Australia Funds the Warning Signs and Ignores the Problem

I came on a holiday and now I am putting together a briefing note to get an audience with Penny Wong.

Six days in Sri Lanka and it has become impossible to dodge that Australia spends billions on detention centres, offshore processing, border enforcement and surveillance, locking up children and stripping people of hope, and far less on the conditions that drive people to leave.

Billions on Warnings, Almost Nothing on Solutions

In my first piece I wrote about vaccines, public health and the visible conditions that make disease prevention a daily issue, not a travel checklist.

This second piece comes from a different place. I have taken a day out and stayed at the hotel because I needed a break from what I am seeing. The contrast is confronting. Writing this is how I turn that into action.

I am drawing on the leadership training I trust. Goal, problem, solution. In an ideal world we would sit down with the people we want to support and listen, and listen, and listen.

We pour money into deterrence after people decide to go, when the wiser investment is supporting them to stay

You do not need a policy paper to understand the pull of Australia from here. You need eyes and a nose. You need to walk past polluted water, rubbish piled where people live and work, and the kind of infrastructure gap that turns an ordinary stomach bug into something far more serious. You need to hear that Australia funds bus shelters carrying warnings about people smugglers and recognise the absurdity in full view.

We will pay for the warning sign. We drag our feet on the conditions that might remove the need for the warning.

And of course people look at Australia and want what we have. Clean water. Reliable health care. Schools that open doors. Work that pays enough to build a life. Streets that do not force public health into every hour of the day. Add a strong Sri Lankan community already living in Australia and the path becomes easier to imagine. People are not chasing fantasy. They are responding to the visible difference between one set of conditions and another.

Now place that against our politics at home. We live in a country of abundance, still right wing politics thrives by feeding grievance. Migrants are taking our jobs. Migrants are buying our houses. Migrants are the problem. It is the old script. Find a villain. Feed the resentment. Keep the public focused on who to blame rather than what to fix.

This is where the debate in Australia becomes so shabby. We hand the microphone to people who reduce human desperation to border slogans, as though cruelty counts as policy. They rage about boats, numbers and national strength. They rarely talk about sanitation, disease prevention, local health care, waste systems, corruption proof delivery, or long term partnerships with communities. They talk about the last stage of the story because outrage plays well at home.

There is another audience for this conversation. People who already know Australia has obligations beyond self protection. People who understand that generosity without discipline achieves little, and discipline without humanity turns ugly fast. This is where the hard thinking belongs. How do we help build safer, healthier lives in countries people are leaving? How do we do it from the ground up, with local knowledge, clear goals, open reporting and constant scrutiny? How do we keep money out of corrupt hands and get it to the people and projects that can change daily life?

We Warn Them Not to Come, Then Do Nothing About Why They Leave

None of this is beyond us. Trial programs. Local partnerships. Transparent metrics. Public reporting. Long term commitment. Real listening before money moves. Australia knows how to design systems, monitor spending and explain outcomes when it chooses to. This is a choice.

Sri Lanka has made one part of this brutally clear to me. People do not hand over life savings to smugglers because they are reckless. They do it because paradise looks believable from where they stand, and because home has stopped offering enough protection, dignity or hope.

That should force a different question onto the table in Australia. Not how loudly we can declare the border secure. How seriously we are prepared to invest in the basics that give people a reason to stay where they are.

I came here for a holiday. Six days in, I am thinking about budgets, public health, political courage and the poverty of a national debate that still treats deterrence as the main event.

This is the second piece. I will come back to the question in another six days, and I doubt it will have become any easier.

Why does Australia pay to lock people up rather than fix the reasons they leave?

Australia spends huge sums punishing desperate people at the border instead of spending earlier on the health, sanitation and opportunity that might help people build a life at home.

Sri Lanka has forced me to see something I have managed to avoid for years. I have travelled in first world countries, stayed in clean places, come home with photos and impressions, and rarely had to think about the public health conditions that shape daily life for millions of people. This trip changed that within hours. The vaccines alone told part of the story. The streets, the water and the smell told the rest.

Before I left Australia, I went to my chemist to check what I needed. COVID, flu, diphtheria, tetanus. Then typhoid. A check on hepatitis A. A conversation about Japanese encephalitis. Malaria risk. It felt like a long list for a short trip.

