.
Although the sources of foreign donations were redacted in Israel National Fund’s 2024 financial report, financial reports lodged in previous years identify Australia as a source of overseas donations.
Between 2021 and 2024, KKL-JNF received 41.86m Shekels ($19.4 million) in donations from Australia and New Zealand.
The financial reports state that these donations “are received from residents of various countries, including through KKL-JNF offices abroad”.
The Jewish National Fund was founded in 1901 to purchase land in Palestine for Jewish settlement, decades before the establishment of Israel. Over the past century, KKL-JNF has played a central role in land acquisition and large-scale “forestation” projects across the occupied Palestinian territories.
These activities have long been intertwined with the displacement of Palestinians. An investigation by Haaretz revealed that the Israeli Defence Ministry recruited KKL-JNF to secretly purchase Palestinian land in the West Bank for settlers. Israeli NGO Zochrot has accused JNF of contributing to the “ongoing Nakba” through projects that plant forests or develop parks on land where Palestinian communities once stood, while supporting illegal settlement initiatives.
In July 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued a landmark advisory opinion finding that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory is illegal under international law.
The ICJ held that Israel must end its presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory as rapidly as possible, and immediately cease all new settlement activity. The Court also held that third states have an obligation “not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by Israel’s illegal presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory”.
In a subsequent position paper responding to the ruling, the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem and Israel, said states should not provide tax deductibility for donations to organisations that support illegal occupation.
JNF supporting illegal settlements
The Jewish National Fund was founded in 1901 to purchase land in Palestine for Jewish settlement, decades before the establishment of Israel. Over the past century, KKL-JNF has played a central role in land acquisition and large-scale “forestation” projects across the occupied Palestinian territories.These activities have long been intertwined with the displacement of Palestinians. An investigation by Haaretz revealed that the Israeli Defence Ministry recruited KKL-JNF to secretly purchase Palestinian land in the West Bank for settlers. Israeli NGO Zochrot has accused JNF of contributing to the “ongoing Nakba” through projects that plant forests or develop parks on land where Palestinian communities once stood, while supporting illegal settlement initiatives.
In July 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued a landmark advisory opinion finding that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory is illegal under international law.
The ICJ held that Israel must end its presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory as rapidly as possible, and immediately cease all new settlement activity. The Court also held that third states have an obligation “not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by Israel’s illegal presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory”.
In a subsequent position paper responding to the ruling, the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem and Israel, said states should not provide tax deductibility for donations to organisations that support illegal occupation.
“States shall not give support to these organizations, for example, through allowing the organization to have tax-exempt status or providing tax deductibility for donations to the organization and must ensure that financial contributions to support the unlawful occupation, including settlements and settlers, cease,” the Commission said.
Chris Sidoti, a commissioner on the UN inquiry, said the implications for Australian charities that fund Israeli settlements were clear.
“We should end tax deductibility for any Australian charities that provide funding for Israeli settlements or for Israeli organisations that support the establishment or maintenance of settlements,” he said, “Any organisation that is financially or politically supporting the unlawful occupation, including funding settlements,
“should have its tax-exempt status removed and should be deregistered.”
Despite the UN General Assembly adopting a a resolution in September 2024 demanding that Israel end its unlawful occupation no later than 12 months after the adoption of the resolution, the Israeli government has accelerated settlements in the West Bank.
Last month, Israel’s security cabinet repealed land laws, enabling settlers to purchase land in the West Bank without limitation and without government oversight to “enable accelerated development of settlement on the ground”.
Since the US-Israeli war with Iran began, Israel has imposed a total military closure on the West Bank and Israeli settlers have seized the opportunity to expel more Palestinian communities from their land.
Support for IDF soldiers and settlers
Jewish National Fund Australia publicly promotes programs providing financial support to soldiers in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), including “Ach Gadol”, “Atidim Lone Soldier Education Support” and “Panim el Panim”.
The Ach Gadol initiative offers one-on-one support for “lone soldiers” serving in the IDF. The project aims to create a support system for lone soldiers throughout their army service and “deepen the values of Zionism and love of the land among young new immigrants”.
According to JNF, “there are over 7,000 lone soldiers currently serving in the IDF. About 45% of these soldiers are new immigrants, coming from Jewish communities all over the world.”
