Kate Stewart

A passionate public school teacher. Senior Leader in Curriculum, Pedagogy and Assessment. Science of Reading. Recently retired.

[Kate Stewart @katestew229]

Join me in supporting Equality Australia's work! https://t.co/DUrAckynoJ

[Kate Stewart @katestew229]

The far-right is rising, but so are the people who will stop it. I just pledged to never vote One Nation. Will you do the same? https://t.co/X7woHbggU3

[Dr Tracy Westerman AM @TracyWesterman]

The Sanewashing of Hanson Is at Its Peak.
This is how Trump came to power: platform the lies, skip the follow-up, let the headlines call it “proving her critics wrong.”
We are all watching it happen in real time.
At the National Press Club, Pauline Hanson said the following. Not one claim was challenged by the so called journalists in attendance and she continues to be unchallenged on the facts in every interview she sits.
-1. Unlike the Prime Minister, I welcome scrutiny.” Hypocritical. In the same speech she announced she refuses ABC interviews, will scrap the SBS, & will make the ABC subscription-only. The event allowed 2 hours; standard format gives 25–30 mins for the address. She spoke for 50-halving the time left for questions. When Guardian journalist Sarah Martin used that remaining time to ask about her daughter's $150,000 taxpayer-funded advisor role, Hanson called her “a trashy journalist” and banned her from all future press conferences.
• “Babies are aborted the day before birth.” Fabricated. Late-term abortion is highly restricted, requires medical approval, and occurs only in genuine medical emergencies.
• “Interest rates are heading towards 10%.” False. RBA cash rate: 4.35%. Forecast to fall, not rise.
• “There’s no gender pay gap — just women taking time off.” False. WGEA confirms the gap exists at equal hours, equal roles, regardless of career breaks.
• “$30B a year on Indigenous programs.” False. Only 18% (~$5.6B) is Indigenous-specific. The rest is the Indigenous share of mainstream services every Australian uses.
• Transgender people were compared to “militant Islam.” False and dangerous. ABS data: transgender and gender-diverse Australians make up 1% of the pop’n. There’s no body of research showing transgender ppl commit crime at elevated rates-in fact it shows transgender people are dramatically more likely to be victims of violence— assault, sexual violence, and homicide rates against trans people are well above general population rates in most studies (US, UK, and Aust data all show this pattern)
• “23% of Australians can’t speak English.” False. That 23% speak another language at home — most are bilingual. Limited English proficiency: just 3.2%.
• “The CEFC has had $200 billion.” False by a factor of six. Actual legislated capacity: $33 billion.
• “I care about the homeless and hungry.” Hypocritical. In the same speech, she backed cuts to Indigenous-specific funding — despite Aboriginal homelessness running up to 10 times higher than the non-Indigenous rate.
• $90 billion in cuts, no plan. ~$35 billion of it remains unaccounted for. No modelling.
• “I support worker rights.” False. Voted against minimum wage increases, penalty rates, criminalising wage theft, casual conversion rights, same job same pay, and the right to disconnect. Took a $100,000 pay rise while voting against a tax break for low-paid workers
• Called Australian workers “lazy.” She has attended just 12% of Senate estimates since 2016 & 53% of parliamentary votes. Paid over $200k a year
• Labor have let immigration get out of control.” False. Net overseas migration has fallen every year since the post-COVID peak in 2022-23 — 538,000 → 446,000 → 306,000 in 2024-25. She also recycled a 26-year-old ABS pop’n projection as a fresh “next 50 years” forecast

Said: This beautiful country belongs to all Australians born here and those who have joined us”- in her opening line; then spent the next 50 minutes demanding a monocultural society, comparing transgender Australians to militant Islam, inflating migration and language figures, denying the gender pay gap, and repeating the debunked $30 billion Indigenous funding myth. Welcomed everyone in the first sentence. Spent the rest of the speech defining most of them out — and offered no plan to fix anything she raised, only $90 billion in cuts.
Not one follow-up question. No source data on a single figure in the entire speech. This is what unchallenged looks like.
/2 sources

[Blair Boyer MP @BBoyerMP]

No ifs. No buts.

