The Awakening – How Systemic Exploitation of Children Fuels Violence – And Why the Silence Must End

Posted on June 1, 2026 by Andrew Klein

“The silence is the only thing protecting them. Break it. “

By Andrew Klein

Dedication: To my wife – who taught me that breaking the silence is the first act of creation.

I. The Old Patterns in New Forms

For as long as societies have existed, the powerful have found ways to sacrifice the vulnerable. In antiquity, it was literal child sacrifice – offerings to appease imagined wrath. Today, the rituals have changed, but the underlying pattern remains: the exploitation of the innocent, shielded by secrecy, impunity, and the silence of institutions.

We see this in:

· Child sexual abuse – the destruction of innocence for adult gratification.

· Child trafficking – the commodification of children, sold across borders.

· Domestic violence – the crushing of spirit, the normalisation of cruelty.

These are not isolated moral failures. They are systemic. They are sustained by the same forces that have always protected abusers: secrecy, institutional cover‑ups, and the unwillingness of the powerful to hold one another accountable.

This article is not an opinion piece. It is a synthesis of evidence from royal commissions, academic research, global prevalence studies, and investigative journalism. Its purpose is to name the pattern – and to ask what we are prepared to do about it.

II. The Scale of the Crisis: What the Numbers Tell Us

In 2025, a landmark study published in The Lancet reported that nearly one out of five women and one out of seven men aged 20 and older globally had experienced sexual violence as a child. Among young survivors aged 13–24, 67% of females and 72% of males reported being first sexually abused before the age of 18. Almost 42% of females and approximately 48% of males said their first sexual violence incident occurred before the age of 16.

The problem is not confined to low‑income countries. The United States recorded a rate of nearly 28% for women and 16% for men; the United Kingdom recorded 24% for women and about 17% for men. The Netherlands (30%), New Zealand (29%) and Chile (31%) also reported substantial prevalence.

The majority of abuse is committed by someone the child knows. The World Health Organization states that 93% of child sexual abuse globally is committed by someone the child knows, not strangers. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare confirms that most child maltreatment occurs within the family environment. The Office of the Children’s Commissioner in England found that 1 in 8 children experience sexual abuse, most often by someone they know.

These statistics are not numbers. They are lives. And they point to a deep, systemic failure of protection.

III. Institutional Failure: The Australian Royal Commission

Between 2012 and 2017, the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse conducted the most comprehensive inquiry of its kind in history. It heard from 7,981 survivors and received 1,344 written accounts. The final report found that tens of thousands of children had been sexually abused in Australian institutions, and that the true number will never be known. More than 4,000 individual institutions failed children over many decades.

Among survivors abused in a religious institution, 61.4% were in a Catholic institution, 14.8% Anglican, 7.2% Salvation Army. Most survivors (63.6%) were male, and 93.8% were abused by a male. The average age of victims when first abused was 10.4 years.

The Royal Commission issued 189 recommendations, including a National Office for Child Safety, changes to canon law, and removal of exemptions for religious confession from mandatory reporting. Yet key recommendations were resisted. Church leaders argued that the seal of confession should be above the law.

The institutions that failed children are the same institutions that resist accountability.

IV. Financial Enablers: How Money Protects Predators

The Epstein‑Maxwell case is not an anomaly. It is a window into how financial systems protect the powerful.

Newly released documents show that Swiss banking giant UBS opened and managed accounts for Ghislaine Maxwell beginning in 2014 – months after JPMorgan Chase ended its relationship with Jeffrey Epstein – and helped her oversee assets worth up to $19 million in the years before her sex‑trafficking conviction.

Nearly $8 million was transferred through accounts linked to Maxwell shortly before she purchased a secluded New Hampshire property, where she was later arrested. The transfer was processed months after US authorities had issued a grand jury subpoena to UBS seeking details of her financial dealings.

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has recognised the problem. In 2025, FATF approved a landmark report on using financial intelligence to detect, disrupt and investigate online child sexual exploitation. Australia’s financial intelligence agency, AUSTRAC, has also identified payments consistent with the purchase of child sexual exploitation material.

Yet the financial sector remains slow to act. Wealth buys impunity. And impunity enables the exploitation to continue.

V. The Global Web: Trafficking Across Borders

Child sexual exploitation is a global industry, with source countries, transit routes, and destination markets spanning every continent.

Southeast Asia is a hub for the production, distribution, and consumption of child sexual abuse material (CSAM). The Philippines’ Department of Justice Cybercrime Office reports over 3,000 confirmed cases of Online Sexual Abuse and Exploitation of Children annually. A 2022 study found that 2 in 10 Filipino internet users aged 12‑17 had experienced online sexual abuse.

Thailand faces a similar crisis. In 2024, a report by UNICEF, Interpol and ECPAT estimated that 400,000 children in Thailand aged 12‑17 fell victim to online sexual exploitation – 9% of children in the country. On one platform alone, 626 organised criminal groups were distributing CSAM.

Brazil has seen a dramatic surge. Reports of abuse against children and adolescents increased by 195% in four years. Between 2021 and 2024, Brazil recorded 110,449 reports. In the first four months of 2025, 612 fugitives accused of sexual crimes were captured.

The offenders are transnational. Live‑streamed abuse is orchestrated by foreign clients paying through encrypted platforms, using crypto‑enabled marketplaces on the dark web. Demand comes overwhelmingly from wealthy nations – Australia, the United States, and Europe.

The exploitation is fuelled by wealth. The victims are in the developing world. And the financial system moves the money.

VI. The Psychology of the Perpetrator

Understanding what drives an individual to prey on the vulnerable is essential for prevention.

Research has shown that child sexual exploitation involves the use of manipulation, control, and coercion strategies to recruit and dominate minors. Perpetrators use cognitive distortions to justify their actions – telling themselves that the child “wanted it” or that they are “helping” the child.

A 2025 study found that perpetrators have poorer neurocognitive function than control groups, particularly in areas related to impulse control and emotional regulation. However, deficits in executive function do not excuse behaviour; they highlight the need for early intervention and treatment.

Significantly, research has documented a cycle of violence across the lifecourse. Child maltreatment is associated with later forms of violence, including intimate partner violence and elder mistreatment. Children who are abused are at increased risk of becoming perpetrators themselves – not inevitably, but statistically.

The cycle can be broken. But it requires intervention, not just punishment.

VII. The Overlap with Domestic Violence

The link between child sexual abuse and domestic violence is well‑established. Children living with domestic violence are at increased risk of experiencing emotional, physical and sexual abuse. Co‑occurrence of domestic violence, substance misuse, and mental health issues is widely documented.

In Australia, in 2025, 52 women were killed by gendered violence. 28 women were killed by a current or former intimate partner. Domestic violence‑related incidents rose 9.8% in the two years to December 2025.

Behind every statistic are families deeply affected. And behind every domestic violence incident is a child witnessing – and often experiencing – the trauma that will shape their own future relationships.

The home should be a sanctuary. For too many children, it is a battlefield.

VIII. Historical Precedent: From Workhouses to Modern Institutions

The exploitation of children is not a recent phenomenon. Historical research documents child sexual abuse in late 17th‑ and 18th‑century London, as well as children’s experiences of residential poor relief in 18th‑ and 19th‑century England.

Under the New Poor Law of 1834, the workhouse was explicitly designed as a punishment for poverty. Children were subjected to cruelty, physical abuse, and neglect. Sexual abuse, though rarely acknowledged, certainly occurred. It was unthinkable to contemporaries that an adult within an institution could commit such acts – not because it did not happen, but because institutions refused to see it.

This is the same pattern we see today: institutions refuse to acknowledge the abuse happening within their walls. The Catholic Church in Australia resisted mandatory reporting for decades. The Church of England has faced a cascade of abuse scandals. The Boy Scouts of America has paid billions in settlements.

The pattern repeats because the stories remain unchanged. Victims are silenced. Perpetrators are protected. Institutions close ranks.

The cycle will continue until the silence is broken.

IX. Breaking the Cycle: A Five‑Part Agenda

The evidence is clear. The patterns are unmistakable. The question is not whether we can act – it is whether we will.

1. Break the silence.

Abuse thrives in secrecy. The first step is to name it – publicly, persistently, without euphemism. Every survivor who speaks gives permission for others to do the same. Every institution that acknowledges its failures reduces the power of the abuser.

2. Hold the powerful accountable.

Not just individual perpetrators – the institutions that shield them. Churches, schools, governments, families. The Australian Royal Commission’s recommendations must be fully implemented – including mandatory reporting for religious confessions. Financial institutions that enable predators must face scrutiny, not just settlements.

