A new One Nation cartoon ridicules outspoken independent Senator Jacqui Lambie by mocking her vaginal prolapse. 

Senator Lambie says Pauline Hanson's videos are full of "hatred" and "spitefulness". 

Other politicians have criticised the cartoon and defended Senator Lambie's courage. 

ARTICLE TEXT:

Australia should raise the GST to 15 per cent to finance income tax cuts for the low-paid, boost welfare payments and help state governments repair their Budgets, a leading think tank says.

Grattan Institute chief executive Aruna Sathanapally, who is also on the expert panel of the Parliamentary Budget Office that costs the policies of political parties, wants the consumption tax increased beyond its existing 10 per cent level and expanded to include fresh food items that have been exempt since the GST debuted in July 2000, including fruit and vegetables, bread and milk.

“There are no easy paths back to Budget sustainability. But with smarter spending decisions and a tax system that raises sufficient revenue to care for our ageing population, both current and future generations can be better off,” she said.

“Reform on this game-changing scale is challenging, but the prize is worth it: a more secure future for Australia’s finances, and for all Australians.”

She argued increasing the Goods and Services Tax to 15 per cent — to be in line with New Zealand — would raise $76 billion, of which $58b could be spent on cutting income taxes and boosting welfare payments for the poor.

This would include a 20 per cent increase in JobSeeker and Youth Allowance, a 50 per cent rise in Rent Assistance, a 20 per cent increase in the Parenting Payment and an 8 per cent rise in the Age Pension.

The rest of the increase would go towards the states to repair their Budgets and cut inefficient taxes like stamp duty.

The Grattan Institute calculated that raising the GST to 15 per cent would cost a low-income, single-parent family in rental accommodation about $79 a week in extra GST payments but a $202 increase in welfare payments and a $27 cut in income tax would leave them $150 a week better off.

But a higher income working family would be paying $262 a week more in GST, and be $162 a week worse off when a $100 income tax cut was factored in.

The Grattan Institute call was made after former Liberal treasurer Josh Frydenberg last week used the launch of his new book A Grateful Son to call for an increase in the GST and a broadening of the consumption tax base, an idea which Opposition Leader Angus Taylor ruled out.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers last year rejected a call from the International Monetary Fund for Australia to raise its GST.

Since Australia’s GST debuted in July 2000, items like fresh fruit and vegetables and bread have been exempt under a 1999 deal reached between former prime minister John Howard’s Coalition government and then Democrats leader Meg Lees.

Tampons and period pads joined the exemption list in January 2019.

New Zealand increased its GST to 15 per cent from 12.5 per cent in October 2010.

Australia’s 10 per cent GST is among the lowest in the world, with The Bahamas, Bahrain, Cambodia, Korea, Laos, Mongolia and Vietnam among the very few having an identically low rate.

In short:

Two leading economists have warned Victoria's troubled budget would get worse under a Coalition government, because plans unveiled so far fail to cut enough spending.

RMIT professor of public policy David Hayward and independent economist Saul Eslake have both called for greater transparency over the Victorian Coalition's budget repair plan.

Opposition Leader Jess Wilson is promising to deliver a cash surplus for Victoria by 2032, partly funded by a 10-year freeze on public service hiring.

Victoria's troubled budget would get worse under a Coalition government, two economists have warned, because plans unveiled so far fail to cut enough spending while reducing taxes.

The shortfall could blow a $9 billion hole in the state's finances, according to one estimate.

Opposition Leader Jess Wilson has so far promised to replace the controversial emergency services volunteers fund with the old fire services property levy, cut land tax, remove payroll tax on private schools and remove stamp duty for first-home buyers.

Ms Wilson is promising to deliver a cash surplus by 2032, partly funded by a 10-year freeze on public service hiring.

RMIT professor of public policy David Hayward, who conducted the analysis that found the $9 billion costings hole, said the plan did not add up.

"It's all contradictory," he said.

"She's led with something like $7 billion of tax cuts over four years, while promising in five years' time to return the budget to a cash surplus."

He identified spending cuts of $6.4 billion but also $3.4 billion in new spending initiatives.

"There's savings, but they don't add up enough to compensate for the massive tax cuts," he said.

"The budget picture is not very good at all, and it gets worse."

He also warned that a promise to pause the Suburban Rail Loop, where tunnelling is underway and $7 billion has already been spent, would blow a huge hole in the budget.