[Kate Stewart @katestew229]

Stop Construction of a Trump Golf Course and Resort on the Gold Coast - Sign the Petition! https://t.co/tVlOrJDQMQ via @ChangeAUS

[Kate Stewart @katestew229]

Stop Construction of a Trump Golf Course and Resort on the Gold Coast - Sign the Petition! https://t.co/tVlOrJDQMQ via @ChangeAUS

[Kate Stewart @katestew229]

Urge SA Legislative Council to reject Sarah Game's bill limiting abortions after 25 weeks - Sign the Petition! https://t.co/sm36mk02vI via @ChangeAUS

[stranger @strangerous10]

Experts have slammed the AI-Albo social media campaign against CGT changes as
“rubbish” saying the changes are actually “important”💥
Adelaide Miller reveals even the organisers now admit they left out the truth “bcoz they wanted the post to go viral.” Utterly shameless. #auspol

[💧 Johny Miller ([email protected]) @jmil400]

Nailed.
#Budget2026
#auspol

[The Noisy Elephant @TheNoisyTrunk]

You may have seen the clip ABC THROWN OUT by ONE NATION - Via The Age → Nine News → SMH

All seems like a normal ONE NITWIT Circus, until you stop and focus on what is going on here.

We looked closely, and there is more to this than meets the eye; certainly, some questions need to be raised.

In the video we have highlighted and freeze-framed, you will see the surface-level drama but also us digging into the strategic theatre of One Nation’s media management:

⛐ Pauline Hanson’s performative distance,
⛐ The power dynamics between her and James Ashby + Barnaby's bubbling bitterness.
⛐ And it's not hard to suspect this was a calculated move to exclude the ABC while letting Hanson play the "reasonable leader" card afterwards.

Memory jog:

• Hanson hates the ABC. She's been very vocal on this

• The eve of a byelection and their star candidate is taking heat about his REAL politics: Labor → Independent (prior to Michelle Milthorpe, yes, he wanted that spot) → One Nation

• Questions about James Ashby and who is actually running ON

Let's kick this story out:

Ashby takes the fall for ejecting the free press. But, look closely (video), Pauline Hanson is right there, from beginning to end, two feet away, as Ashby and a volunteer march the ABC crew out.

She doesn’t intervene.
She doesn’t object.
Not a word.
She thinks she's out of view, but when she clearly knows she is in front of cameras rolling after the fact, suddenly, she’s the champion of free speech. "They shouldn’t have gone." - Really, Pauline? Then why didn’t you say that while it was happening? We suggest this was always going to be the play. Kick the ABC out and then let Pauline take the high ground.

This was a setup, a way to ban the ABC while letting Hanson pretend she’s above the pettiness.

James Ashby says, ON SCREEN, the reason is "They report to Canberra" - DUH, thats where they all report to dickhead. That's not the reason; the reason is SCRUTINY, ON does not want the positive #MSM backing tarnished by difficult questions like:

→Why did you pull the pin on the PUB, leaving them stranded
→David Farley, any party will do
→James Paterson attacked by a ONE NATION Grandad Grebo
→How was your 4-hour flight - Commercial was quicker and cheaper

If it's not what we suggest above, then we have to ask this:

Who’s actually running this circus? Ashby’s the one making the calls:

→Ashby’s recent gaffes (e.g., suggesting Hanson might run for the lower house before she confirmed it).
→Hanson’s public walk-backs (e.g., the scuffle with Liberal senator James Paterson, first apologising, then blaming Paterson after Ashby’s spin).

And here is Ashby ejecting journalists, rewriting the party’s responses, even putting words in Hanson’s mouth. But when it blows up, she gets to be the face of ‘transparency.’ Classic misdirection.

Pauline Hanson loves free speech, until it’s aimed at her. Remember her rants about the ABC being ‘biased’? ‘Fake news’? ‘Activists’? But now, with the cameras rolling, she’s the defender of the press. It’s a con. A performance. And the media fell for it, framing her as the voice of reason. But we know better. This was a setup, a way to ban the ABC while letting Hanson pretend she’s above the pettiness.

Why now?
Because it was election eve. One Nation is on a roll with #MSM backing, but they can’t risk the ABC asking real questions about:

𖧀 Farley’s Labor past, about their policy vacuums,
𖧀 about the chaos in their ranks.
𖧀 The local pub they dissed and messed around, costing the small business a small fortune
𖧀 The policy vacuum
and so much more

So they silence the scrutiny. And they do it publicly, so their base sees ‘Hanson standing up to the elites.’ It’s not just a ban, it’s a message to every other journalist: Play nice, or you’re next."