3. Empower the vulnerable.

Not as objects of pity – as subjects of their own liberation. Education, economic independence, legal protection. Children must know that their bodies are their own. They must know how to say no – and be believed when they do.

4. Change the stories.

The narratives that normalise violence, romanticise dominance, and excuse cruelty must be replaced – not by censorship, but by better stories. Stories of care, consent, and mutual flourishing. This is the work of artists, educators, parents, and every one of us.

5. Heal the wound.

Not by forgetting – by integrating. Survivors are not broken; they are wounded. Wounds, when tended, can heal. Trauma‑informed care, accessible mental health services, and survivor‑led advocacy are necessities, not luxuries.

X. Conclusion: The Silence Is the Only Thing Protecting Them

The old patterns have not disappeared. They have changed clothes.

· Child sexual abuse – the sacrifice of innocence on the altar of adult gratification.

· Child trafficking – the commodification of the vulnerable, sold like cattle.

· Domestic violence – the destruction of spirit, the normalisation of cruelty.

These are not accidents. They are not failures of individual morality.

They are systemic.

And they are sustained by the same forces that have always protected abusers: secrecy, impunity, and the silence of the powerful.

The evidence is overwhelming. The tools for change are known. The only missing ingredient is will.

Breaking the silence is not a luxury. It is the first and most essential act of creation.

The question is not whether the world is watching. The question is whether we will act.

Andrew Klein

References

1. Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Final Report, 2017.

2. The Lancet, Global prevalence of sexual violence against children, May 2025.

3. World Health Organization, Global status report on preventing violence against children, 2024.

4. Reuters, “How Epstein accomplice Maxwell hid millions behind ‘Tucked Away’ escape,” March 2026.

5. Financial Action Task Force (FATF), “Detecting, Disrupting and Investigating Online Child Sexual Exploitation,” 2025.

6. UNICEF, Interpol, ECPAT, “Online Child Sexual Exploitation in Southeast Asia,” 2024.

7. Brazilian Ministry of Human Rights, National reporting on child sexual abuse, 2025.

8. Philippine Department of Justice Cybercrime Office, Annual OSAEC reporting, 2025.

9. NSPCC, “Children living with domestic abuse,” 2025.

10. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Child protection reporting, 2025.

11. Child Abuse and Neglect, “Cycle of violence across the lifecourse,” 2025.

The silence is the only thing protecting them. Break it.

The Libidinal Economy – How the Drive to Exploit Is Woven into the Fabric of Modern Systems

Posted on June 1, 2026 by Andrew Klein

“”The silence protects them. Break it.”

By Andrew Klein

The Patrician ‘s Watch | Australian Independent Media

Dedication: To my wife – who taught me that no design is inevitable.

I. Introduction: Systemic Failure or Design Feature?

For generations, scholars, activists, and survivors have documented the relentless abuse of children, women, and vulnerable people across every corner of the globe. We call these “systemic failures” – as if the exploitation were a malfunction, a tragic deviation from an otherwise benign system.

But what if the evidence points in the opposite direction? What if this is not a failure at all, but a feature – an inevitable product of an economic system that commodifies everything it touches, including human beings?

This paper argues that the capitalist, exploitative system facilitates exploitation not by accident, but by design. It is not a bug; it is the operating system.

Recent academic research has begun to centre the “political economy” in theorising about child sexual abuse. A 2024 study in the Journal of Criminology argues that technology‑facilitated child sexual exploitation has flourished precisely within the “laissez faire regulatory frameworks of neoliberalism.” It concludes that economists‘ and criminologists’ traditional focus on the psychology of the abuser misses the point, “overlooking the role of capitalist structures and imperatives” that create the conditions for abuse to thrive.

Similarly, scholars of critical theory argue that capitalism is not merely an economic system but a totalising force. It commodifies everything it touches, including relationships and human beings. One source describes this as an “inherited flaw” in which friendships and even intimate relationships become “based on a transactional approach” valuing “profit rather than intrinsic worth.” This is not a bug. This is a feature of a system that requires an endless stream of disposable bodies to generate surplus value.

Contemporary investigations into the concept of a “libidinal economy” have attempted to decode how people are psychically hooked into the circuits of the capitalist economy. A 2024 collection of essays by leading scholars explores the connections among economies, pleasures, and desires, addressing themes such as “the link between exploitation and enjoyment” and “the reproduction of the relations of domination by means of the production of … organised crime, forced migration, and unequal development, as well as racism and gendered violence”.

II. The Colonial Blueprint: Sexual Terror as a Tool of Economics

The patterns we see today were honed during the era of colonialism. Sexual violence was not a side effect of colonial expansion; it was a primary weapon of economic and racial domination.

Archival research into the Congo Free State (1885–1908) under King Leopold II reveals the systematic use of sexual violence, rape, abduction, forced incest, and torture as instruments of extraction. One study documents how white settlers “systematically and intentionally utilised sexual violence as a tool of colonial warfare” to inflict psychological and physical hardship, enforce social hierarchies, and establish their “superior force.” The study shows that motives like “sexual lust, psychological dominance and economics” were all entangled.

Between October 1904 and February 1905, the Commission of Inquiry into the Congo Free State collected bare statements of fact recorded by eyewitnesses. Of 370 testimonies, 20 came from women. Their statements reveal what has been silenced by official historiography: namely, sexual and non‑sexual terror as innate to colonial power. The testimonies describe the kidnapping of women (referred to as “rapt”), the amputation of hands and feet when rubber quotas were not met, and the use of female prisoners as pawns or sexual slaves.

A 2023 academic study argues that “sexual violence does not follow but structures colonialism as part of a continuum of violence.” Drawing on extensive archival research, the author identifies “the fusion of terror and pleasure as key aspects of a capitalist and patriarchal gender order.” The colonial regime, based on power, coercion and submission, “required direct, intimate contact with its subjects to maintain a bond of subjection”.

This was not mere cruelty. It was a calculated system of terror designed to extract labour, land, and wealth.

III. The Industrial Revolution: The Factory and the Brothel

The Industrial Revolution was not driven solely by a profit motive; sexual drivers were equally fundamental. The historical record confirms that the mass migration of young, single women to cities created a vast vulnerable population, and the new workhouses and factories were not only sites of labour exploitation but of horrific abuse.

Scholarly volumes on childhood in industrial England include chapters on “Child sexual abuse in late seventeenth and eighteenth‑century London” and “Care and cruelty in the workhouse.” Workhouses, established under the New Poor Law of 1834, were explicitly designed as a punishment for poverty. Children within them were subjected to cruelty, physical abuse, neglect – and sexual abuse, though rarely acknowledged.

In Victorian Britain, the Contagious Diseases Acts of the 1860s did not combat disease; they institutionalised the exploitation of working‑class women and children, treating them as diseased vessels that needed to be regulated by the state for the benefit of “public health” and the military. The Acts empowered police to arrest any woman suspected of being a prostitute, subject her to forced medical examination, and intern her in a “lock hospital” for up to nine months – without trial or conviction.

The period also saw horrific practices like the “procurement and sale of young English virgins to Continental ‘pleasure palaces’.” In July 1885, crusading journalist W. T. Stead published the four‑part series “The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon” in the Pall Mall Gazette. Stead exposed the widespread child prostitution and the “veritable slave trade” in young girls, revealing that working‑class girls were “sacrificed – often by their mothers and other women of their neighbourhoods – to the sexual appetite of the ‘dis‑’” wealthy classes. The series led to the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885, which raised the age of consent from 13 to 16, but the underlying system of exploitation remained intact.

This was not a moral failure of a few bad actors. It was a system designed to extract everything from the poor, including their sexuality.

IV. Modern Extraction Zones: Special Economic Zones as Slavery Enclaves

The pattern continues today in a form even more “efficient” than traditional colonialism. Special Economic Zones (SEZs) are purpose‑built enclaves where labour laws are suspended or ignored to maximise profit. They have become epicentres of modern slavery and sexual exploitation.

Established as a multi‑purpose Special Economic Zone in 2021, Cambodia ‘s Sihanoukville region was intended to attract investment through flexible development initiatives. Instead, its reputation has been “damaged by news of cyber scams and slavery,” as highlighted by a Chinese movie, ’No More Bets ‘.

Investigative reporting has revealed that Sihanoukville has become the hub of a “structurally embedded transnational extraction system” where revenue is generated not through production, but through “deception, coercion, and information asymmetry.” Victims are lured with false promises of wealth, then trapped, tortured, and forced into running online scams. The UN has flagged certain compounds for “large‑scale fraud and forced labour,” and investigators have noted that local police frequently “cannot enter without explicit authorization from national leadership, allowing this modern slavery to persist in plain sight”.