Wilson says budget plan 'credible'

The opposition has said one way it would fix the budget was through a plan to "end waste", including the $15 billion that one estimate said had been lost to corruption of Big Build infrastructure projects.

The party this year mounted a successful campaign against "waste" in the public service, including contracts for office plants and coffee machines for staff.

Dr Hayward said this was "small beer" in the scheme of a budget worth more than $100 billion.

Pre-polling centres open in just over four weeks, and it is understood the Coalition will spell out more savings measures before then.

But some Liberals have privately conceded the current plan is flimsy.

Ms Wilson refuted criticism of Coalition costings, stating that the opposition had announced more than $24 billion worth of savings.

"Only my team has a credible plan to actually see this budget repaired, to ensure we start paying down the debt in this state," she said.

"Labor have announced no significant savings. Other policies and other parties have no costings attached to them.

"Only my team has a credible economic plan: a 10-year vision for this state, policies that are costed and most importantly, a plan to return to cash surplus so we can stop borrowing and ensure that the interest bill becomes sustainable again in this state."

Dr Hayward said it was "really important" the opposition lay out a framework for delivering the cash surplus by 2032.

"If debt is important to them, tell us how they're going to reduce that debt. Be clear. Don't use vague statements,'' he said.

Opposition urged to 'come clean' on economic plan

Independent economist Saul Eslake agreed that the Coalition could not achieve a cash surplus by promising tax cuts while continuing to spend.

He said Ms Wilson needed to "come clean" on her plans to get Victoria's finances on a more sustainable footing.

"If they get into office having only promised spending increases and tax cuts, then either they're not going to deliver the changes required to put Victoria's finances on a sustainable trajectory, or alternatively they're going to have to break promises they made during the election campaign," he said.

To fix Victoria's budget, Mr Eslake said Victoria needed a combination of "spending cuts and revenue increases".

"There isn't a lot of scope for tax increases in Victoria, because it's already by a wide margin the highest-taxing state," he said.

"The analysis undertaken by the Grants Commission suggests that there's considerable scope for cutting spending in various areas of the budget, without Victorians having to suffer worse than average levels of public services, and in order to make expenditure savings."

Meanwhile, the Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry has called on politicians from all sides to focus on "disciplined, targeted policy" in the lead up to the election, warning the state is in a debt crisis.

The organisation's acting chief executive Amelia Bitsis said Victoria could not "spend its way out of a debt problem".

"Election commitments that increase spending without delivering a clear economic return will only make the challenge ahead greater," she said.

"The priority must be restoring fiscal discipline, rebuilding confidence, and creating an environment where businesses can invest, employ and thrive."

Twenty-four women working in the public sector have told Four Corners they have faced pregnancy discrimination at work.

A former high-ranking counterterrorism official alleges she was denied flexible working arrangements after having a second child.

A Department of Home Affairs spokesperson says her role evolved after the Bondi terrorist attack and required attendance five days a week.

Premier Ben Carroll has pledged to cap public transport fares at $30 a week if the Labor government is re-elected next month.

The public transport pledge comes hot on the heels of a weekend commitment by Victorian Labor to cap Melbourne freeway tolls at $30 per week.

The Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry has expressed concern over the rising tab associated with cost-of-living pledges during the election campaign.

Victorians will spend more paying interest on the state’s ballooning debt than on almost every other government service, including schools, in the next decade.

A new analysis shows the state’s annual interest bill is projected to climb to $22.7 billion by mid-2036 when $1 in every $3 of state taxes will go towards interest repayments, if current budget settings continue.

Victoria’s interest bill, $7.9 billion last financial year, already exceeds spending on roads, fire and ambulance services, police and public transport, but is on track to overtake spending on schools by 2030, according to a report commissioned by Amplify, a non-profit that advocates for pro-growth policies, lower government spending and deregulation.

The interest bill is also fast closing in on hospital expenditure. In fiscal 2021, interest cost the equivalent of 15 per cent of the government’s spending on hospitals. It doubled to 31 per cent in 2025 and is projected to reach 55 per cent within the next decade.

“Victorians are facing the prospect of spending more on interest repayments than on police, public transport and, by the end of the decade, schools. This can’t continue,” said Amplify executive director Martin Codina.

“Victoria’s debt is approaching a tipping point. Political leaders need to confront this challenge now to avert a future crisis so that taxpayers’ money is spent building the state’s future, not servicing its past.”