NOTHING is ever what it seems with this circus.

BUT WAIT, there's more! Watch the clip to hear our take on the BARBANBY JOYCE BODY LANGUAGE - BUSTED because that tells us so much more!

[ShiannonCorcoran💉x4 @shiannonc.bsky.social @ShiannonC]

JaegerMeister had a lot to say about Mr John-Paul Drake on TikTok. So I tuned in and had a look.

Yanno, the same John-Paul Drake that is the Director of Drakes Supermarkets around the country.

After viewing the TikTok expletive-filled TikTok account of Mr Drake - I have to say that it’s a strange and angry discourse that a Director of a major supermarket chain has taken to promote a supermarket brand, to be sure.

In this particular TikTok video, Mr Drake is apparently furious at the supposed “death tax” that is coming for us all. Again. 🙄

The only problem is that once again for those who haven’t got the memo - the “death tax” fairy story is a baseless claim - and a scare campaign that does the rounds against the Labor Party, usually around election cycles - but the fear mongerers are having a crack pre-budget in an effort to change the narrative and take the focus off the positive aspects of the budget.

While I welcome the upcoming changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax - many people who are benefiting from it don’t. You can bet your ass that those vessels who are making the loudest noises will not be benefiting as much as they would like to after the changes.

There will be no death tax. It has already been stated in various news reports as false. There have been no death taxes in Australia nationally since 1979. It would be a foolish government to implement any such tax now or anytime in the future.

The coalition and various other RW windbags like to push a good scare campaign when it suits their agenda - and apart from their constant divisive culture wars - nothing stirs up the masses more than the fear of a new tax - even if it’s proven not to be true.

Research is important. Do it.

[DiaperDiplomacy @DiaperDiplomacy]

🇺🇸🇬🇧

[Dr Tracy Westerman AM @TracyWesterman]

Every time someone criticises the quality of our politicians, conservatives fire back with ‘but the country’s still a mess.’
What mess exactly?
Australia has universal healthcare. Free public education. A minimum wage. Compulsory superannuation. One of the highest standards of living on earth. We are not at war. We are not in famine. We are not living under authoritarian rule.
By virtually every global measure, Australia is one of the best countries on earth to be born into. That didn’t happen by accident.
Are there real challenges? Yes. Housing affordability is a genuine crisis. Cost of living is hurting people. Those are legitimate issues that deserve real policy responses.
What they don’t deserve is being weaponised by people who have no intention of solving them.
Because ask yourself — when did you last hear Hanson or One Nation offer an actual successful, budgeted policy solution to housing? To cost of living? Not a grievance. Not a target. An actual successful policy.
Their entire business model is convincing you the country is a disaster so you stay angry enough to vote for them. Scared people don’t ask hard questions. Trump still has “concepts of a health plan” -while the entire country can’t afford healthcare.
Every foundation that makes Australia great was built by progressive governments, opposed at every turn by conservatives.
Medicare. Superannuation. The NDIS. The minimum wage. The National Apology. The two biggest back-to-back budget surpluses in history after inheriting a trillion dollars of Liberal debt.
A decade of Coalition government gave us Robodebt. Sports rorts. A delayed national integrity commission. And a senator found guilty of racially vilifying a PhD engineer.
The country isn’t a mess. But we will be when the people running it have no idea what they were doing

[IndependentAustralia @independentaus]

'Australia does not have an inflation crisis. It is higher than perfect, but only slightly.'

Specialists refuse to correctly diagnose best economy ever ~ Alan Austin @alanaustin001

https://t.co/cVA9eQGTyI via @IndependentAus

[Kate Stewart @katestew229]

@strangerous10 Have just heard might be 3 upper house seats and now have Ngaduri in the lower house!

[Kate Stewart @katestew229]

@news_australian Yes!

[Kate Stewart @katestew229]

Stop the construction of Trump Tower on the Gold Coast - Sign the Petition! https://t.co/Ua2o2aHkvU via @ChangeAUS

[David Ullrich @DavidUllrich202]

This state’s power prices are plummeting as it nears 100% renewables

South Australia is proving to the world that relying largely on wind and solar energy with battery back-up is incredibly cheap, with electricity prices tumbling by 30 percent in a year and sometimes going negative

https://t.co/mFFDSaBWYz

https://t.co/0N90ihFBLz

[Phillip Adams @PhillipAdams_1]

Mar-a-Lago