Caron

Education. Lover of learning, books, kayaking, camping, nature, art, people. Unimpressed with the deliberate impotence of leaders.

[Caron @sendit2me2020]

@mel_wright123 @MediaAnalystOz This is disgraceful. It suggests women have no agency, are submissive victims of male choices. Media be better to future generations by not perpetuating outdated myths.

[Marina 🐝 @HappyNacho73]

Just saw a TikTok where a Northern Irish woman was talking about the DV crisis over there that’s causing justifiable concern & national furore.

30 women killed by their partners in 6 years.

In Australia we’ve had almost that many in 6 MONTHS.

… and still, our gov is silent.

[Dekka @DerekFranc90653]

Attached is the Australian article by Matt Cranstone on how the Senate Inquiry into CGT is all a performative farce, and stitch up where they are preventing the actual experts testifying:

[Davey @TheRealDavey2]

The Senate Economics Legislation Committee has public hearings in 2 business days time on Labor's plan to increase CGT.

They haven't even made the submissions public yet.

[Doug Cameron @DougCameron51]

https://t.co/fCdfJrLyrW
Our fantastic team of volunteers have provided the above link to a livestream of the AUKUS public hearing.
Hearing commences 10.00am.
First submission from Prof The Hon Gareth Evans.

[Doug Cameron @DougCameron51]

The vested interests and China hawks are out in force. Defending AUKUS, attacking those who stand in the way of militarism, massive corporate and individual profit at the expense of sovereignty and common sense. Watch out for the govt funded propaganda campaign!

[Doug Cameron @DougCameron51]

Great news, the first public hearing into AUKUS kicks off today! The nation deserves answers.The parliament will not establish an inquiry and citizens, community groups, unions and individuals have funded a public inquiry.
Democracy at work!
First hearing today in Melbourne.

[Geoff Wilson @GeoffWilsonWAM]

Even Dave Hughes is calling out @AlboMP and @JEChalmers CGT “fairness” con.
A single mum sells her $10k in CommBank shares (doubled) → cops $3,000 tax.
A foreign billionaire makes $100M profit on the same stock → pays $0.
This isn’t fairness. It’s a deliberate war on aspiration that hammers everyday Australian investors, families and retirees while the connected and offshore skate free.
Economic vandalism dressed up as equity. Enough is enough. It must be stopped.
#StopTheCGTGrab @AlboMP @JEChalmers

[ALUTHEDON @Mbakaza4L]

China hasn’t dropped a bomb in 40 years, the U.S. have dropped a bomb on average every 40 mins for the past 40 years

[Solo Monk @JJKALE2]

🚩REMINDER

UNDER THE AUKUS AGREEMENT, THE AUSTRALIAN TAX PAYER WILL PROVIDE FREE HOUSING FOR THE THOUSANDS OF AMERICAN PERSONNEL AND THEIR FAMILIES WHO WILL BE POSTED TO US MILITARY BASES HERE IN AUSTRALIA.

[Adam Houda @LawyerAdamHouda]

Our health system is in crisis & the problem could easily be fixed with adequate government funding. Unfortunately our PM is too busy spending literally 100s of millions of our money on shameless zionist groups & individuals who support the terrorist state of israel committing genocide. Absolute unforgivable madness!!!! #IsraelIsATerroristState #FreePalestine #auspol

[Geoff Wilson @GeoffWilsonWAM]

Even the BCA and ACCI are slamming the @AlboMP government for “needlessly and recklessly” ramming these CGT changes through with just two days of Senate scrutiny.
They see the damage to investment and productivity coming and want a mandatory 3-year review. Our WAM submission warned exactly this: it will redirect Australian savings away from growth companies, founders and venture capital and straight into property and yield assets.
The opposite of what a productive economy needs. This rushed “reform” is economic vandalism. Proper inquiry now, or the long-term losers will be future founders, innovators and aspiration itself.
https://t.co/7dQC85i4FH

[Dekka @DerekFranc90653]

Newspapers are reporting my first submission to the Senate that the new proposed capital gains tax at a rate of 50% is the highest CGT rate in the world, 147% above the world average at 20%. Please circulate widely:
https://t.co/IbXFolYbQc

[Elizabeth Glab @lizglab.bsky.social @LizGlab]

So adamant is the Albanese Government to keep AUKUS nuclear waste plans secret, they initiated a Federal Court appeal to overturn an Administrative Review Tribunal transparency win.

Might this be because Albo knows what a shockingly bad deal it is for us? https://t.co/aiy79KFNcN

[stranger @strangerous10]

Larissa Waters asks former Treasury chief Ken Henry if it’s too simplistic to say wartime gas profits from the war on Iran can either go to Australians, or to overseas investors & shareholders.
Henry “That’s not simplistic, that’s how it is!” “It’s as simple as that.” 💥 #auspol

[Sue Barrett-Onward We Press @SueBarrett]

Aaron, this is one of the finest pieces of civic writing I have read in years. Not because it flatters the institution - it doesn't, and it shouldn't - but because it takes the institution seriously enough to look at it with both eyes open.