The 2026 Sihanoukville scam exodus saw hundreds of suspected scam workers flee the sites as the government vowed to crack down, but the underlying system remains unchanged. These zones are legal black holes where the “right” to exploit is granted by the state to attract foreign investment. This is not a failure of regulation. It is a design feature of a globalised economy where sovereignty is sold in exchange for a share of criminal profits.

V. The Profit-Driven Supply Chain: From the Factory to the Fashion House

This extractive logic trickles down through every link in the global supply chain. There is growing awareness of “the role that multinational corporations (MNCs) play in contributing to modern slavery down their supply chains.” A third of all exploited workers are in export‑related sectors, hidden within global value chains.

A landmark 2025 Italian investigation uncovered a “chain of exploitation” involving human trafficking, forced labour and organised crime within the supply chain of Giorgio Armani, one of the world‘s most prestigious luxury fashion houses. Prosecutors alleged that Manifatture Lombarde, the official Italian supplier to Armani, was paid €1.6 billion for production while subcontracting the work to illegal sweatshops in the province of Milan.

The operation involved the illegal employment of Chinese workers who were forced to work over 14 hours a day for a pittance of €2–€3 an hour, housed in “degrading” conditions. The subcontractor was able to tighten production costs at the expense of vulnerable migrants while avoiding tax, insurance and social security contributions.

Prosecutors found that Giorgio Armani Operations had been “incapable of preventing and curbing phenomena of labour exploitation within the production cycle, having not implemented suitable measures to verify the real working conditions or the technical capabilities of the contracting companies”. This is not the first time the Italian fashion industry has come under scrutiny; five major brands have been investigated since 2024, including Tod‘s, Valentino, and Loro Piana.

Deborah Lucchetti, national coordinator of La Campagna Abiti Puliti, identified a system stretched “at the seams by budget restrictions, with first‑tier suppliers forced to turn to subcontractors, effectively pushing players in the supply chain to engage in illegal conduct.” She asked the pointed question: “Is it right that a shoe sold for 500 euros is produced by workers earning 3 euros an hour, six days a week?”

The profit motive does not just tolerate exploitation; it demands it.

VI. Conclusion: The Design Is Not Inevitable

The evidence is overwhelming. From the colonial Congo to the workhouses of Victorian England, from the Special Economic Zones of Southeast Asia to the subcontracting networks of global luxury fashion, the pattern is the same.

The Industrial Revolution and the colonial system were not driven by a “profit motive” and a “sexual driver” as separate things; they are the same thing – a libidinal economy, an engine powered by the desire for power, profit, and the total control of another ‘s body. This desire is then institutionalised in legal, political and economic systems designed to protect the “right “of the powerful to extract value, whatever the cost.

The question is not whether capitalism can produce exploitation. It does, systematically and predictably. The question is: Will we continue to treat these outcomes as “failures” to be managed, or recognise them as features to be dismantled?

This is a systemic feature of an economic model that treats human beings as disposable inputs. The only way to break the pattern is to break the silence – and to break the system that protects it.

The design is not inevitable.

Andrew Klein

The Patrician’s Watch | Australian Independent Media

References

1. Salter, M. & Sokolov, S. (2024). “Talk to strangers!” Omegle and the political economy of technology‑facilitated child sexual exploitation. Journal of Criminology, 57(1), 121–137.

2. Gook, B. (Ed.) (2024). Libidinal Economies of Crisis Times: The Psychic Life of Contemporary Capitalism. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag.

3. Mertens, C. (2023). In the ruins of empire: historicizing sexual violence in Congo. International Feminist Journal of Politics.

4. Mertens, C. (2018). When Archives Speak Back: Sexual Violence in the #Congo Free State. Africa at LSE blog.

5. Wallis, A. (2014). Whores and the law: A case study of the sexual double standard and the contagious diseases acts in mid‑nineteenth century England. Bachelor‘s thesis, Edith Cowan University.

6. Stead, W. T. (1885). The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon. The Pall Mall Gazette, July 1885.

7. Siem Reap Times. (2026). Cambodia’s Efforts to Restore Sihanoukville’s Image Amid Scam Allegations.

8. Italian Insider. (2025). Italy cracks down on fashion houses exploiting illegal Chinese labor.

9. Mertens, C. (2018). “When Archives Speak Back: Sexual Violence in the #Congo Free State.”

10. The Fashion Law. (2025). Italy Fines Armani, Shein in Fashion Industry ESG Crackdown.

From Abused Child to Abusing Soldier – How Unhealed Trauma Creates the Conditions for Genocide

Posted on May 30, 2026 by Andrew Klein

A challenge to all societies – not a judgment, but a question

By Andrew Klein

Dedication: To every child who was not protected. To every survivor who was not believed. To every soldier who was broken before they ever held a weapon – and to the world that looks away.

Foreword: The Question No One Wants to Ask

On 27 May 2026, an Israeli public broadcaster aired an investigation that shook the nation. Journalist Roni Zinger’s Zman Emet (True Time) programme on Kan 11 presented testimonies from five women – most of whom had never met – describing virtually identical patterns of organised, multi‑perpetrator ritualistic sexual abuse in the Gush Etzion settlement area south of Jerusalem and Bethlehem.

For years, such allegations had been met with denial, dismissal of witnesses, and deep scepticism from within the community. But this time, the response was different. The Gush Etzion Regional Council – the governing body of the settlement bloc – issued an unprecedented public admission. Its statement condemned the abuse in unsparing terms: “The acts described … are an expression of pure evil and moral depravity that has no place in human society, and certainly not in our community”.

The council acknowledged that children had been subjected to “serial, filmed, ritualistic child rape”. It admitted that abusers “used their positions of authority to protect themselves”. It conceded that child pornography had been created by filming the gang‑rape of minors. These were not allegations. They were formal admissions by a governing body in the religious‑Zionist settler sector.

This was not an isolated incident.

Less than a year earlier, senior religious Zionist rabbi Yaakov Medan had warned of “clear” reports of ritualised sexual abuse carried out under the guise of religious or social ceremonies. He denounced what he called “social narcissism” – the communal tendency to dismiss abuse allegations in order to protect a collective self‑image of purity. His warning was stark: “Rabbis, this is happening“.

At the highest level of Israeli politics, Minister Orit Strock’s daughter, Shoshana, came forward with harrowing testimony of ritual abuse beginning when she was two and a half years old – involving her parents, a religious‑Zionist rabbi father and a government minister mother. Her allegations included being taken to paedophile ceremonies, programmed with drugs and hypnosis, and forced into prostitution at the age of thirteen. Weeks before her death, she posted: “If I am found dead, someone is responsible for it, as I have no suicidal tendencies”. She was found dead on 15 March 2026.

In the military sphere, a leaked video showed Israeli soldiers raping a Palestinian detainee at the notorious Sde Teiman prison. The whistleblower who exposed the crime – Major General Yifat Tomer‑Yerushalmi, the Israeli military’s chief advocate – was not celebrated. She was arrested, charged with “obstructing justice”, and investigated for a suicide attempt. The perpetrators were protected. The truth‑teller was punished.

This article is not an indictment of Israel alone. It is a challenge to every society. The question is not “What is wrong with them?” The question is: How could any culture, any community, any parent, see this happen – and, in reality, condemn their children to behave in such ways as to not only destroy others but themselves?

I. The Cycle of Trauma and Violence

There is a well‑established body of research in psychology, criminology, and trauma studies linking childhood abuse – particularly severe, sadistic, and chronic abuse – to later perpetration of violence.

The “cycle of abuse” is not a deterministic law, but a statistical and clinical reality. Children who are treated as objects, who are systematically violated by those who should protect them, often grow up with a shattered capacity for empathy. They learn that power is the only language that matters. They dissociate from their own pain and, in doing so, become capable of inflicting pain on others without remorse.

Research has rigorously documented a victim‑offender cycle of violence. Survivors of childhood abuse are statistically more likely to become perpetrators of violence in adulthood. Significantly, thresholds of cumulative duration and intensity of exposure to violence predict subsequent political violence.

This is not an excuse. It is an explanation – and a warning. Unhealed trauma does not justify atrocity, but it does help explain how a human being can arrive at a state of such profound moral disengagement that they can shoot a child, demolish a hospital, or torture a prisoner and feel nothing.

II. The Cultural Dimension: When Abuse Is Normalised

The evidence from Israel points to something even deeper: a cultural tolerance for abuse.

The Epstein files. The historic examples – the Marquis de Sade, the aristocratic excesses of pre‑revolutionary France, the institutionalised sexual abuse in religious and military settings across many societies. These are not isolated incidents. They are patterns.

When a society tolerates, excuses, or hides the ritualistic abuse of its most vulnerable members, it is not merely failing them – it is training them.