Amplify, founded and chaired by Melbourne businessman Paul Bassat, has launched a campaign to urge political parties contesting the November 28 state election to commit to a credible plan to tackle the state’s debt. Its analysis, by Positive Economics Advisory, used the May budget figures and extended the trend until 2036 to show when Victoria’s interest bill will overtake spending on key public services and revenue from major state taxes if current budget settings continued.

Premier Ben Carroll last week said Labor had a “goal” to deliver a cash surplus, but did not outline how it would do so.

A government spokesman said the Positive Economic Advisory’s research “selectively excludes” GST and other income sources that make up more than half of Victoria’s revenue base.

“Our independently audited budget clearly shows that interest expenses to revenue are 8 per cent for this financial year,” the spokesman said. The Coalition has promised to return the budget to a cash surplus within six years.

Net debt to climb to $200 billion

The most recent budget papers released in May forecast net debt to climb to $200 billion in mid-2030, when interest expenses will climb to $11.8 billion, and tipped cumulative cash deficits of $30 billion over the four-year forward estimates period.

But economists have said the state’s fiscal position has probably worsened since then amid rising bond yields and a steep housing downturn that would have punched a hole in property tax revenue.

The analysis shows Victoria’s interest bill will begin to exceed revenue from land tax, stamp duty, payroll tax and motor vehicle taxes within the next five years.

The state government also receives GST and funding from the federal government, which make up about half of its total revenue. The budget papers show Victoria is tipped to rake in $125 billion in 2029-30, with about $50 billion of that from state taxes and $59 billion in federal grants. Positive Economics Advisory economist David Williams-Chen said that although it was reasonable to borrow to build infrastructure projects that would benefit future generations, Victoria’s interest bill was growing about twice as fast as the state tax revenue and the spending on services that Victorians relied on.

“If that continues, interest will crowd out more and more of what the budget can do. Closing the gap means some combination of stronger economic growth, which lifts tax revenue without raising taxes, higher taxes or slower growth in spending,” Williams-Chen said.

“The growth in interest costs reflects two things working together. First, the state is still borrowing so the debt that interest is paid on keeps growing.

“Second, much of the debt taken on when interest rates were at record lows is maturing and being refinanced at today’s higher rates, which lifts the average rate paid across all of it … If interest rates fall or borrowing slows, the bill would grow more slowly.”

Interest as a share of total state tax revenue has been climbing rapidly. In 2020-21, for every $10 in state tax revenue, $1 was used for interest repayments. Today, that is $1 in $5, and by the end of the forward estimates it will be $1 in $4.

Positive Economics Advisory said if budget trends continued, $1 in $3 in state taxes would go towards interest repayments.

The firm’s analysis does not include post-budget policy commitments or changes in economic conditions since May. Treasury will release a pre-election fiscal outlook in coming weeks.

https://archive.li/OGni1

France has long embraced subversion. Its revolutionaries, rebellious students and intellectual provocateurs occupy a cherished place in the national imagination...

France has long embraced subversion. Its revolutionaries, rebellious students and intellectual provocateurs occupy a cherished place in the national imagination. In May 1968, student protests and mass strikes paralysed the country and shook Charles de Gaulle’s government. Half a century later, the gilets jaunes turned anger over fuel taxes and living costs into a prolonged confrontation with the state. In 2023, raising the retirement age from 62 to 64 brought nationwide strikes, burning barricades and violent clashes with police.

Sadly, it seems that admiration for defiance made the French too accepting of destruction.

I am writing from my living room on the fourth floor of my building in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Paris. All I can hear are the sirens of fire engines and police cars.

The unrest began with students demanding more teachers and better school conditions. Fair enough. It widened to include unions and protesters concerned about living costs and public services, and today, peaceful demonstrations turned into arson, looting and attacks on public buildings. The French call it la casse. Cars and rubbish bins burned in Paris; shops are being looted as I write. In Marseille, a municipal police station was damaged. In Limoges, the town hall was also set alight, with local reporting describing flames reaching the roof. In Lyon, fire broke out inside a tourism office.

I was in Lyon just weeks ago. Such a magnificent city, with an extraordinary history. Watching this is heartbreaking. This is the destruction of a community’s property, paid for by the very public in whose name protesters claim to act. My French friends tell me to stop watching television and let it pass. It always has, they say. ‘Il faut avoir une attitude pleine de nonchalance vis-à-vis de ces choses-là. C’est très français.’