Panim-El-Panim is a program launched in cooperation with the IDF Chief Rabbinate to “provide the soldiers with the tools and ability to cope with the complex challenges they face during their military service and life afterwards”. According to JNF Australia, Panim-El-Panim meets with over 90 thousand soldiers annually.
Atidim Lone Soldier Education Support assists lone immigrant soldiers after their service, providing the “support they need to become part of Israel’s vital nation building”.
According to Al Jazeera, more than 50,000 foreign soldiers have fought for IDF during Gaza genocide. 621 of these soldiers are Australian citizens.
JNF Australia has also fundraised for Ateret Cohanim, an extremist settler group active in East Jerusalem. Ateret Cohanim has filed eviction lawsuits against around 100 Palestinian families living in East Jerusalem. JNF Australia removed the fundraiser from its website after members of the Australian Jewish Democratic Society wrote an article about the fundraiser.
Daniel Luria is the executive director and spokesman of Ateret Cohanim later claimed that “Ateret Cohanim does not receive any money from the JNF Australia and Ateret Cohanim has not appeared on the JNF site as a partner project.”
MWM put questions to JNF Australia regarding their relationship to KKL-JNF and their funding of IDF soldiers and settlers. They did not respond to the request for comment.
“Public Benevolent Institution”
JNF Australia operates through three charities registered with the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC):
All hold deductible gift recipient (DGR) status. The Jewish National Fund (Australia) Pty Limited is also registered as a public benevolent institution (PBI).
Under Australian law, charities must pursue exclusively charitable purposes and comply with governance and external conduct standards, including obligations relating to overseas activities.
PBIs receive the most concessional treatment under Australia’s charity law, including exemption from income tax, eligibility to receive tax-deductible donations, and access to fringe benefits tax concessions not available to most other charities.
The three charities are overseen by the same 8 person board. Doron Lazarus is the CEO of JNF Australia and long-time board member Pamela Krail is the current president.
ACNC response
MWM put questions to the ACNC, regarding whether providing funds to the IDF and illegal settlements was compatible with JNF Australia’s DGR and PBI requirements. They stated that:
“The United Nations’ view that settling civilian populations in an occupied territory is contrary to international law has not, at this stage, been incorporated into domestic Australian law. The ACNC cannot enforce international law unless that law has been incorporated into Australian domestic legislation.”
See the ACNC’s full response below: [on original]
………….Violating international law
Despite the ACNC’s assertion that they “can’t enforce international law”, legal experts say the use of tax-deductible donations to fund projects connected to Israeli settlements and the IDF raises significant issues under both Australian law and international legal obligations.
The Australian Centre for International Justice (ACIJ), which has been monitoring potentially unlawful activities of Australian charities operating in the occupied Palestinian territories, said the legal position regarding settlements is well established.
“It is well established that Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory are unlawful under international law, and this position has been repeatedly affirmed by the international community,
“including through Australia’s own foreign policy.“
According to ACIJ, Australian charities supporting activities connected to settlements could face scrutiny under Australia’s criminal and taxation laws.
“Australian charities supporting activities connected to unlawful settlements raise serious questions about compliance that extend beyond charity regulation to broader concerns under Australia’s criminal and taxation laws,” the organisation said.
“Conduct that amounts to direct or indirect participation in the transfer of the civilian population of an occupying power into territory it occupies is a criminal offence under Australia’s Commonwealth Criminal Code.”
ACIJ also warned that funding directed to the IDF may raise additional legal risks given the current proceedings against Israel and its leadership in the ICJ and ICC:
“Directly or indirectly funding the Israeli military raises additional concerns, particularly in circumstances where Israel is currently before the International Court of Justice over alleged violations of the Genocide Convention, and where senior Israeli leadership, including the Prime Minister, is subject to arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes,
“These circumstances raise serious questions about the risks of complicity for those financially supporting Israel’s military apparatus.”
Human rights lawyer Rita Jabri Markwell, who is part of the coalition of lawyers developing the proposed “Red Lines Package” legislation aimed at preventing Australian institutions from supporting genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, said the issue also engages Australia’s international obligations.
“In July 2024, the International Court of Justice found that all third-party states, including Australia, have a mandatory positive obligation not to render aid or assistance that would maintain Israel’s illegal presence in the occupied Palestinian territory.