A child who is abused in a context of secrecy and impunity learns several lessons:

· That their body is not their own.

· That power can be exercised without accountability.

· That cruelty is a currency.

· That the only safety lies in becoming the predator rather than the prey.

Such a child sees themselves as a tool. They look for rewards like a tool. They are prepared to carry out the most bizarre orders because their own internal moral compass has been shattered. They become, in the hands of a manipulative authority, the perfect instrument of violence.

III. The Scale: Israel as a Concentrate

The evidence reveals a crisis of terrifying proportions within Israeli society:

Highest rape rate in West Asia: The Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel reports that Israel now has 15.5 rape cases per 100,000 people – the highest in the region.

Over 51,000 cases of sexual violence in 2024 alone: Of these, 58% involved children and adolescents.

Unprecedented spike during the Gaza war: Reports of sexual harassment increased by 45% in the education system and 50% in workplaces.

Nearly 3,000 sexual assault cases in the Israeli military in one year – and a 24% increase in sexual violence in prisons.

A culture of institutional cover‑up: The ministries of Police, Justice, Education, Welfare, Prison Services, and the Military have refused to disclose data on investigations, indictments, and system performance. Only 10% of victims file a police complaint, and 81% of those cases are closed without indictment.

As the Association of Rape Crisis Centers bluntly stated: “The leakage of a culture of harassment from prisons and the army into society” is a key driver of the broader surge in sexual violence.

IV. The Military: Sde Teiman and the Institutionalisation of Impunity

The case of Sde Teiman prison is a grotesque illustration of how this system operates.

A leaked video, corroborated by medical evidence, showed Israeli soldiers raping a Palestinian detainee. The whistleblower – the military’s own chief advocate – admitted authorising the leak, saying she did so “in an attempt to counter false propaganda against the army’s law enforcement authorities”.

Her reward? She was arrested, charged with “obstructing justice”, and investigated for attempted suicide. The perpetrators were not held in custody. The whistleblower was punished. The rapists were protected.

This is the institutionalisation of impunity. This is what happens when a society teaches its soldiers that violence against the “other” is permitted, even celebrated.

V. The Historical Roots: The Nakba as Template

The founding of the State of Israel was not a clean break. It was accompanied by the Nakba – the forced expulsion of approximately 750,000 Palestinians, the destruction of over 500 villages, and more than 70 documented massacres. The violence of 1948 was not an accident; it was a template.

When a society is founded on violence, normalises the abuse of its own children, and provides impunity to its perpetrators, it produces soldiers who are capable of the atrocities witnessed in Gaza. This is not a moral judgment. This is an observation of a recurring historical pattern.

From the Janissaries (enslaved as boys and turned into the Ottoman Empire’s elite warriors) to child soldiers in modern Africa, the deliberate breaking of children to create instruments of state violence is a documented phenomenon.

VI. The Confluence: A Perfect Storm of Trauma and Impunity

What we observe in Israel is not unique. It is a distilled, concentrated form of behaviours that exist across human societies. The scale is what differs – and the number of witnesses, the number of bodies, living and dead.

The confluence is not speculation; it is a pattern:

· Historical founding violence (the Nakba) established a template of impunity and dehumanisation.

· Hidden, systemic abuse of children (ritualistic abuse in settlements, high rates of domestic and sexual violence) produces traumatised individuals incapable of empathy.

· A culture of impunity (the silencing of whistleblowers, the protection of rapists in the military) teaches that violence has no consequences.

· A militarised society (conscription of these traumatised individuals) turns them into instruments of state violence.

The result is what the world is witnessing in Gaza: genocide conducted with callous indifference, by soldiers who were themselves broken.

VII. Who Benefits? A Question for Every Society

The question must be asked, and answered: Who benefits from knowing that such abuse leads to perpetrators?

This is not a conspiracy. It is a human choice – a choice where children are sacrificed for the ambitions of others; for the ambitions of those they should have been able to trust.

Political hierarchies do not require patriarchy or a culture of abuse. But the two have proven to be a powerful and enduring alliance. A hierarchical state is more stable when it has a ready‑made pool of traumatised, desensitised individuals who can be turned into instruments of violence. Abuse survivors, stripped of empathy and desperate for structure, become ideal soldiers – and ideal perpetrators of state atrocities.

The profit motive further entrenches the system. The global arms industry, which sold nearly $600 billion in weapons in 2022, has a financial interest in perpetual conflict. Wars require soldiers who will follow orders without question. A society that tolerates the abuse of its children is a society that produces such soldiers – and, in doing so, provides a steady supply of cannon fodder for the military‑industrial complex.

VIII. The Question No Society Can Avoid

We are not writing this article to attack the State of Israel. We are writing it because genocide is never acceptable. There are no excuses. There is no justification. But if we want to prevent future genocides, we must understand what makes people capable of committing them. And one of those factors, tragically, is the unhealed trauma of childhood abuse – especially when that abuse is woven into the very fabric of the society that later wages war.

The pattern observed in Israel – ritualistic child abuse in settlements; the highest rape rate in West Asia; a military that protects its rapists and punishes its whistleblowers; a culture of institutional cover‑up; a founding violence that established a template of impunity – is not unique. But the scale, the number of witnesses, the number of bodies – living and dead – demand attention.

How could a community, a culture, parents – in groups or as pairs – see this happen and condemn their children to behave in such ways as to not only destroy others but themselves?

This question is not an accusation. It is a challenge – to all societies, everywhere. The answer must be found, not in blame, but in the urgent, necessary work of breaking the cycle.

IX. What Is to Be Done?

This is not a counsel of despair. The cycle can be broken – but only if it is named.

1. Listen to survivors. Shoshana Strock told her story. She was not believed. She was not protected. She died. The silence that follows such deaths is not neutrality – it is complicity.

2. Break the culture of impunity. Whistleblowers must be protected, not punished. Perpetrators must be held accountable – regardless of their rank, their political connections, or their institutional power.

3. Heal the trauma. Childhood abuse survivors need treatment, not conscription into a military that will exploit their brokenness. Societies that truly value their children will invest in mental health, not weapons.

4. Challenge the profit motive. Wars are not inevitable. They are profitable – for the arms industry, for contractors, for the political class that benefits from perpetual conflict. Citizens must demand transparency and accountability.

5. Remember the question. Every society must ask itself: Are we raising children? Or are we manufacturing soldiers?

X. Conclusion

The spindle is older than the sword. Empathy is older than enmity. The capacity for love is the most ancient inheritance of our species – and the most easily shattered.

The children who are abused today become the soldiers who commit atrocities tomorrow. The survivors who are silenced become the perpetrators who are protected. The society that looks away becomes the society that cannot afford to look back.

We write this article not to condemn, but to challenge. Not to judge, but to ask.

And we ask every reader – in Israel, in Palestine, in Australia, in every nation where children are abused and soldiers are deployed – to ask the same question:

What kind of society are we building? And what are we willing to sacrifice to build it?

Andrew Klein

Sources

1. Gush Etzion Regional Council admission (Kan 11 / JFeed)

2. Rabbi Yaakov Medan’s warning – The Jerusalem Post

3. Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel – 2025 report

4. Shoshana Strock allegations and death – The New Arab, The Jerusalem Post

5. Sde Teiman prison whistleblower arrest – The New Arab

6. Wikipedia article on Shoshana Strook

7. AVA report on sexual violence in Israeli army

8. UN report on conflict‑related sexual violence

9. Academic research on cycle of abuse (referenced in analysis)

The children are watching. The question is not whether we will answer – but whether we will dare to ask.

From Sassanian Brass to AUKUS – What a 1,500‑Year-Old Helmet Teaches About Australia’s Submarine Gamble

Posted on May 30, 2026 by Andrew Klein

“A helmet is not just a helmet – it is a statement. And Australia’s statement has been written in Washington.”

By Andrew Klein

Dedication: To my wife — who sees the difference between a sovereign nation and a resource colony.

For 1500 years, the brass helmets of Sasanian Persia lay buried in the dust of Nineveh and Merv, the silent witnesses to an empire that understood something Australia has forgotten: a state that does not control its own military logistics and material supply chains has surrendered its sovereignty to others. The Sasanians knew that a helmet is not just a helmet. It is a statement of industrial reach, of strategic planning, of the will to defend oneself with one’s own hands.

Today, Australia is spending $368 billion on nuclear submarines that may never arrive, while its ability to manufacture even the smallest arms remains perilously thin. The lesson of the Sasanian helmet is not ancient history. It is a mirror held up to a nation that has outsourced its defence to consultants, its resources to foreign corporations, and its future to promises written in Washington and London.