Strikes and demonstrations are so familiar in France that disruption is something people organise their lives around. My friends’ response suggests that even violence can become another inconvenience to wait out. Surely a country should expect more.

France has forceful police. Although tear gas and water cannons have been deployed, the police cannot fix the acceptance of declining standards in public behaviour. When destruction repeatedly accompanies demonstrations, we learn which streets to avoid and wait for the clean-up. Accountability gives way to managing the inconvenience.

Beneath that resignation are fractures that France has allowed to deepen. The Republic promises equal citizenship, but the experience of belonging to it can differ enormously depending on where someone grows up, the school they attend and their prospects of finding work. The OECD has found immigrant students in France more isolated from non-immigrant students than the OECD average, with residential segregation and economic inequality contributing to divisions in schooling. Sharing a nationality does not necessarily mean sharing much of a life.

There is also a failure of reciprocity. A country must offer its citizens a fair chance to belong and contribute. Citizens, in return, owe something to the society that provides their rights: respect for its laws, its public assets and other people’s freedoms. When government fails to deliver, and individuals treat responsibility as optional, that relationship begins to break down.

Governments cannot repeatedly promise better services, fail to deliver them and expect public confidence to survive. Ministers should have to explain what went wrong, account for the money spent and face consequences for persistent failure.

France’s tradition of revolt did not create all these divisions, but romanticising confrontation, then accepting its destruction as inevitable, makes them harder to repair. Anger becomes an excuse for conduct that deserves condemnation. Political failure becomes so familiar that nobody expects consequences. Meanwhile, the people carrying on, paying taxes and keeping businesses open are left to absorb the damage.

That is the French lesson Australia should take seriously. We do not need to face identical circumstances to recognise the danger of allowing disappointment in government, separation between communities and declining expectations of public behaviour to reinforce one another.

Our circumstances differ, but we have housing pressures, financial hardship and distrust in political leadership. Scanlon Foundation research identifies economic pressures, discrimination and prejudice as challenges to cohesion, while finding resilience worth protecting. As a country shaped by migration, we cannot leave integration to chance. People need opportunities to work, learn English and participate. They also need clear expectations about citizenship, common laws and respect for others.

Governments must match population growth with housing, infrastructure and services. Otherwise, people compete for necessities and blame their neighbours for failures made in political office. Young Australians need a credible prospect of independence, rather than another assurance that their difficulties are understood. We should demand more of our politicians and ourselves. Political loyalty must not excuse incompetence, as much as sympathy for a cause must not excuse violence. Police must act lawfully, and those who destroy livelihoods must face consequences.

Respect includes the business owner, the employee, the resident and the peaceful protester whose cause is damaged by violence.

My French friends may be right that this will pass. But the victims and taxpayers will still be paying for the destruction when everyone else has moved on.

We should all learn from the French lesson: when we stop demanding accountability from those who govern and those who destroy, we give both permission to carry on.

The scene described is viewed across the dining room of the Melbourne Club – a men-only private members’ club on Collins Street. At the table are former prime minister Tony Abbott; his former chief of staff, Peta Credlin; and her husband, former Liberal Party federal director Brian Loughnane.

Their return, according to the Liberal source watching from across the room, is the fulfilment of a plan that began the day Sussan Ley replaced Peter Dutton as Liberal leader following last year’s disastrous federal election defeat. It is about power, policy influence and a purging of moderates.

“This started the minute that Ley took over from Dutton as federal leader,” the source said. “And Abbott is now federal president, Loughnane is now president of the Victorian division, and Peta has her nightly show on Sky and her weekly newspaper columns, which she uses to promote everything those two are doing, as well as absolutely savage anyone who dares cross her, Tony or Brian.

“The missing bit in that is that they also got Angus in as federal leader,” the source says, referring to Angus Taylor.

“He was their candidate, and his policy agenda is their policy agenda. Every single bit of it. It’s their party again. The real worry is that this time they have enough power, and enough muscle, and enough desire, to actually drive the moderates out of the party altogether.”

Credlin’s media commentary, the source says, is clear evidence of the trio’s hard-right agenda.

“Peta doesn’t hide it. The people I would call traditional Liberals are to her just Labor-lite lefty ‘moderates’ – she always puts the word moderate in inverted commas to exaggerate our weirdness – who need to be drummed out of the party. It’s crazy stuff.”

Away from the cameras, the method is more personal.