“The court further stated that all states must abstain from entering into economic or trade dealings with Israel concerning the occupied Palestinian territory or parts thereof which may entrench its unlawful presence in the territory.”
Markwell noted that Australia supported the UN General Assembly resolution calling on Israel to end its unlawful presence in the occupied territories.
“Australia has recently voted in favour of a United Nations resolution demanding that Israel rapidly end its unlawful presence in the occupied Palestinian territories, aligning ourselves with 142 other nations, including the United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand,” she said.
“What we say at the United Nations must be matched by what we do at home.”
Markwell said the Red Lines Package seeks to close the gap in Australian law.
“This gap in domestic law is precisely why the upcoming Red Lines Package is urgently needed. The bill incorporates these international obligations into domestic law and empowers the ACNC commissioner to revoke charity status where there are breaches.”
“Tax-deductible donations are a form of public subsidy. Every Australian taxpayer contributes when charities are granted Deductible Gift Recipient status. It is therefore vital that charities ensure these funds are used solely for genuine public benefit,” she said.
“Under this system of occupation, settler violence against Palestinians is rife, often armed, protected and facilitated by the Israeli Military. In the West Bank, Israeli settlers have assaulted, tortured, and committed sexual violence against Palestinians, stolen their belongings and livestock, threatened to kill them if they did not leave permanently, and destroyed their homes and schools under the cover of the ongoing campaign in Gaza and now Iran.”
“Behind every donation are attacks on real people and lives, and real suffering.”
In 2024, the Canada Revenue Agency revoked the charitable status of the Jewish National Fund of Canada over the use of donations for Israeli military infrastructure projects.
There is an ongoing campaign in the UK to revoke the charitable status of JNF UK for its role in funding the Israeli military and supporting Israel’s illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory.
It seems incongruous that with a fleet of nine nuclear powered submarines the United Kingdom has only one operational vessel from the fleet which has been sent to Garden Island in Western Australia instead of using it for protective deployment around the British Isles
That submarine being HMS Anson still requires some minor maintenance work for its continued operations which is being undertaken at Garden Island
It appears that the real reason for Anson being sent to Australia is for the United Kingdom to demonstrate some capacity in being able to be an active participant in the AUKUS agreement but this may be a rather hopeless exercise in view of the strained relationship with the United States over the Iran war
The lack of naval capacity of the United Kingdom is best demonstrated by the fact that the destroyer HMS Dragon proposed to be send to Cyprus for protection of its naval 1 of 2 base on the island cannot be put to sea due to the incapacity of undertaking the necessary dockyard work for it seagoing status
All of this should be borne in mind when planning for the future development of the AUKUS proposals
It is therefore beyond the wildest dreams to contemplate
the design and subsequent construction of the SSN- AUKUS submarine
How will the Australian government react to this situation when AUKUS is a major part of its defence strategy?
The Australian political landscape is currently being squeezed by a powerful vice. On one side, we are witnessing the alarming and undeniable rise of the far-right, supercharged by a mastery of social media that has the major parties looking like digital dinosaurs. On the other, a growing tide of progressive disappointment with the Albanese government is curdling into outright anger, fueled by perceptions of secrecy, a moral failure on Gaza, and a lack of spine in standing up to the belligerence of the Trump administration. These two forces, seemingly opposed, are feeding off each other, and the result is a political discourse that is becoming increasingly toxic and fragmented.
The most immediate shock to the system is the surging popularity of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation. Recent polling is nothing short of a political earthquake, with One Nation tying with the Liberal-National Coalition on 23 per cent of the primary vote. This isn’t just a protest vote; it’s a realignment. Analysts point to a “perfect storm” of factors: a Coalition riddled with infighting, the “cost-of-living crisis biting hard,” and a sophisticated, decades-long mastery of direct communication.
Senator Hanson and her team have effectively bypassed traditional media gatekeepers. They dominate Facebook and use YouTube for “comedic and sometimes quite bizarre content” that feeds directly into the algorithms that capture younger viewers. This isn’t just politics; it’s a highly effective content engine that peddles consistency and certainty in an uncertain world. The recent call by Labor frontbencher Julian Hill for the Liberal Party to stop “playing footie” with these “populist forces” feels less like a strategy and more like a desperate plea. The horse has already bolted, and it’s wearing a “Please Explain” t-shirt.