I know exactly the feeling you are describing in that building. In May 2023 I spent a week in Parliament House working alongside Zoe Daniel's office in Goldstein - a seat she had taken from Tim Wilson in 2022. The parallel to your experience in Kooyong is not incidental. It is the same story. Communities that got organised, got hopeful, and decided to stop waiting.

I remember sitting on the plane about to take off for Canberra, thinking about the last time I had been there. It was 15 March 2021 - outside Parliament House with March4Justice. Tens of thousands of us, standing on that lawn demanding to be heard. Two years later I was going inside. Same building. Different door. The power of the people, made visible.

And then on the Wednesday morning of that week, I came in through the House of Representatives entrance and noticed the person standing directly behind me in the queue was Scott Morrison. Now a backbencher. I bit my tongue - because what I wanted to say was: people power works. We marched for justice and then we elected community independents, in no small part because of you. But I kept walking. Some things say themselves.

What you have documented here - Helen Haines writing a stronger integrity commission than two governments could manage, Dr Ryan exposing the HECS indexation scandal, Sophie Scamps on what it would cost to eliminate poverty, the carers carrying the country for nothing - this is the receipts. This is what Community Independents actually deliver when communities send the right people.

Your final paragraph says what Part Four of my current series has been trying to say: the best of what that building produces does not come from the building. It comes from the communities that fought to put good people inside it.

I am going to quote you - with your permission - in what comes next.

Thank you for writing this. Thank you for the week you gave.

Onward we press.
#auspol

[StarBoySAR 🇭🇰 🇨🇳 🥭 @StarboySAR]

Brilliant piece from Pearls and Irritations. Finally, someone in Australia is saying out loud what the rest of us have been watching for the past five years

Let's be clear about what AUKUS actually is: the greatest military protection racket in modern history. Washington looked at its own crippled submarine industrial base—17 boats short, yards choking, Congress screaming—and found the perfect mark. A wealthy, eager, insecure middle power with a bipartisan fetish for great-power relevance and a defense minister who treats strategic questions like a classified state secret

The deal? Australia pays half a trillion dollars. In return, it gets used Virginia-class hand-me-downs—Block IV boats with a decade of wear already on the hulls, probably smelling faintly of its previous crew

Even more intriguing, the article confirms for what this overpriced second-hand Australian "sovereign" nuclear submarine fleet is actually for:

Hunting Chinese Jin-class and Type 096 SSBNs. Not to protect Sydney Harbour. Not to secure Australia's trade routes. To find, track, and if ordered, destroy the Chinese nuclear submarines that threaten continental America!

That's the job. That's the whole job. Australia just committed A$368 billion to be the US Navy's underwater security guard!

The comedy of "sovereign capability" is almost too rich. Sovereign? The reactors are American. The combat system is American. The weapons are American. The fuel is American. The intelligence feed is American. The maintenance schedule is American. Permanently tethering Australia to U.S. software, maintenance, and logistics, effectively ending any "sovereign" capability. The only thing Australian is the taxpayer—and the Prime Minister standing in front of a camera calling this independence

Australia is not buying a submarine; it is buying a node in a U.S. sensor network. The acquisition deeply integrates Australia into the U.S. military command structure, making Australia a tool for U.S. strategic objectives in the Indo-Pacific — while a massive amount of Australian wealth is transferred into the U.S. military-industrial complex

And the timing is exquisite. Washington just added another half-trillion to its own defense budget while Australia is told to hit 3.5% of GDP. America gets the money, the boats, the basing rights at HMAS Stirling, and a Pacific ASW auxiliary. Australia gets the bill, the dependency, and the warm fuzzy feeling of being taken seriously by the adults.

The U.S. 2025 National Security Strategy (NSS) emphasizes "burden-sharing among allies" and "realist diplomacy." This submarine deal is the perfect execution of that strategy: the U.S. maintains its military overmatch against China by essentially "outsourcing" the financial cost of undersea surveillance to Australia 🤡

Paul Keating called this three years ago. He was mocked, of course. The press club gasped. The security establishment rolled its eyes. But he was right then, and this article proves he's right now. It is worse than he thought. It's not that AUKUS is of little military benefit to Australia. It's that AUKUS is of negative military benefit to Australia—actively diverting resources from actual defense needs toward a capability designed for someone else's homeland

https://t.co/f7lYAMf3JY

[Ray Wilton now on Bluesky as Raymond Wilton💧 @raywilton4]

After ministers lined up to rebuke him this week, Husic again alluded to internal Labor culture that suppressed contrary views, saying the scolding was designed to “stop people from doing exactly what I’ve done”.
“I don’t think that’s good for the party” https://t.co/EODWqeZvab

[The Spectator Australia @SpectatorOz]

Anyone still cheering on Labor's Budget either hasn't read it - or doesn't understand it.

It is so destructive.

So idiotic.

And so economically incoherent...

That I predict Labor's days in government are numbered.

Most damning of all?

The hardest hit are actually the lowest paid.

Article | https://t.co/8M5d5f9nz5

[David Shoebridge @DavidShoebridge]

Australian media isn’t covering this but what’s happening in Cuba is dreadful. Trump signed an executive order cutting off Cuba’s last oil supply. Ten million people are paying with their lives. Sewage systems are failing, food is rationed, it’s getting worse.