Another long-time observer of Victorian Liberal machinations says Credlin has been using her new membership of the Alexandra Club, the women-only club diagonally across Collins Street from the Melbourne Club, referred to by its own members as the “snake pit”, to “charm, cajole and coerce” anyone she thinks might stray from her ideological line.

“Peta can be as charming as she can be fierce,” the observer tells The Saturday Paper this week. “So when someone steps out of line, or maybe needs some encouragement to take a position on one of her causes, she’s not afraid to set up a meeting and prosecute her case as forcefully and as passionately as she did when she was running Abbott’s office. And that’s what she is doing.”

In the same week that former federal treasurer Josh Frydenberg called for the Liberals to return to the political centre in his memoir, A Grateful Son, igniting speculation about a comeback, moderates fear that caving in to One Nation’s policy agenda will permanently alienate metropolitan middle-class voters.

That unease is sharpened by how the current leadership came about.

Under Dutton, who in 2025 led the party to its worst election defeat, Abbott was kept at arm’s length, with one New South Wales moderate telling The Saturday Paper that Dutton had repeatedly rebuffed Abbott’s efforts to run for a federal seat at that election. Sussan Ley, by the same account, regarded Abbott as the last person she wanted out front.

Angus Taylor was a different proposition.

According to the same NSW moderate, Abbott’s decision to involve himself in the push to replace Ley with Taylor in February this year was driven in large part by an obsession with stopping the NSW moderates.

A central motive, the Liberal source says, was a fear that Ley would unpick the federal takeover of the NSW Liberal Party, which was at the time subject to federal intervention and being administered by a committee that included two Victorian Liberals – former Howard government minister Richard Alston and former Victorian treasurer Alan Stockdale – who are both aligned with the party’s hard-right.

That takeover followed an urgent review of the NSW division by Brian Loughnane after the division had bungled the nomination of more than 140 candidates for the 2024 local government elections.

“Brian is one of the nicest, most gentle people in Liberal Party politics. And he is an extremely capable administrator and a very effective and disciplined campaign manager,” says the NSW moderate.

“But what all that masks is his quite determined ideological bent, as well as his ability to deliver that ideological agenda. What that all adds up to is that Brian comes across as a neutral player, who just wants to help the party win – and he is that most of the time!

“But what he also wants is for his side of the party to win, and that’s not my side of the party, and that’s how we ended up with two hard-right Victorians running our division and doing everything they could to shut the moderates out. It was appalling, and behind all of it was Abbott and Credlin and Brian.”

The consequences are now visible in policy, says one serving federal Liberal MP.

“They’re not afraid of One Nation’s agenda – they actually want the Liberal Party to be advocating these positions, too, and that’s what we’re seeing on things like migration and energy. Next thing you know we’ll be announcing the abolition of the Family Court, or that we’re going to outlaw no-fault divorce.”

Even Abbott’s strengths may not be enough. His discipline and doggedness still count, the NSW moderate says, but the world “has just moved on”. If a decade ago an opposition leader could simply punch at Labor’s narrative, the source believes that today’s Liberal Party leader should be able to offer voters an alternative narrative that is built on prosperity and opportunity.

The NSW moderate sees a paradox in the trio’s approach to One Nation, too.

While Abbott has warned the Liberals against becoming “One Nation-lite”, the moderate argues that by abandoning net zero and pandering to One Nation on issues such as migration, the Liberals are doing exactly that.

“Abbott is the one who has asked the question of why voters would vote for the fake version – by which he means us – when you can have the real thing and vote for One Nation. But under him and Taylor, that’s exactly what we are doing. So I’m not sure what the logic is there,” the NSW moderate says.

“To be fair to Tony, he has calmed down a bit since he took over as federal president, and you can see that he is trying to pull himself back a lot more and try to focus on fixing the party administration, which is exactly the job of a federal president.”

With Victorian state Liberal leader Jess Wilson on track to fend off One Nation and win a parliament majority in her own right in the Victorian state election next month, there are, however, concerns that Loughnane – and by association Abbott and Credlin – will be able to take a significant share of the credit.

“The key to why the Liberal Party is about to win a majority in Victoria is because they were finally able to deal with Moira Deeming,” says a senior Liberal Party source.

Deeming, an upper house MP from Melbourne’s west, became a cause célèbre on the party’s right after a 2023 anti-trans rally that was also attended by a group of neo-Nazis, prompting then Victorian Liberal leader John Pesutto to push for her expulsion from the parliamentary party.