The danger here is profound. As an ABC investigation has shown, the lines between populist protest movements and organised neo-Nazi groups are becoming dangerously blurred. While One Nation distances itself from the most extreme fringes, its rhetoric creates the fertile ground in which they grow. When Minister Hill warns that our society is being “ripped apart” and that Muslim women in his community are “scared to go to the shops,” he is describing the real-world consequences of a political debate that has lost its moorings.
If the rise of the hard right represents one side of the vice, the government’s perceived timidity represents the other. For many who voted for change in the 2025 election, the Albanese government has become a cipher. The disappointment is multifaceted, but three failures stand out.
First, there is the perception of secrecy and a lack of courage in foreign policy. The government’s response to Donald Trump’s invitation to join his so-called “Board of Peace” was emblematic. While the world braced for the return of Trump’s brand of disruptive diplomacy, reports emerged that the government’s internal strategy was simply to hope the “hot potato” would “just fizzle out.” This is not leadership. It is a fearful hope that a problem will disappear, a posture that does nothing to assure allies or inform the public.
This timidity pales, however, in comparison to the government’s stance on Gaza. The moral weight of the conflict has landed heavily on Australian shores. There is a deep and growing sense of betrayal among pro-Palestinian advocates, and indeed many human rights-focused Australians, who see a government that has bent over backwards to avoid upsetting Israel. This sentiment is amplified by the international treatment of UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese.
While the news is careful to distinguish between the UN official Francesca Albanese and our Prime Minister, the public discourse often conflates the two, creating a cloud of confusion and frustration. For many, the spectacle of the Trump administration sanctioning Albanese – and her family suing over it – while European nations call for her resignation, is a clear litmus test. Regardless of one’s view of her rhetoric, she is seen as a voice holding Israel to account. Against this backdrop, the Australian government’s quiet diplomacy and failure to issue more forceful condemnations is perceived not as prudence, but as pandering. It looks like a lack of courage to stand up for Palestinian civilians and a capitulation to the same US-led pressure campaign that targets her.
So, here we are. We have a government that appears paralysed, hoping difficult issues will “go away” while simultaneously losing the narrative to a far-right machine that offers simplistic, and often hateful, answers to complex problems. The government’s silence on the issues that matter to its progressive base – whether it’s housing policy or a principled foreign policy – creates a vacuum. And into that vacuum rushes the certainty of the hard right.
The great danger for Australia is that this dynamic becomes self-perpetuating. The more the government fails to articulate a bold, humane, and courageous vision, the more disillusioned voters will look elsewhere. Some will go to the Greens, but a significant and growing number are being seduced by the siren song of the far-right. We are left with a discourse dominated by either the inflammatory culture war talking points of the fringe or the cautious, fearful whispers of a government that has forgotten how to lead. Until the Labor party finds its voice and its courage, this perfect storm will only continue to gather strength.
Today marks three years since a widely criticised media series predicted Australia would be at war with China within three years.
The Red Alert series was published by the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age, and featured a panel of national security experts who claimed war was just around the corner and Australia was woefully unprepared.
“As it turns out all five “experts” were wrong and the authors of the series, Peter Hartcher andMatthew Knott, were also wrong,” said AWPR President and former Senator Andrew Bartlett.
No doubt all of Australia is breathing a sigh of relief today as the threat of annihilation recedes.
While it is easy to make fun of this laughable series of reports, it is depressing to think that the views expressed in the articles are common among establishment defence commentators.
We have had years of fearmongering about imminent threats to Australia, all of which have been shown to lack any credibility. Yet this is what currently passes for mainstream defence expertise.
Rarely does a day go by without a news article featuring a so called expert, demonising our largest trading partner and demanding that Australia spends billions more on the military.
This is despite the fact that the government’s own Defence Strategic Review in 2023 found that there is very little risk of an invasion.
Many commentators regularly suggest that if a war over Taiwan erupted, Australia would be compelled to get involved.
This is a dangerous suggestion and should be rejected outright. The Australian government has the right to decline any US request to join foreign wars.
This is why Australia should urgently re-visit War Powers Reform, which would ensure the whole parliament gets a say on overseas wars.
The John Howard-style ‘captain’s call’ decision-making, which we saw over the Iraq and Afghanistan wars is no longer acceptable in modern Australia” Mr Bartlett concluded.
Antinuclear 