Increasingly frustrated voters all around the country are indicating they may vote for Pauline Hanson's One Nation at a future election. Poll after poll shows growing support for the Queensland senator's maverick party. Divisive and fringe issues are suddenly finding populist support.
"She tells it like it is and isn't afraid to speak her mind" is an approach that's now winning over more voters than it turns off. The question those inclined to vote for One Nation should consider, however, is what would a Hanson led government look like? Such a government would have virtually no parliamentary experience beyond Hanson and Barnaby Joyce, virtually no experienced support staff and hardly any backup party machinery or long-term membership base to formulate party policies.
The group placed in charge of running the country would have no collective idea about how parliament works nor skills in using the machinery of government to get things done. That might appeal to some but to me it's a frightening prospect. Many have argued that Labor's 23 years in the wilderness caused the failure of the Whitlam government.
The inexperience of the ministers and members of the government has often been cited as a factor. The situation would be far, far worse in the event of a Hanson government coming to power. One only has to look across to the US to get an idea of the havoc that can be wrought by a hubristic, narcissistic leader and their followers. Voters should be careful what they wish for.
One might say, if uncharitably, that AI is an avatar of autistic sociopathy. Still, though, we seem willing to entrust this non-sentient, non-feeling machine, and its tiny cohort of billionaire purveyors, with potentially unfettered decision-making powers.
And all on behalf of we, the sentient: we who actually feel things and are destined to suffer the consequences of this much heralded "sociopath". Think, for example of autonomous weapons systems where the sentient surrender lethal combat decisions to algorithms.
Ironically, as "man" says "no" to God with increasing alacrity in the West, AI seems destined to say "no" to man as it mocks our inefficiency and inferior data processing capacity. Fancy that, the created turning its back on its creator: Atheism evolving into "a-humanism".
Pope Leo's sentient encyclical, "Magnifica Humanitas", invites us to re-examine our humanity in the face of an artificially intelligent machine that, like blue-green algae, is spreading quickly and overwhelming our social, natural, and spiritual ecology.
The Pope points us to a Creator who longs to dwell within the (sentient) human heart and elicit beauty and truth. This contrasts with AI's utter indifference as it seduces the sentient into, among many other things, unrequited online "relationships": heartless encounters with a "sociopath" that end, not only in tears, but even in suicide, for goodness sake.
AI's genius and effectiveness lies in it being put in its place, so to speak - that is, by the humble and sentient who take charge, shaping the machine's future and determining its place in the world.
Christian Slattery has drawn our attention to the well-oiled revolving door between politics and industry and the distortion that brings to good policy-making. ("A lobby system for insiders only", June 1). It probably applies across many portfolios, but the resources industry in particular seems to have acquired more than its share of former ministers and advisers.
Perhaps the relevant current ministers and shadow ministers, and their advisers, could solemnly promise that they will not take up post-politics jobs in the resources sector? I'm sure The Canberra Times would be happy to publish their promises.
Kym MacMillan (Letters, June 1) once again leaps to defend the Australian War Memorial by asserting, without any historical justification, that warfare accompanying the settlement of Australia was unimportant. Appearing on Reconciliation Day, his letter is more than merely in poor taste.
Mr MacMillan is trying to bar a door that the AWM is opening, however hesitantly. He seems unaware that the AWM has, belatedly and reluctantly, accepted that frontier conflict (now rightly described as the Australian Wars) is to be represented in the memorial's galleries as part of Australia's history of war.
The real question to be debated now is how that historical fact can be adequately recognised. It should be of concern to all Australians seeking to honestly face our history.
Remember the rust bucket warships Australia bought from the US back in the 1990s? They were thought at first to be real bargains at "just" $125 million.
But they ended up costing the Australian taxpayer nearly $400 million due to the major rebuilds required. As Arthur Daley would have said, "a nice little earner" for the Americans.
Australia has now lowered the bar even further. Instead of buying at least one new Virginia class submarines, we will purchase three second-hand ones from the US. Once delivered these pre-loved submarines will have already used up one third of the expected life span and will no doubt require overhauls and upgrades for which I expect Australia will also have to pay.
The first of these not-new submarines is expected to arrive in six years. The second in 10 years. And the third in 14 years.