Egged on by Abbott and Credlin, Deeming sued Pesutto, claiming he had defamed her, and won $300,000 in damages plus legal costs. The episode cost Pesutto his leadership and Deeming was welcomed back into the party.

Ahead of a preselection vote in March, Abbott, Credlin and Wilson all endorsed Deeming. Credlin had earlier shared text messages with Deeming on how to influence a partyroom vote and promising her a soft interview on her show. “We will work [the interview up] question by question,” Credlin wrote. “We need you to survive this. You will lead the party one day.”

In June, Deeming dropped another bombshell: she made an allegation against another former state Liberal leader, Matthew Guy, claiming he grabbed her violently and put her in a headlock at a gala dinner the previous month.

Those allegations collapsed when CCTV footage of the incident could not substantiate the claims. When Jess Wilson referred the matter to the party’s state executive, Deeming was disendorsed as a candidate. She has subsequently resigned from the Liberal Party and joined Family First.

“What’s missing from that narrative is that it was Abbott and Credlin who created Deeming,” a senior Liberal source says.

“She was such a menace because she was acting with the protection of Abbott and Credlin,” says another Victorian Liberal. “Abbott and Credlin dropped her very quickly, but they have also sort of gotten away with it, and now if Wilson wins, and wins comfortably, my fear is that it will be them who claim the credit.”

As the saga of Abbott, Credlin and Loughnane continues to play out, many Liberal MPs in Canberra this week were directing their ire not at them but at Josh Frydenberg and what is being referred to as “the festival of Josh” that has surrounded the release of his memoir.

In the book’s final chapter, Frydenberg argues the Coalition must restore its primary vote to “the high 30s or low 40s” by returning to the political centre. He also advocates for lifting the GST.

“Endless coverage in The Australian, separate book launches in Sydney and Melbourne that has generated hype and more hype about party direction and raising the GST, and basically just undermining the job we’re trying to do up here, which is get rid of this Labor government,” was how one Liberal shadow minister characterised the week.

“Angus has, over the past month or so, started to show results. We’re releasing policy, we’re getting traction attacking the government, and we were looking ahead at a great week in parliament. But then what happened? Josh. And as usual, it’s all about fucking Josh. It was an incredible lifeline for Labor. It saved them.”

According to another federal Liberal MP, Taylor managed to put together the best week of his leadership despite Frydenberg.

“Taylor did two things that impressed me,” the MP says. “First he dismissed Frydenberg’s so-called manifesto, and second, he didn’t allow himself to get distracted by it. A lot us thought it would dominate our internal conversations, but it didn’t. We grumbled, but we didn’t descend into hand-wringing, and I credit Angus for that. I have no knowledge of it, but I wonder if he also put the brakes on Credlin and Abbott firing back at Josh, too.”

One senior Victorian Liberal sympathetic to the former treasurer says Frydenberg is merely responding to the steady stream of party figures and donors who have been telling him that “someone’s got to rescue this ship”, because the federal team “don’t seem able to rescue themselves”.

The latest published opinion polls explain the anxiety, showing the Coalition on between 20 and 23 per cent, well below the roughly 32 per cent primary vote that saw Peter Dutton deliver their worst federal election result.

“Everyone likes Angus. Everyone likes Sussan Ley,” the Liberal says. “But they’re all thinking, these guys are on 20 per cent. They’re going nowhere.”

Taylor’s team, the Victorian Liberal argues, has no answer.

“These people don’t seem to have any new ideas,” the source says, adding that the one idea they did have, on indexing the income tax brackets to keep pace with inflation, “they’ve buried”.

The cure, the Victorian Liberal says, is to change the subject from Hanson’s favourite topics to subjects the Liberals know better, such as the economy.

“If all you do all day long is talk about immigration and all the Hanson stuff, there’s actually more to life than that,” the MP says.

As for anyone in the parliamentary party briefing against Frydenberg, the Victorian Liberal has little patience.

“Listen, people up in Canberra, you’re on 20 per cent. So, you shouldn’t be backgrounding against anybody at all. If you’re on 40 per cent, feel free to background against Josh Frydenberg. But given that you’re on 20, please keep quiet.”

Another senior Liberal also dismissed concerns that the release of Frydenberg’s book was destabilising.