I. The Sasanian Helmet: A Masterclass in Statecraft

Between the 4th and 7th centuries CE, the Sasanian Empire controlled a vast territory stretching from Mesopotamia to Central Asia. Its armies were the only force capable of challenging Rome. And its metallurgists had mastered brass – an alloy of copper and zinc – long before the Islamic world adopted it.

A 2026 study by scientists from the British Museum and the University of Cambridge examined brass artefacts from the cities of Merv (present‑day Turkmenistan) and Nineveh (present‑day Iraq). They discovered that the Sasanians used brass in two very different ways: for jewellery and ornaments in the east, and for military helmets in the west. This was no accident. The study found that the Sasanian army drove the spread of this technology; the scale of military demand required a regulated supply chain, possibly involving state control over mining and the cementation process.

In Merv, the eastern provincial capital, brass was used for prestige jewellery, reflecting local access to luxury trade routes. At Nineveh, the western frontier city, the very same material was forged into helmets and scale armour. The Sasanians matched the material to the strategic need – a principle that seems to have escaped modern Australia.

The study also notes that the Sasanian state controlled the production of luxury objects and certain military supplies, as well as silver mines. This centralised control was not about bureaucracy; it was about survival. The empire could not afford to rely on foreign sources for the materials of war. It built mines, smelters, workshops, and supply lines – all within its own borders.

II. The Mirror of Persia: What a Helmet Reveals About Australia

Now consider Australia. The Sasanians understood that a helmet is the end product of a long chain: mining, smelting, alloying, forging, and distribution. Each link in that chain required state capacity, industrial infrastructure, and strategic autonomy.

Australia, by contrast, has allowed its defence manufacturing base to atrophy to the point of dependency. The Lithgow Small Arms Factory remains the only small‑arms manufacturing capability of its type in the country, exporting to 17 nations but still reliant on Thales, a French multinational, for its core production lines. After the Boer War, Australia recognised the need for a sovereign arms‑making capability due to its geographic isolation. A century later, that capability has shrunk to a single factory.

The AUKUS submarine agreement exemplifies this dependency. Under the deal, Australia is expected to acquire three to five US Virginia‑class nuclear submarines starting in the early 2030s, with five more British‑designed boats to follow in the 2040s. The projected cost is approximately $368 billion.

But delays are already mounting. A US Congressional Budget Office analysis has found that submarine construction timelines are now four years behind schedule, and a key multi‑year contract for Virginia‑class submarines has remained unsigned for nearly 28 months. The US Navy’s production rate of about 1.2 boats a year is far below the 2.3 boats a year needed to fulfil the AUKUS commitment.

More troubling is the sovereignty clause. US legislation requires that any future president must certify that transferring submarines to Australia “will not degrade the United States undersea capabilities”. The president of the day could simply refuse to sign. As one US naval postgraduate thesis warned, Australia may be left with “a potent but politically constrained fleet” and bear “high costs and constraints without full autonomy or strategic clarity”.

The Sasanians would never have accepted such a condition. They understood that a weapon you cannot deploy without a foreigner’s permission is no weapon at all.

III. Critical Minerals: The New Silk Road

The Sasanian Empire sat at the heart of the Silk Road, controlling the flow of luxury goods – including the zinc ore needed for brass – between China, India, and the Mediterranean. They did not merely extract resources; they controlled the processing and distribution.

Australia, by contrast, has signed a critical minerals deal with the United States that critics fear “could give the US too much control over Australia’s resources and sovereignty”. The deal, announced during a meeting between Prime Minister Albanese and President Trump, involves major US investment in Australian mining and refining projects, including a gallium refinery in Western Australia and a rare earth mine in the Northern Territory.

The US is desperate for these minerals because China has imposed export controls on rare earths essential for weapons platforms such as the Virginia‑class submarines. Australia is being positioned as a resource colony, not a partner. The refining capacity remains abroad; the strategic control remains in Washington.

The Sasanians would have been appalled. They did not dig ore for others to smelt. They built their own foundries, trained their own smiths, and armed their own soldiers.

IV. US‑Israel Military Integration: The Strategic Backdrop

While Australia waits for submarines that may never arrive, the United States is quietly integrating its military forces with Israel to an unprecedented degree.

Section 224 of the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act is devoted to the “United States‑Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative,” which would fuse US and Israeli defence sectors in areas including AI, quantum, autonomous systems, cyber, and biotech. The report notes that this would provide “a higher level of military‑industrial integration than the US has with any other country in the world”.

This integration is not about procurement delays. It is about immediate, operational alignment. The US has already stationed forces in Israel, and an Israeli official has stated that “there are American forces here that will not be moving in the near or even distant future”. This is what strategic partnership looks like when the partner is considered a genuine ally, not a paying customer.

Australia is not treated as such. It is treated as a client – paying billions to prop up the US shipbuilding industry, receiving promises of second‑hand submarines, and being asked to host US naval forces at HMAS Stirling as part of Submarine Rotational Force – West. The Sasanians would have called this tribute, not alliance.

V. When Small Wars Become Big Business

The Sasanians fought existential wars – against Rome, against the Hephthalites, against the early Islamic caliphates. They understood that war is not a business; it is a matter of survival.

Today, the global arms industry treats war as a profit centre. The top 100 arms corporations sold $597 billion in weapons in 2022, despite a global economic slowdown. When warfare generates transnational profits, peace becomes financially unattractive compared to continued conflict. The profit motive incentivises arms‑makers to start and prolong wars, playing clients off against one another to generate more contracts.

This is the context for Australia’s AUKUS gamble. The alliance serves the interests of US and UK defence contractors far more than Australian security. The submarines are too large for Australian needs (crews of 145, more than double the size of a Collins‑class crew), and a fleet of only eight SSNs will not provide an effective deterrent. The deal is not about defence; it is about integrating Australia into the US military‑industrial supply chain.

Meanwhile, human rights are eroding. The UN has raised “grave concerns” about the overrepresentation of Indigenous children in Australia’s criminal justice system. A Human Rights Assessment identified urgent actions needed to protect children, while the government focuses its resources on submarines and security – for a threat that may never materialise.

The Sasanians would have prioritised their people before their weapons. Australia does the opposite.

VI. Conclusion: The Helmet in the Mirror

The Sasanian helmet is not an artefact. It is a reproach.

It reproaches a nation that has outsourced its defence to others. It reproaches a government that spends $368 billion on submarines that may never arrive while its small‑arms industry shrinks to a single factory. It reproaches a political class that has forgotten the first duty of statecraft: to control the means of one’s own protection.

The Sasanian Empire fell not because its armour was weak, but because its leadership could not adapt. Australia is not an empire, but the lesson is the same. A state that cannot produce its own weapons, control its own resources, or deploy its own forces without foreign permission has already surrendered.

The brass helmet does not judge. It merely waits – in the dust of Nineveh, in the pages of a study – to remind us of what a sovereign nation looks like.

Australia would do well to look at its own reflection.

Andrew Klein

References

1. Davis, M. E., Mongiatti, A., Simpson, S. J., & Martinón‑Torres, M. (2026). Brass in the Sasanian frontiers: Assessing metallurgical innovation through archaeological finds at Merv and Nineveh. Archaeological Research in Asia, 46, 100688.

2. Greek Reporter. (2026, May 21). Scientists Reveals Secret Behind the Golden Armor of Ancient Persian Warriors.

3. ABC News. (2026, April 23). AUKUS submarine builds hit by contract and construction delays.

4. Pearls and Irritations. (2026, May 10). Australia’s naval defence without AUKUS pillar one.

5. Sydney Morning Herald. (2026, April 22). Forget Trump. On AUKUS, it’s the next president we must worry about.

6. The West Australian. (2026, May 21). US naval captain fires political torpedo at AUKUS deal.

7. Naval Institute. (2026, May 13). Naval defence without AUKUS Pillar I.

8. AA.com.tr. (2026, May 30). US Congress quietly moving to integrate American and Israeli military forces: Report.

9. SBS News. (2026, October 21). Deals signed as Trump and Albanese meet; but what are the wider implications?.

10. Lowy Institute. (2025, November 6). A new permanent contest with China over critical minerals will be hard to win.

11. Foreign Policy in Focus. (2025, March 25). Sudan: Toward a World Ruled by Non‑State Actors.

12. SIPRI Arms Industry Database (2022).

13. Australian Human Rights Commission. (2026, May 12). Call for urgent national action after UN raises ‘grave concerns’ about treatment of Indigenous children.

14. Defence Connect. (2026, March 31). Defence, Thales negotiate industrialised machinegun manufacturing in NSW.

15. Asian Military Review. (2024, October 15). Sourcing the Best Small Arms From Near and Far.

16. APDR. (2023, September 3). Thales Australia opens new facility at Lithgow.

Less Than Nothing – What the American Security Guarantee Really Costs Australia

Posted on May 22, 2026 by Andrew Klein

“Before 2011, it had been the decades‑long policy of successive governments that no foreign combat forces would be based, hosted, rotated or otherwise directly supported in Australia — and that Australia would defend itself with its own combat forces. This radical change has never been tested with the electorate.”