Then I arrived and understood exactly why the list exists.

You step outside and you see how easily disease can move. Waste sits in the open. Water carries what it should not. Heat amplifies all of it. This is daily life for people who do not have the infrastructure many Australians take for granted.

I am drinking a cocktail standing in water that you wouldn’t dream of drinking 

And then, in the middle of this, 0ur guide pointed out bus shelters funded by Australia.  He asked if we knew why they were there. We did not. He told us they carried warnings about people smugglers. Sri Lankans, he said, look to Australia and want the life they believe exists there.

Of course they do.

You can see the reasons from here. Reliable health care. Clean water. Education that leads somewhere. Jobs that pay. A future that feels secure. Add to this a strong Sri Lankan community already in place, people who help new arrivals find work, housing, a foothold.

So people make a calculation. They sell what they have. They take risks. They hand money to operators who promise a way out.

And this is where we shake our heads.

Australia spends huge sums punishing desperate people at the border instead of spending earlier on the health, sanitation and opportunity that might help people build a life at home.

We will pay a fortune to lock people up after they leave, still we drag our feet on helping create the conditions that might let them stay.

Standing here, that choice looks harder and harder and harder to defend.

We already spend money in places like this. Those bus shelters prove it. We fund messages telling people not to leave. We fund systems at the other end designed to stop them arriving. The spending is real. The intent is clear.

Still the gap sits in front of you.

What would change if a share of that money went into the basics people talk about here every day. Clean water systems. Waste management. Local health services. Vaccination programs delivered as standard care, not as travel protection for visitors. The kind of infrastructure that reduces disease, improves daily life and gives people a reason to stay.

The aim does not change. Fewer dangerous journeys. Fewer families risking everything. Less money flowing to people smugglers.

The starting point shifts.

Travel can be many things. This trip has stripped something back for me. Vaccines protect people like me when I arrive. Investment in public health and basic infrastructure could do far more for the people who live here.

Here is the question again for all of us.

Why are we willing to pay a fortune to lock people up after they leave, still so reluctant to help create the conditions that might let them stay?

Kiama Council’s Easter ambush sparks anger over cuts closed doors and police

Kiama Council dropped an extraordinary meeting agenda on the Thursday before a four day Easter break, then set the meeting on for the following Tuesday, the first day back. The agenda carried sweeping proposed savings across community life, including youth, cultural and community services, visitor services, tourism, library hours, Leisure Centre hours, the pensioner rebate, community donations and sponsorships, staff positions, and the proposed relocation of the Pilot’s Cottage Museum and Visitor Information Centre.

People in Kiama understand there is a budget problem. They understand Council is operating under a Performance Improvement Order and that difficult decisions are in front of it.

The anger has come from the way this was handled. Material of this scale was put into the public arena on the eve of a long weekend, when people were heading into Easter, then debated the moment the holiday ended. Councillors had already been through workshops and briefings. The community got a scramble.

The public forum timing sharpened the sense that this was being pushed through rather than opened up. Instead of the breathing space most people would expect before a decision of this size, public access was held immediately before the meeting itself.

People were expected to absorb complex proposals, organise their thoughts, speak, and watch councillors move into debate, all in the same late afternoon.

Then came the access arrangements. On the afternoon of the meeting, Council announced that the administration building would close at 4 pm, the public gallery would be limited to 20 attendees, protest material would not be permitted inside chambers or council workplaces, security would manage access, and NSW Police had been advised of the intended protest. That combination told its own story.

Community anger was being managed as a risk event at the very moment residents were trying to be heard.

This is the part Council seems not to have understood. When you put youth services, community services, library hours, tourism functions, the pensioner rebate, staff positions and local heritage on the table, people will react. When you do it before a four day break and bring it on for the first day back, they will react harder. When you then tighten access and prepare for protest, they draw their own conclusions.

Watch community concerns on WIN4 News here 

The question now is larger than one difficult meeting. Kiama has already seen police called to a tense council gathering in recent years. That gives this latest episode a wider significance. Residents are entitled to ask whether this is becoming a pattern, late release of major decisions, compressed opportunities for public response, and a readiness to treat dissent as a security problem rather than a democratic reality.

No one expects budget repair to be painless. People do expect honesty, time and respect. They expect to see the problem clearly, weigh the trade offs, and speak before the process tightens around them. That did not happen here.