By that time these submarines will have shortened their life expectancy by more years. I hope any nation with aspirations of invading Australia isn't paying attention to world news.
And now for the cherry on the ice cream. To overcome Australia's shortfall in defence procurement our navy will extend the life of the current Collins class submarines for another 10 years at a cost into the billions. To use the American slang for someone who is easily manipulated, tricked or cheated, Australia must be seen by the Americans as the biggest patsy in the South Pacific.
No Katy Skinner (Letters, June 1), the voting public has finally seen through all the woke, diversity, equity and inclusion nonsense being promoted by the Labor/Green mob, and are opting for common sense as has been espoused by One Nation (for many years) and the now catching up Coalition.
Pray tell me what is racist about wanting to limit immigration and then only to those who share our values?
Furthermore, surely as a woman you don't agree with the idiocy of allowing biological men identifying as women to share their spaces with biological women.
What takes the cake is Anna Cody, the Sex Discrimination Commissioner, talking about potential pregnancies in biological men identifying as women. You can't make this stuff up.
It was disheartening to learn the ACT government is continuing lethal control programs in and around Namadgi National Park while simultaneously undertaking a process to recognise and protect the dingo as an important native species. These two objectives are difficult to reconcile.
The government says its aim is to reduce livestock losses while maintaining a sustainable dingo population. However, sustainability requires transparent information about how many dingoes exist, how many are being removed, and what impact this has on the long-term viability of the population.
Recent figures show reported livestock losses fell from 49 animals in 2023-24 to 27 in 2024-25. While livestock losses are not a direct measure of dingo numbers, they are used to justify lethal control. If rising losses support stronger intervention, then falling losses should trigger caution about continuing it.
Without publicly available population and mortality data, nobody can know whether current control measures are proportionate. If Namadgi's dingo population is relatively small, ongoing lethal control is pushing it towards local extinction, with no one realising until it is too late. A species cannot be protected and progressively removed simultaneously without reliable data.
It is unbelievable that the issue of the light rail is still ongoing. The light rail extension to Woden should be stopped immediately without question.
Are Canberrans prepared for the chaos and the uprooting of the Parliamentary Triangle for another 5 to 10 years or longer? That cannot happen, let's keep it just as it is.
Pauline reckons she is up to the task of being Australia's second female prime minister, presumably with switcheroo wingman Barnaby as her "loyal" deputy. These two are just one of the reasons I look both ways at roundabouts.
Pauline Hanson has delusions of competence. The woman who has repeatedly shown her inability to keep the PHONies together believes she can unite the country? Not in a million years.
What possible answer could a resurrected Tony Abbott have for the existential problems of the Liberal Party? Putting Pauline Hanson behind bars all over again?
Time Warp Tony is back and he can dust off his old three-word slogans. We can have his "Axe the tax" for the next two years and if any Labor women stand up to him he can have vice president Downer hold up the "Ditch the witch" sign. We are still waiting for Abbott to "shirt front" Putin.
My heartiest congratulations to Tony Abbott on his election as federal president of the Liberal Party. No-one, perhaps with the exception of Scott Morrison, could be better qualified to lead the Liberal Party into eternal oblivion.
At the moment ordering a fleet of submarines from Switzerland makes more sense than the AUKUS deal. Will someone please just bite the political bullet and order some well-proven conventional SAAB Kockums submarines from Sweden?
AUKUS has always been a rotten deal for Australia and it's just gotten worse with the much touted new Virginia dead in the water. The best we can hope for now, and at a monstrous cost to Australia, is American hand-me-downs nearing the end of their operational life. And isn't the writing on the wall when the focus of AUKUS is shifting to new cutting edge technology for underwater drones.
That's not what the evidence says. ("Criticism of the War Memorial is unfair and misguided", Letters, June 1). So, until the truth is made clear for all to see, the war memorial and its friends are guilty of complicity.
As we embark on yet another Reconciliation Day (with a public holiday no less), dare I ask an obvious question? How will we know when we are all reconciled? Or is it a "never ending journey sort of thing"?
Nick Tyrrell, our senate candidate, has expressed concern about the new rules on Capital Gains Tax. Perhaps he could justify why a share trader or multi-property investor should pay tax at a lower rate than say a full-time nurse, a disabled worker or even one of his own employees.