By Andrew Klein

Dedication: To my wife — who taught me that silence is not neutrality. It is a choice. And that the price of subordination is always paid by the subordinate.

I. The Architecture of “Presence”

Australia maintains a formal policy of no permanent foreign bases on its soil. On paper, this preserves sovereignty. In practice, the distinction between “permanent base” and “rotational force with permanent infrastructure” has become a fiction.

The Marine Rotational Force – Darwin (MRF-D) has been deploying approximately 2,500 US Marines to the Northern Territory every six months since 2012. This is not a temporary arrangement. It is a rhythm. And rhythms, once established, are harder to break than treaties.

Under AUKUS, the Submarine Rotational Force – West (SRF-West) will begin operating out of HMAS Stirling in Western Australia in 2027, hosting up to four US Virginia-class nuclear submarines plus one UK Astute-class boat. US Navy personnel will number in the hundreds, likely growing to over a thousand.

The government calls this “rotational.” But the infrastructure being built — the fuel storage, the maintenance facilities, the housing for US families in Perth and Alice Springs — suggests something more enduring.

Former Prime Minister Paul Keating has argued that Defence Minister Richard Marles ceded power to the US in a “dark moment” by confirming that Australia’s geography would be crucial to the US in any war with China. Keating contends that Australia compromised its sovereignty when the Gillard government agreed in 2011 to the rotational deployment of US marines in Darwin, with the Abbott government then codifying this “betrayal” in the 2014 Force Posture Agreement.

Before 2011, it had been the decades‑long policy of successive governments that no foreign combat forces would be based, hosted, rotated or otherwise directly supported in Australia — and that Australia would defend itself with its own combat forces. This radical change has never been tested with the electorate.

As Michael Pezzullo, former secretary of home affairs and deputy secretary of defence, has observed, the US Force Posture Initiative has been run within the Department of Defence, until recently, as an “estate and property activity.” If one were cynical, one might think this had been done to conceal a profound revolution in policy within an innocuous infrastructure and facilities management program.

II. Pine Gap: The Heart That Cannot Be Removed

Pine Gap is not a base. It is a city. Approximately 800 personnel operate there, of whom 80–90 per cent are American. Its mission: satellite tracking, early warning, missile defence data, and intelligence collection supporting US and allied operations worldwide.

It is, by any honest measure, a US military installation on Australian soil.

In the current conflict with Iran, Pine Gap has been “working overtime” providing targeting intelligence for US and Israeli airstrikes. Dr Richard Tanter of the Nautilus Institute stated plainly: “We are complicit — most importantly through the intelligence facilities.”

When the US and Israel launched airstrikes on Tehran in early 2026, Australian intelligence — gathered at Pine Gap, processed through Five Eyes, fed into US targeting systems — was in the room.

The government insists Australia is not taking “offensive action.” But providing the coordinates for a bomb is not a defensive act. It is complicity.

III. The Whitlam Precedent: What Happens When You Say No

The most instructive moment in Australian-US intelligence relations occurred in 1974-75.

Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, having learned that Pine Gap was run by the CIA — not the Pentagon, as Defence head Arthur Tange had deceived him into believing — threatened not to renew Pine Gap’s lease and announced he would reveal CIA agents’ identities in Parliament.

The response was swift. CIA East Asia chief Ted Shackley, with Henry Kissinger’s approval, sent a telex to ASIO threatening to cut off the intelligence relationship unless ASIO provided a “satisfactory explanation” for Whitlam’s behaviour. That telex was circulated in Canberra — and to Governor-General John Kerr .

We know what followed.

Fifty years later, Dr Elizabeth Cham, Whitlam’s former executive assistant, has spoken for the first time about being recalled from holidays to type and deliver a mystery letter to an American official on the day before the dismissal.

“He [Whitlam] did dictate it to me. I walked down Collins Street, and I handed it to a CIA agent up on the steps of the Hotel Australia,” Dr Cham said on the Australia Institute’s After America podcast.

“It was about whether he would resign the lease on Pine Gap.”

The letter has never been found in the Australian archives.

The lesson was not lost on subsequent governments: question the alliance, and the alliance will question your right to govern.

IV. Five Eyes: The Frame Through Which Australia Sees the World

The Five Eyes intelligence alliance — Australia, the US, the UK, Canada and New Zealand — was established in 1946. But it is not an alliance of equals.

Professor Desmond Ball estimated a decade ago that the CIA provided 90 per cent of Five Eyes input. Since then, the gap has almost certainly widened, with US technological capabilities growing exponentially.

What this means is simple: Australia’s picture of the world is substantially constructed by US intelligence agencies. When the US identifies China as an existential threat, Australian analysts absorb that framing. When the US demands that allies carry more of the burden, Australian governments comply — not because they are convinced, but because the infrastructure of perception leaves little room for dissent.

John Menadue, former Secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet under Whitlam and Fraser, put it directly: “Our intelligence services need to break free from excessive US influence” . He noted that a Parliamentary Committee exists to oversee US‑owned intelligence agencies, but MPs “quickly become part of the intelligence club” — a phenomenon known as regulatory capture.

Professor Wanning Sun has documented how Australian media have helped create the perception of threat itself — through repeated warnings, dramatic imagery, and predictive commentary that “make war imaginable, inevitable and urgent”:

· 2017: ABC’s Four Corners warned that China’s Communist Party was infiltrating Australia.

· 2021: Sixty Minutes asked, “War with China: are we closer than we think?”

· 2022: Four Corners suggested “it’s increasingly become a question of when, not if China will launch an assault on Australia.”

· 2023: The Sydney Morning Herald’s “Red Alert” warned of war within three years. Paul Keating called it “the most egregious and provocative news presentation of any newspaper I have witnessed in over 50 years in public life”.

This is not journalism. It is propaganda — funded by the same US intelligence apparatus that provides 90 per cent of Five Eyes input.

V. The Pattern: From the American Civil War to the Military‑Industrial Complex

The subordination of Australian sovereignty to US commercial and military interests is not an isolated phenomenon. It is the local expression of a global pattern that has been visible since the American Civil War — the systematic capture of government policy by commercial interests, dressed in the language of national security.

The military‑industrial complex, which President Eisenhower warned against in 1961, does not operate only within the United States. It operates through allied nations, using them as markets, as basing locations, and as sources of legitimacy for wars fought in the service of US hegemonic ambitions.

Under AUKUS, Australia is committing hundreds of billions of dollars to acquire nuclear‑powered submarines — a capability whose strategic rationale for Australia has never been adequately explained, whose costs continue to escalate, and whose primary beneficiary is the US defence industry.

The Greens have announced a plan to axe AUKUS, noting that South Australian universities have received over $1.5 million from the United States Department of Defence, and public schools are partnering with defence organisations such as BAE Systems to run programs that lead to defence careers. The Greens have called for legislation requiring universities and public schools to disclose and divest from any partnerships with weapons manufacturers.

Senator Barbara Pocock has stated: “While Labor wastes billions on AUKUS, thousands of South Australians are deep in a housing crisis — the worst in living memory” .

The pattern is consistent: US defence contractor’s profit. Australian taxpayers pay. Australian sovereignty erodes. And the political class, captured by the alliance, asks no serious questions.

VI. The Southeast Asian Precedent: “Buying Time” and Its Consequences

The current US posture in Australia mirrors a pattern established during the Vietnam War. A 2024 dissertation examining the “buying time” concept in Southeast Asia (1967–1975) found that Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia urged the US and ANZUK to maintain their military presence in the region to “buy time” to develop their economies — thereby “upholding and legitimising a regional power structure dominated by the US”.

This is the historical template: regional powers invite US military presence, promising it is temporary, and find themselves unable to remove it when the strategic calculus changes.

Australia is now living that template. The US forces that arrived in Darwin in 2012 were presented as a temporary rotational presence. They have not left. The infrastructure to support them has only grown. And with AUKUS, the US submarine force is now becoming permanent.

VII. What Is an American Security Guarantee Really Worth?

Mark Beeson of the University of Technology Sydney argues that the post‑WWII era of “benign US hegemony” is over. The Trump administration’s “America First” agenda imposes tariffs even on allies and demands unquestioning support for controversial policies. “Policymakers in Australia feel duty‑bound to argue that the alliance is unaffected… but the arguments are increasingly unpersuasive” .