You would hope this is not how Kiama Council plans to handle major public decisions from here. It looks too much like another way of shutting down community voices. And once a council starts hearing community anger as a threat instead of a message, it has lost sight of the room.

In what parallel universe is history a discount code for present day suffering!

There is something almost impressive about the confidence it takes to defend a present day war by reaching for a greatest hits list of other disasters.

World War I lasted longer.
World War II lasted longer.
Vietnam lasted longer.
Korea lasted longer.
Iraq lasted longer.

Thank goodness that has cleared things up.

By that standard, the public is not supposed to ask whether this war is justified, whether the goals keep shifting, whether families can afford to live through it, or whether turning whole regions into trauma zones counts as a problem. We are apparently meant to calm down because, in the grand timeline of human ruin, this one has not yet made the podium. Reuters and ABC both reported Trump framing the current war that way, urging Americans to “keep this conflict in perspective” and calling it “an investment in your children and your grandchildren’s future.”

It is a remarkable political trick. Take a fresh wound, stand it beside several amputations, then announce that everyone is being dramatic.

Perspective, it is not. It is comparative minimisation with a flag wrapped around it.

A shorter war can still be grotesque. A newer war can still be catastrophic. A war that has not yet reached the age of Vietnam does not become wise, noble or economically sensible through the simple passage of fewer months.

This is were it goes beyond the pale ( as if it could get worse). It asks ordinary people to lower their standards in real time. Do not ask whether this should be happening. Ask whether it is, historically speaking, long enough to deserve your concern. Do not measure the dead, the displaced, the fear, the cost of groceries, the cost of fuel, the cost of public trust. Measure the calendar.

It is the politics of lowered expectations. Your power bill is up, your food bill is up, global tensions are up, and the sales pitch is that other wars were even worse.

How reassuring.

History is not meant to be used as a discount code for present day suffering.

We live in a world where petrol prices have become our moral compass

There is something bleakly revealing that the NYTimes tell us pollsters are wondering whether petrol at more than US$4 a gallon will finally dent Donald Trump’s support. In the United States, the national average has just moved above that mark for the first time since 2022, driven by war with Iran and the disruption of oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz. Reuters reported the shift this week.

Think about what that says.

A president can help drag the world into another ruinous conflict. Thousands can die. Billions can be burned. The White House can be treated like a developer’s vanity project. Washington’s cultural and historic institutions can be pushed around as if they are items on a personal mood board. Yet the thing that may finally make the rusted on pause is the cost of filling the car.

This is hedonism. It is a form of citizenship so narrowed by self interest that mass suffering, public waste and institutional vandalism barely register until the pain arrives at the petrol bowser.

This week a federal judge halted Trump’s $400 million White House ballroom project, finding he lacked authority to push ahead without congressional approval. The project had already involved demolition of the East Wing and formed part of a broader push to remake Washington landmarks, including the Kennedy Center.

So this is the picture. A leader can preside over war abroad and grandiosity at home, and for many supporters the real test still comes down to whether the weekly drive costs a bit more.

In any rational world pollsters would focus on food prices. Food hits every household, whether they drive or not. But petrol has always had unusual political power because people see it in giant numbers on roadside signs. It is immediate, public and emotional. Pollsters know that. Politicians know that. It becomes shorthand for pain, even when far greater harms are unfolding in plain sight.

 What if we put the weekly cost of bread, milk, fruit, school lunches and basic groceries on billboards the way we do petrol, and people might start talking about cost of living in a way that reflects actual life.

It would expose the absurdity, wouldn’t it.

So yes, there is something in that.

Petrol has political power partly because it is turned into public theatre. Food, even though it is more fundamental, stays tucked inside receipts, shopping trolleys and household stress.

If petrol prices are what finally cracks the rusted on, it will not be because they have reflected deeply on leadership, democracy or human suffering. It will be because the consequences have at last reached their own windscreen.

No way, Jose – Trump does not get to smash the region and then pose as the man who came to save global trade.