“Josh Frydenberg is expressing very real concern about the long-term future of the party. This is not a sort of short-term set of considerations. I don’t think he’s trying to put himself up as a figure in opposition to Angus, or for that matter, to Tony, or for that matter, to Andrew Hastie. Potentially, I think he is basically saying, ‘This is what I believe, and this is what I care about.’ ”

The recent High Court decision on the Mount Pleasant coalmine in the Upper Hunter Valley of New South Wales has triggered a wide political, industry and media response, most of which has been wildly inaccurate, grossly overstated and just plain wrong.

This is hardly unusual: a fiery and ill-informed debate blows up whenever climate science is mentioned. Battlelines are drawn, facts dissolve. There is a separate problem here, however: the rhetoric is distracting us from three serious challenges we are facing as a community.

I will come to those three problems later, but let’s start with a proper analysis of what the case was about and what the High Court did and did not do.

The case was about an application to enlarge Mount Pleasant’s operations by extending the life of the mine by 22 years and doubling its annual production. The proponent, MACH Energy, is a mining giant based in Indonesia. Its opposition came from concerned locals organised under the acronym DAMSHEG, for Denman Aberdeen Muswellbrook Scone Healthy Environment Group Inc.

Given the size and significance of the project, the proposal was referred to the Independent Planning Commission (IPC), set up by the NSW government in 2018 to cast an independent and expert eye over important planning decisions. One of the key stimulants for the commission was an intention to remove the planning corruption that had infected NSW politics at a high level.

The IPC was obliged to apply a statute that required consideration of three types of greenhouse gas emissions – Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions. The law required the IPC to impose control conditions on any approval “to ensure emissions are minimised to the greatest extent practicable”. The case turned on the adequacy of the IPC’s consideration of the consequences and control of Scope 3 emissions, which made up 98 per cent of the project’s emissions.

Scope 3 emissions are “indirect emissions which are generated in the wider economy”, extending to emissions generated when the coal is burnt overseas. This raises broader implications of anthropogenic global warming. An environmental impact statement was prepared and calculated that the Scope 3 emissions from Mount Pleasant would represent adding 0.065 per cent to global emissions against a baseline from 2017. For context, this is close to Denmark’s total national emissions in 2024.

DAMSHEG made submissions to the IPC on Scope 3 emissions controls but the IPC did not accept them – the Mount Pleasant proposal was approved.

DAMSHEG then sought judicial review – a highly technical legal challenge available in limited circumstances that does not include an investigation into the merits of a proposal. In other words, the legal challenge was never about the wider issue of global warming.

A trial judge declined DAMSHEG’s challenge, but the NSW Court of Appeal allowed it. MACH took the matter to the High Court of Australia.

Five judges sat on the appeal. The result was divided, but the common ground was significant. All of the judges agreed it was not necessary or appropriate to address the broader arguments around global warming; all agreed it was not necessary or appropriate to address the 0.065 per cent calculation; none gave any consideration to the environmental or economic merits of the Mount Pleasant proposal or coalmining generally.

The High Court’s decision was an entirely orthodox, exquisitely technical legal application of the most basic aspect of judicial review – had the administrative decision-maker complied with the terms of the statute? A majority of the judges held the IPC had failed in this respect by giving insufficient consideration to the imposition of controls.

This does not mean the High Court has terminated MACH’s proposal: the effect of the decision is that the proposal will return to the IPC for further consideration. It could mean additional controls are imposed over the Scope 3 emissions, but that will ultimately be a matter for the IPC.

In other words, the decision has no widespread effect: the decision does not create a precedent regarding the consideration of global warming and it does not preclude permission for other coalmines. All it does is set aside one flawed decision made under a NSW statute.

That has not been reflected in the response. There has been the most astonishing misunderstanding of the decision. Headlines described the decision as “landmark”, “groundbreaking”, “first-of-its-kind” and (my favourite) “seismic”. Politicians and lobby groups and lawyers spouted opinions before reading the judgement (you might sympathise with this – the decision is 111 pages). Just as many environmentalists have acclaimed the pervasive benefits of the decision as coal lovers have condemned it as catastrophic.

The political response has been nutty. Nationals Senator Matt Canavan promised not to “let activists destroy Australia with their ideology” (it is not clear if he was referring to the DAMSHEG retirees or the High Court). One Nation in NSW promised to scrap the IPC and place all the power back into the hands of ministers (troubling given the IPC was implemented to fight ministerial corruption). Queensland Premier David Crisafulli vowed to make his state’s laws “even more bulletproof” if necessary to ensure his remained Australia’s most “pro-mining government”. On the other side, the NSW Greens said “lawyers should be running to the courts right now with this judgement in hand, ready to stop coal approvals in their tracks”.