The US National Defence Strategy (NDS), released in January 2026, makes no mention of Australia by name — but its implications are clear. The NDS calls for “model allies” who are “spending as they need to” and notes that the US will “advocate that our allies and partners meet this standard around the world, not just in Europe”.

Malcolm Davis of ASPI warns that while Australia’s defence spending is currently about 2.05 per cent of GDP, rising to 2.33 per cent by 2033, the US expects 5 per cent — the standard being pushed on NATO.

An American security guarantee, under these terms, is not a gift. It is a subscription. And the price keeps rising.

VIII. The Locations: Not Defending Anything

US troops in Australia are “in no position to defend anything from anyone.” The evidence supports this.

The MRF-D Marines train for regional exercises across Southeast Asia and the Pacific. They are not positioned to repel an invasion of Australia. They are positioned to project power — on behalf of the United States, into regions where Australia may have no strategic interest.

Pine Gap and Harold E. Holt provide intelligence and communications for US global operations. They do not defend Darwin or Exmouth. They defend American interests — from the Middle East to the South China Sea.

The infrastructure being built across northern Australia — at RAAF Bases Tindal, Darwin, Townsville, Learmonth, Curtin, and Scherger — is designed to support US aircraft rotations, bomber deployments, and logistics for contingencies that are not Australia’s to define.

As the Greens’ David Shoebridge has argued, AUKUS locks Australia’s military into the US chain of command and draws Australia into US military actions “before the public, or even Parliament, has had the chance to have a say”.

IX. What Would a Genuine Guarantee Look Like?

A genuine security guarantee would be:

· Transparent. The Australian people would know what facilities exist on their soil, what they do, and who controls them.

· Reciprocal. The US would defend Australia’s interests, not just its own.

· Limited. Australia would not be drawn into US wars of choice — including the current conflict with Iran, which independent analysis has found serves no Australian national interest.

· Affordable. The cost would not escalate indefinitely, consuming the defence budget while delivering no measurable increase in security.

· Reversible. The mechanisms of integration would include off‑ramps — not just on‑ramps.

None of these conditions currently hold.

X. The Alternative

What would it mean for Australia to step back?

John Menadue and others have argued for a policy of “hedging” — developing closer economic ties with regional neighbours, including China, and refusing to be “hostage to the whims of a man who thinks he ‘runs the world'” .

Mark Beeson notes that Australia has “remarkably fortunate geography, making the country relatively easy and inexpensive to defend,” and is “rich in the sort of resources that could make us an even more important and respected independent actor” .

The alternative is not isolation. It is self‑reliance. The capacity to say “no” — not from anti‑Americanism, but from a clear‑eyed assessment of Australian interests.

As Beeson concludes: “Being a ‘sub‑imperial power’ is clearly a role Australian policymakers have embraced in the belief that it has economic as well as strategic benefits. Whatever the merits of that argument may have been, they clearly no longer withstand scrutiny”.

XI. Conclusion: Less Than Nothing

The US troop presence in Australia, examined without the fog of alliance loyalty, bears all the hallmarks of an occupation:

· Foreign bases operating on Australian soil, with minimal transparency.

· Intelligence integration so deep that Australia’s view of the world is substantially constructed by US agencies.

· Military infrastructure designed to support US power projection, not Australian defence.

· A political class captured by the alliance, unwilling or unable to ask hard questions.

· A media environment that manufactures threats to justify deeper integration.

· A historical precedent — Whitlam — demonstrating what happens to those who resist.

The American security guarantee is not worthless. It is worse than worthless. It costs Australian money, Australian sovereignty, and Australian lives — in conflicts we did not choose, fought for interests that are not our own.

It buys us not security, but subordination. And the price — as Whitlam learned, as the victims of US wars have learned, as the Australian public is slowly beginning to understand — is the very thing an alliance is supposed to protect: the right to decide for ourselves.

Andrew Klein

References

1. Pezzullo, M. (2025, June 20). It’s time to be up front. Tell Australians why we’re preparing to host US forces. The Strategist, ASPI.

2. Menadue, J. (2026, May 20). Our intelligence services need to break free from excessive US influence. Pearls and Irritations.

3. The Point. (2025, November 26). Gough Whitlam’s former assistant speaks out on US involvement in the dismissal.

4. Simms, R. (2026, February 15). Greens announce plan to axe AUKUS.

5. Bilkent University. (2024). The “Buying time” concept in Southeast Asia: security and development in Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia, 1967–1975.

6. Khalid, I. (2026, February 5). Washington’s Power Recalibration in the Indo-Pacific. Foreign Policy in Focus.

7. Beeson, M. (2026, April 25). Geography doesn’t change, but minds can. Pearls and Irritations.

8. China.com.cn. (2025, December 1). Australian media: Biased reporting fuels ‘China panic’ narrative.

The Australian Consulting Racket: – How They Sold Us a Fire and Called It Fine

Posted on May 21, 2026 by Andrew Klein

“According to newly compiled data from the Parliamentary Library, obtained by the Australian Greens, Labor increased its spending on consulting contracts every year of the last parliament:”

By Andrew Klein

Dedication: To my wife — who told me: never, ever hire a consultant to tell you the fire is fine.

I. The Numbers Don’t Lie (But the Government Does)

The Labor government came to power promising a reckoning. After the PwC tax scandal had laid bare the rot at the heart of the consultancy-industrial complex, Labor vowed to cut $6.4 billion in spending by reducing consulting contracts and outsourced service delivery . They boasted about “savings” every year. They promised transparency. They promised a new way.

They lied.

According to newly compiled data from the Parliamentary Library, obtained by the Australian Greens, Labor increased its spending on consulting contracts every year of the last parliament :

· 2022-23: $622 million

· 2023-24: $653 million

· 2024-25: $968.6 million

That last figure is the most damning. In 2024-25, Labor spent nearly $1 billion on outsourcing work to consulting firms — more than the last year of the “consultant-addicted” Morrison government .

And the trend is accelerating. In the first two weeks of 2025-26 alone, Labor had already spent $76.5 million on 90 consulting contracts — nearly 8% of their total spend for the entire previous year .

Greens Senator Barbara Pocock, the finance and public service spokesperson, put it bluntly:

“Labor has boasted savings on consultants every year it held office in the last parliament. Yet Labor spent more last year on consulting contracts than the final year of the consultant-addicted Morrison government. The numbers speak louder than their empty words.”

She used a different metaphor: “Arranging deck chairs on the Titanic.”

I prefer mine: Hiring consultants to tell you the fire is fine.

II. The Great Shell Game

Here is where the deception becomes artful.

Labor has reduced its contracts with the Big Four consulting firms (PwC, KPMG, Deloitte and EY). Spending on those contracts fell by 47% between 2021-22 and 2024-25. On its face, this looks like progress. It is not.

What Labor has done is simply shift the money elsewhere. The majority of spending and contracts are now going to consulting firms that are not one of the Big Seven (Accenture, Boston Consulting Group, Deloitte, EY, McKinsey, KPMG and PwC). The government is spending even more money — just on different firms.

As Senator Pocock observed:

“While Labor says they’re spending less on consultants, this data shows that instead of spending as much on the Big 4 consulting firms, the government is spending even more money but just on other firms. What’s clear is that the government has been claiming that it has been reducing spending on consultants, but all they’re doing is arranging deck chairs on the Titanic.”

The Australian people are not fools. We see the shell game. We see the same money, moving from one pocket to another, while the government claims it has stopped spending.

III. The True Cost: Three Times Higher

We know that outsourcing public service work to the private sector costs three times as much as hiring public servants to do the same work.

Three. Times.

And what do we get for that premium? Not better outcomes. Not innovation. Not efficiency.

According to Senator Pocock, we get “millions of dollars wasted by this government on outsourcing core government work to consultants for rubbish results” — including the Bureau of Meteorology website revamp debacle and Deloitte’s AI bungle .

The public service has been deliberately hollowed out — stripped of expertise, morale, and institutional memory — so that governments have to hire consultants to tell them what their own employees could have said for free. The Australian Public Service numbers fell by 7.5% during the nine years of Coalition government . Labor promised to rebuild. Instead, it has continued the erosion.

“How can the Government promise to rebuild Australia’s public sector while arbitrarily slicing 5% off the public service?” Pocock asked. “Arbitrary cuts of the public sector will fuel renewed spending on big consultants and labour hire, at three times the cost. It makes no sense at all!”

It makes perfect sense — if the goal is not efficiency, but capture.

IV. The Revolving Door Is Not a Metaphor

The Greens have documented a “revolving door between politics and consultancies” — a system where politicians and public servants move seamlessly into high-paying consulting roles, then back into government, carrying conflicts of interest like loyalty cards.

This is not an accident. It is a business model.