Media heading this morning “Trump needs troops to seize the Strait of Hormuz. These are his options”
This is exactly how war gets laundered. The person who lit the fire is recast as the man arriving with the hose.
Once the story shifts to strategy, capability and whether America can pull it off, the original act of aggression starts to slip out of frame. The public is invited to admire the logistics, the resolve, the sheer competence of the response.
Suddenly the question is no longer why this war began. The question becomes whether Trump can deliver a win.
That is how leaders escape responsibility. The destruction they set in motion is folded into a new storyline where they get to play rescuer, defender and strongman all at once.
At between US$1.6 and US$1.9 billion a day, this war is already consuming money on a scale most people can barely picture. That money could have gone into health, housing, education, renewable energy, disaster recovery, food security and public transport.
It could have strengthened lives instead of tearing them apart.
And the meter is still running.
We do not yet know how many lives will be lost.
We do know who made this possible.
We do know who chose escalation.
We do know that media language matters.
The moment coverage starts treating the author of a crisis as the hero of its resolution, journalism stops asking the most important question.
Who created this mess in the first place?
No way, Jose – He does not get to smash the region and then pose as the man who came to save global trade.

When power starts suing its way through democracy

As a citizen journalist, one of the key things I write about is abuse of power. It shows up in local councils, institutions, corporations and political systems. It shows up wherever people with status, money or authority decide the rules should protect them more than the public.

Watching court case after court case announced by the Trump administration, I cannot think of a clearer modern example.

Its become an embedded governing style. As of 20 March 2026, Lawfare was tracking 233 active cases challenging Trump administration actions and 22 suits brought by the administration against states or local governments. Reuters reported on 20 March that the administration had also sued Harvard, seeking to recover billions in federal funds over allegations of antisemitism.

This scale shows how lawsuits work far beyond the courtroom. They operate in the imagination. Every new case carries a message. If you resist, this can become expensive. If you push back, we can drain your time, your focus and your resources. Even when a defendant eventually wins, the punishment has already started.

A courtroom becomes a theatre of intimidation. The people in the gallery take the message home.

The Harvard case lays out the playbook. Take an institution in public view, threaten its funding, force it into a costly fight and let everyone else watch. Universities will see exactly what is being demonstrated. So will every organisation tied to public money.

Australia uses a different model, and some parts of that model offer stronger democratic safeguards. We channel many disputes through administrative review rather than permanent courtroom war. The Administrative Review Tribunal recorded 59,752 lodgements between 14 October 2024 and 30 June 2025. 0 We have a structure that, at least in theory, allows citizens to challenge government decisions through review rather than spectacle.

Still, Australia leaves people exposed in another way. The Human Rights Law Centre says the ACT remains the only Australian jurisdiction with anti SLAPP laws, and even those protections are narrower than stronger overseas models. So while our politics may be less theatrical, wealthy people and powerful institutions can still use legal threat to intimidate critics, campaigners, journalists and ordinary citizens.

Abuse of power often arrives in polished form, a statement of claim, a demand for documents, a threat over costs, a lawyer’s letter written to sound reasonable while applying pressure. The language is formal. The intention is unmistakable.

Do what I want, or I will make this hurt.

A healthy democracy needs courts. It also needs limits on the use of law as a weapon. It needs strong anti SLAPP protections. It needs independent media. It needs citizens willing to keep speaking when power would prefer quiet.

That is one of the reasons I keep writing about abuse of power. Once you learn to recognise the pattern, you start seeing it everywhere.

The war on facts is going very well.

Dear readers,

My mornings have started to feel like an episode of What On Earth Happened Overnight.

Coffee in hand, I open the news and within about thirty seconds I’m muttering, surely this cannot be real.

At that point curiosity takes over. I go digging. I read. I follow the rabbit holes. I try to work out what the actual story is underneath the noise.

Then I write about it.  Think of this as a public thought dump. It keeps me sane. And if it helps you make sense of things as well, that’s a bonus.

A small warning before we begin. By the end of this post you will be walking around feeling extremely pleased with yourself. You will casually drop phrases like motivated reasoning, tribal politics, media silos, identity loyalty, defensive solidarity and the rally-around-the-leader effect into conversation. Someone will ask what you’re talking about and you will say, in a calm and scholarly tone, “Oh, it’s the psychology behind modern politics.” They will nod thoughtfully and assume you have been reading very serious books. You and I will know the truth. You read a blog while drinking coffee. …………..

This morning I woke up, made coffee, opened the news and saw the investigators preliminary report about the strike on the Iranian school.

My first thought.

