Crispin Hull

Trump dominated 2025. 2026?

Just when you think it couldn’t get worse, it does. Surely, this must be the zeitgeist of 2025.

In January, we wondered whether – as in the first Trump presidency – there would be people, institutions, and elements of civil society to restrain Donald Trump in his second term.

No member of Australia’s Jewish community feels safe. Their fear of violence has been growing since the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel and the subsequent Israeli attack on Gaza as overseas conflicts and hatreds sadly get imported into Australia.

Of course it is about guns

The death of 15 innocent people has been used shamelessly and immorally as a political debating point. I hope the vast majority of Australians are disgusted.

Josh Frydenberg, no doubt gutted and shattered in the heat of the moment and therefore should be given leeway, should seriously now consider what he said. He said that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is personally responsible for the death of those innocent people, including a 10-year-old-girl.

The usual isolationism and profiteering

The 33-page US National Security Strategy report issued a week ago by the US government was the most selfish, greedy, and short-sighted document in the 250-year history of American foreign policy.

US as isolationist war profiteer

The 33-page US National Security Strategy report issued a week ago by the US government was the most selfish, greedy, and short-sighted document in the 250-year history of American foreign policy.

Reducing the One Nation danger

One is close family (cancer). One is a close friend (heart). One is first-name morning-walk nodding acquaintance (cancer). All have the same ghastly experience – diagnosis with a life-threatening illness facing a strained health system.

One had a rejection from a private insurer on a technicality and family came to a $20,000 rescue and early successful treatment. The second has to (and can with strain) pay $30,000 for cardiac treatment.

Ending corporate tricks

The Assistant Minister for Productivity, Competition, Charities and Treasury, Andrew Leigh, has been busy recently on putting a stop to a number of egregious consumer rip-offs by corporations, and has got agreement from all the states and territories to legislate.

We all know the tricks. Give them your credit card and “ka-ching” every month another small, almost unnoticeable payment gets skimmed off, and trying to unsubscribe is a nightmare. Or buy something online for $50 and by the time you get to the check-out, it is $80.

The Senate numbers game

This week the Government aims to get its new environment laws passed. But it does not have a majority in the Senate. The Greens or the Coalition could block the changes – for different reasons.

The Greens say the changes do not go far enough to protect the environment. The Coalition says they go too far. It could result in nothing happening at all.

Renewable race against time

“The essential ingredient of politics is timing,” according to the former very successful Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau.

The dog-wagging Nationals got in first and forced the more numerous Liberal MPs of their coalition into the abandonment of policies to reduce carbon emissions in Australia to net zero by 2050. It was great timing in the short term for the Nationals, but electorally catastrophic for the Coalition in the medium and long term.

And most likely, excellent timing for Labor.

The survival of the unfittest

The Liberal Party’s plummeting fortunes (down to 24 per cent of the primary vote in recent polls) indicate it has a problem of Darwinian proportions. It can be explained by several factors including an unusual combination of moral idealism and pragmatic self-interest.

That, of course, is not due to the idealism and self-interest on the part of its supporters, rather it is on the part of the people who are not supporting it – youth and women.

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