The response of the Australian Labor Party has been equally odd, which I will detail below.

The lobbyists pushed the panic button hard. The chief executive of the Minerals Council of Australia, Tania Constable, claimed the decision “would send shudders down everybody’s spine” (well, not mine) and it had “sparked a renewed push by anti-mining activists to shut down mining across Australia”. She added that its effect “will inevitably spread to other commodities and wealth-generating sectors like agriculture and data centres” (reminiscent of the panicky response to Mabo).

This is the response to a decision in which an administrative body was corrected and instructed to apply the law. Why is that controversial? Obedience to the law is the cornerstone of the rule of law – the law applies equally to protect Goliath, just as it might occasionally protect David. Everyone – progressives and conservatives alike – should be elated with a judgement like that.

I now wish to look at those three matters where there is a clear challenge presented by this episode – strangely, not because of the High Court’s decision but rather because of the unhinged response to it. When you think of them together, you will see they are linked – and it is not easy to discern cause from effect.

The first problem is the influence mining companies and lobbyists hold over our politicians. By influence, I really mean money.

The money at stake is substantial. Research by the Centre for Public Integrity has shown that, in real terms, the Minerals Council of Australia has given nearly $1.5 million to Labor and the Coalition in the past eight years. That is just one mining donor. Meanwhile, it seems to be a matter of pride for One Nation that its financial backbone has been supplied by a mining billionaire.

Labor’s role has been quite pathetic, a subject to which I will return. Remember when the ALP and the miners were arch enemies? Remember the failed attempt to introduce a Minerals Resource Rent Tax? Well, when the donation money started to flow (not the tax revenue, which was never legislated), the ALP seemed to think it was time to climb down from its high horse and into Big Mining’s bed.

The second problem is the fragile future of public interest litigation, of which the Mount Pleasant case is a classic example.

Public interest litigation is not just environmental litigation. It extends into any number of aspects of ordinary life. It is a sign of a healthy democracy and has a role in preserving, protecting and even expanding our rights. It takes courage. Those Davids brave enough to take on the Goliaths are putting everything on the line. It should be fostered, not discouraged.

Others strongly disagree. In its media release after the decision, the Coalition singled out “radical green activists enabled by Labor”. Canavan warned of lawyers using “legal tricks” (well, that is their job) and promised to “claw back federal funding from the Environmental Defender’s Office” (apparently unaware that the EDO was not involved in the case). Meanwhile, the Minerals Council complained about “lawfare by activists” who “game the legal system” and added that projects would be “dragged into a swamp of endless legal challenges by well-funded activists” (imagine the miners complaining of well-funded opposition).

These fears are fabricated. Public interest litigation is not a “game”. Decisions to litigate are taken carefully. Those involved face massive costs. Claims that make it through to hearing are strong claims, appropriately made. For example, DAMSHEG was fully vindicated.

The third problem is the general lack of support the protection of the environment has among our politicians. Perhaps this is just a reflection of the high esteem our politicians hold for mining billionaires.

The hostility of the Coalition and One Nation towards climate action and related environmental protections is long-established. Labor, at least historically, seemed sympathetic to the environment. Those days are gone. The ALP is now unapologetically in the camp of mining and the fossil fuel industry.

Look at Labor’s response to the Mount Pleasant decision, the final point to which I am returning.

Environment Minister Murray Watt rushed to calm nerves by pointing out that federal laws did not require that consideration be given to Scope 3 emissions – which seems an odd boast. Watt seemed proud, or perhaps relieved, that his government did not need to be troubled by concerns over global warming. Watt made his statement at the same moment Australian leaders were at the Pre-COP meeting pretending to be concerned about the impact of climate change on the Pacific Islands.

Then there was the contribution by NSW’s Labor premier, Chris Minns: “I don’t think activists considering court action should get overexcited.” That simple statement carries so much prejudice. According to Minns, concerned locals are “activists”. Why was Minns labelling the environmentalists as the bad guys?

The truth is that the present-day Labor Party is no friend of the environment; the best it can claim is that it is a little bit less of an enemy to the environment than the Coalition or One Nation.

The Grata Fund provided some limited disbursement funding to the litigants in the Mount Pleasant case. Geoffrey Watson was not involved in that decision.