This government seems to operate by a simple rule. If something goes wrong, find someone else to blame before the facts arrive.

We’ve seen this movie before.

Something serious happens and within minutes the explanation appears. The culprit has been identified. The blame neatly packaged and sent off in the right direction.

Almost impressive, really. Sherlock Holmes usually waited for clues.

Then the investigation starts. Which can become awkward if the facts develop inconvenient habits.

I found myself staring at the screen thinking, who is comfortable doing that? Who announces the answer before anyone has even finished asking the question?

So naturally I did what curious people do. I went down a curiosity deep dive.

A dangerous hobby in modern politics.

The psychology behind this behaviour turns out to be well studied and mildly alarming.

Once politics becomes tribal, people stop weighing the evidence first. The question quietly changes.

Not is this true?

More like which side does this help?

Once that switch flips, the reactions become very predictable.

Criticism of the leader is treated as an attack on the tribe. Supporters close ranks. The controversy becomes proof that the leader is under siege. Loyalty tightens.

Evidence starts to behave like an optional extra.

The leader stops being evaluated as a public official and becomes the team captain.

If that sounds ridiculous, think about how often we do the same thing in ordinary life.

Take the parent who knows perfectly well their child is a menace at school. The teacher explains the behaviour. Other parents raise concerns.

The response is immediate.

Not my child.

Within seconds the defence brief is underway. The teacher misunderstood. The other children provoked it. There must be some context we are missing.

Parents across the world have defended worse behaviour with less preparation.

Evidence becomes surprisingly flexible.

Sport fans provide another excellent demonstration. Watch a group of supporters when the referee makes a call against their team. Twelve questionable tackles from their own side pass without comment. One borderline decision goes the other way and suddenly there is a conspiracy reaching all the way to FIFA headquarters.

Slow motion replay demanded immediately.

Sport fans are experts in tribal politics. They have been training for it since childhood.

Families are even better.

Every family has the relative who tells a story from ten years ago with enormous confidence and only a passing relationship to what actually happened. Everyone else remembers it differently.

This does not disturb them in the slightest.

Confidence, as it turns out, is rarely held back by facts.

Human beings are very good at protecting the stories we prefer.

Political psychologists call it motivated reasoning. Information gets interpreted in ways that defend identity and loyalty.

Facts arrive carrying emotional baggage.

And once a society drifts fully into tribal politics the warning signs start appearing everywhere.

People decide whether something is true based mainly on where they heard it.

Opponents stop being people with different views and start being described as corrupt, dangerous or illegitimate.

Political identity spreads across every issue. Climate, education, foreign policy, vaccines. The same team jerseys appear in every argument.

Add media silos where people hear the same interpretation repeated all day and the effect becomes stronger.

The final stage is defensive solidarity.

Criticism of the leader becomes criticism of the tribe.

At that point politics starts to look less like debate and more like sport.

You pick your team.

The captain is always right.

And once that happens, the facts are often the first casualty.

My morning news routine, strong espresso and friends who make me think

Are you short on time, or feeling a little overwhelmed by the news?

You are not alone. The modern news cycle can feel relentless. The world appears on our screens each morning with fresh evidence that humanity has been busy overnight.

Staying connected still matters.

Understanding the bigger picture helps us make sense of the conversations around us and the decisions that shape our communities and our democracies.

The good news is that it does not require hours of reading or watching the news.

Here are five easy ways to stay across the world in ten minutes a day.

The Daily Aus
Posts that explain Australian news in simple language designed for younger audiences.

Suggest checking out their Good News Newsletter 

ABC News In-depth
Short explainers, interviews and quick context pieces.

The Juice Media
Their “Honest Government Ads” are widely shared and often act as an entry point for younger viewers into policy debates.

The Squiz
A short daily newsletter summarising the biggest stories in a few minutes.

ABC News Daily
A 10–15 minute podcast that explains one major story each day.

The Conversation daily briefing
Articles written by academics that explain the context behind major news issues.

Google News daily summary
A personalised summary of major stories gathered from multiple news outlets.

BTW After a quick tour through these offerings, I can understand why some young people prefer to talk to their friends instead.

Why this post now…….

A few days ago I was talking with a 26 year old friend.

Bright, curious, engaged with people around her. The sort of person who brings energy into a room. She works hard, values her friendships and carries a good sense of humour about life.

During our conversation I mentioned a news story about several Iranian women footballers seeking asylum.

She looked puzzled.

She had not heard the story.
She did not know where Iran was.

I spend a lot of time working with young people through community programs and conversations like this come up more often than many people realise.

The young adults I meet care deeply about the people around them. Many volunteer, support friends through difficult moments and think seriously about the kind of world they want to live in.

They are also part of a generation that has grown up with a relentless news cycle.

Bushfires, floods and droughts, a global pandemic, wars filling social media feeds, constant warnings about climate change and economic instability.

Which is understandable. The modern news cycle sometimes feels less like information and more like standing under a fire hose.

Researchers at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism been tracking this trend in their global Digital News Report. Younger adults are increasingly selective about how much news they consume, often because the constant stream of crisis stories feels overwhelming.

The report was published in 2024. The world has been busy adding updates since then, with wars continuing in Ukraine and Gaza, the United States and Israel bombing Iran and a terrorist attack in Sydney reminding Australians that global tensions do not always stay overseas.

Information also arrives differently now.

I like to think I keep a reasonable eye on the world.

The morning routine helps. First the The Sydney Morning Herald, then The Conversation. Between the two of them you get a fairly solid overview of humanity’s latest achievements and a mindfield of face palm spectacular lapses in judgement.

With Donald Trump and his friend Benjamin Netanyahu dominating the headlines, the news feed does tend to lean heavily toward the latter. On some mornings it feels as if about three quarters of the front page involves Trump in one form or another.

After that I strongly recommend a conversation with a kind, compassionate human being. Preferably over a very good espresso. It helps when the headlines are stronger

My Facebook feed is curated with similar care. Over the years I have gathered a tribe of people who read widely, argue politely and challenge my thinking about something I thought I had already figured out.

They add to my knowledge. They challenge my biases. They point out things I missed while making my morning coffee.

It beats arguing with strangers on the internet.

They are the kind of friends I hope young people find. People who help each other think more clearly about the world rather than simply shouting about it.

Democracy does not arrive on the wings of fighter jets

The phrase “real men solve problems with bombs” is not strength. It is a recruitment slogan for other people’s funerals.

The news from the Gold Coast carried a familiar tone of celebration. Five Iranian women footballers, including captain Zahra Ghanbari, escaping their government minders and being granted humanitarian visas in Australia. There were photos, cheers, and, as the Home Affairs Minister cheerfully reported, a spontaneous chant of “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie”.

For many Australians it felt like a simple story. Brave women rescued. Freedom offered. A good ending.

Stories like this have a powerful pull. They tap into an old idea that runs deep through Western political culture. The idea that someone will ride in on a white horse and save the day.

The white knight.

Across history the script has repeated itself. Strong men, often described as decisive or tough, step forward declaring that they will fix another country’s problems. The language shifts between defence, liberation, stability or democracy. The outcome rarely matches the promise.

Think  Vietnam. Iraq. Afghanistan. Libya.

Each began with claims that intervention would deliver freedom. Each left societies fractured, institutions weakened and millions of ordinary people carrying the cost for generations.

What is missing from the white knight story is the people who actually live in those countries.

Iranians are not waiting for outsiders to rescue them. They have been debating the future of their country for decades. Students, women, writers, workers, clerics, reformers and conservatives all argue fiercely about what Iran should become. The struggle inside the country is real, complex and deeply Iranian.

History shows something else as well. Lasting change almost always grows from inside a society, not from outside armies.

South Africa dismantled apartheid through internal resistance and negotiation.
Indonesia moved away from dictatorship after mass civil pressure.
Eastern European countries rebuilt themselves after the collapse of the Soviet bloc through internal political movements and public demand for change.

External pressure can sometimes open space. It can support civil society. It can amplify voices that governments try to silence.

War does the opposite. It crushes the very people who might build a different future.

The phrase “real men solve problems with bombs” is not strength. It is a recruitment slogan for other people’s funerals.

Strength measured in explosions is a very old idea. It has left a trail of ruined cities and broken societies.

The Iranian footballers who escaped in Australia remind us of something far more hopeful. People everywhere want the same thing. The chance to live safely, to speak freely and to shape the future of their own country.

That future will not arrive on a white horse.

It will be built by Iranians themselves.