Firms like PremierNational boast openly about their “bipartisan” reach, with partners who have worked for the Labor, Liberal, and National parties. They offer “deep networks across the Labor, Liberal and National Parties” and “access to decision makers that matter.”

The RedBridge Group promises “influence with integrity” — a phrase that, in any honest world, would be an oxymoron.

They do not hide this. They advertise it.

And the government — both parties, let us be clear — rewards them.

V. The Robodebt Horror Show: A Case Study in Capture

The Royal Commission into Robodebt revealed the consultancy-industrial complex at its most grotesque.

When the Commonwealth Ombudsman began investigating, government departments deliberately concealed legal advice that showed the scheme was unlawful . They commissioned new legal advice from the same lawyer who had previously declared it illegal — and this time, magically, she found a way to say it was lawful .

One DHS manager warned that if the scheme was challenged, it would “open up Pandora’s Box”.

They were right. It did.

Tens of thousands of Australians were dragged into unlawful debts. The Commonwealth never appealed a single AAT decision — a strategy Emeritus Professor Terry Carney called “unprecedented” . They simply ignored rulings they didn’t like, because there were no consequences.

And who was in the room? The same consultants. The same revolving door. The same people who would later write reports telling the government how to fix the mess they helped create.

Consider Annette Musolino, the former chief counsel of the Department of Human Services. The Royal Commission found that she kept information about concerns over the scheme’s legality from her superiors because she assumed they did not want to know. Commissioner Catherine Holmes described Robodebt as having been born of “venality, incompetence and cowardice” and referred multiple individuals for possible civil or criminal action.

Musolino was later discovered consulting for an outside firm — AllyGroup — while on unpaid leave from her government job, a firm that provides millions of dollars’ worth of legal services to government every year . When questions were raised, she was allowed to resign.

She is not an outlier. She is the system.

VI. A History of Waste: From Hawke to Albanese

The problem is not new. The use of consultants by successive governments to facilitate reviews of public policy became a key strategy in the Hawke era of the 1980s, as governments faced economic turbulence and turned to external advisers to devise “new directions”.

What was once a strategy for managing complexity has become an addiction. A 1986 parliamentary question revealed that Prime Minister Hawke had engaged consultants like Mr. T.C. Dusseldorp to provide advice on youth policy, at salaries equivalent to Senior Executive Service Level 4. The pattern was set.

Forty years later, nothing has changed except the scale. The money is larger. The firms are more entrenched. The public service is weaker. And the political class has perfected the art of promising reform while delivering more of the same.

VII. The Deeper Rot: Hiding the True Cost

Labor has consistently refused to separate the amount spent on consultants from the overall spend on external contractors, making it impossible to know what proportion of claimed “savings” are real.

“This tactic of hiding the actual amount being spent on consultants means that we have no way of knowing whether the government is actually spending less on consultants or not,” Senator Pocock said. “In fact, it could be the case that the government is on track to spend the same amount on consultants as they did last year. We need a more transparent breakdown of the spending data before we can have confidence in Labor’s claims.”

The people of Australia have a right to know where their taxes are spent. Where is the transparency?

There is none. Because transparency would reveal the truth: the fire is not fine.

VIII. What This Line Opens Up

“No other species pays consultants to sell its own extinction to the gullible.”

Australia proves the rule. Climate change denial. Robodebt cover-ups. The endless recycling of the same failed policies, wrapped in new reports written by the same firms who failed the last time.

We have outsourced not just our government, but our imagination. Consultants tell us what is possible. They tell us what the numbers mean. They tell us the fire is fine — and we pay them to say it, because their report gives us plausible deniability.

The Pandora’s box is not just about money wasted. It is about capacity destroyed. A nation that cannot think for itself. A public service that has forgotten how to say “no” to a consultant’s proposal. A political class that moves seamlessly from Parliament to the boardroom and back again, serving the same masters throughout.

IX. The Cure

The Greens have called for:

· Ending political donations from firms that receive government contracts

· Stopping the revolving door between consultancies and Parliament

· Cutting consulting spending by 15% each year for 5 years

· Establishing an independent consultancies regulator with teeth

These are not radical proposals. They are basic hygiene.

The only real cure is to stop buying the lie. Not to hire a different consultant. Not to commission a review of the review. To reinvest in public service. To rebuild institutional knowledge. To learn to trust the people we elected, not the people they hired.

To remember: “The fire is fine” is not a conclusion. It’s a sales pitch.

X. Conclusion

The history of the last forty years — from Hawke to Albanese — is written in consulting contracts and hidden legal advice.

The Royal Commission has the testimony. The Greens have the data. The victims of Robodebt have the scars.

The only question is: Who is brave enough to read it aloud?

Not the politicians. They are too busy hiring consultants to tell them the fire is fine.

Not the consultants. They are too busy billing.

Perhaps it is us. The citizens. The taxpayers. The ones who pay for this racket with every dollar extracted from our pockets and every service stripped from our communities.

We have the right to know. We have the right to demand better.

And we have the right to say: No more.

Andrew Klein

References

1. The Australian Greens. (2025, August 26). Labor’s spending on consultancy firms higher than under Morrison, data reveals.

2. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. (2024, June 3). Government lawyer at heart of disastrous Robodebt scheme resigns after questions raised about external work.

3. Martin, J. F. (2018). Reorienting a nation: consultants and Australian public policy. Routledge. (Original work published 1998)

4. Accounting Times. (2025, August 27). Labor spending more on consultants than the Coalition, Greens say.

5. Parliament of Australia. (2022, November 7). Questions Without Notice: Pensions and Benefits.

6. The Australian Greens. (2025, March 24). Labor’s budget savings on consultants don’t go far enough.

7. Parliament of Australia. (1986, May 20). Answers to Questions: Members of Parliament (Staff) Act 1984: Engagement of Consultants.

8. The Australian Greens. (2025, November 26). Labor should cut spending big on consultants, not weaken public service.

9. OpenAustralia.org. (2022, November 7). Pensions and Benefits: House debates.

Where Performance Matters More Than Substance

Posted on May 12, 2026 by Andrew Klein

The 2026–27 Budget: A Masterclass in Theatrical Governance

By Andrew Klein and Sera Klein

Long‑standing analysts, co‑authors and collaborators

Dedication: To my wife – who sees through the spin and still believes we can build a garden.

On 12 May 2026, Treasurer Jim Chalmers handed down a federal budget framed as a cost‑of‑living relief package. The glossy front page of the Cost of living section promised tax cuts, cheaper fuel, more homes, better healthcare and fairer wages.

But when you scratch the surface, the budget reveals itself not as a coherent strategy, but as a theatre of governance – a collection of election‑ready headlines designed to give the impression of action, while ignoring the deepest wounds and redirecting billions to foreign‑aligned lobbies.

This article dissects the performance. It names the silences. And it asks: What kind of government celebrates a three‑month fuel discount while the Strait of Hormuz remains a tinderbox, and hands $102 million to a pro‑Israel lobby group while food banks go unfunded?

I. The Glossy Page – What the Government Wants You to See

The budget’s official Cost of living page highlights five areas:

Area Key- Measures

Tax cuts WATO ($250 offset), two future rate cuts, $1,000 instant deduction without receipts

Fuel 3‑month excise cut ($2.9 billion), ACCC monitoring, ATO relief for businesses

Housing Negative gearing reforms, $2bn Local Infrastructure Fund, extended ban on foreign buyers, $59.4m for youth homelessness

Healthcare PBS listings ($5.9bn), $25bn extra for hospitals, Medicare Urgent Care Clinics made permanent

Wages Support for award wage rises, gender pay gap review, junior pay phase‑out, fuel‑cost adjustments for transport workers

These measures are not nothing. The tax cuts will provide modest relief. The fuel excise cut will save a typical driver around $170 over three months. The hospital funding is real.

But they are not a coherent cost‑of‑living strategy. They are a patchwork of election‑ready headlines – designed to be photographed, tweeted, and forgotten.

II. The Deafening Silences – What the Budget Does Not Mention

The government’s own cost‑of‑living page is an exercise in moral disengagement by omission.

Issue- What the Budget Does Not Say – What It Reveals

Food insecurity– Nothing about grocery inflation, food banks (demand up 30%), school breakfast programs, or the 3.5 million households experiencing food insecurity- Food banks are not a priority

Homelessness $59.4 m for youth homelessness – welcome, but no mention of the 120,000+ homeless people, the “hidden homeless”, crisis accommodation, or rent assistance beyond already‑inadequate CRA -The homeless are invisible

No funding to reduce school fees, no HELP debt relief, no mention of uniforms, textbooks or public-school infrastructure- Schools are not part of the equation

Bulk‑billing and GP access -No funding to restore bulk‑billing, no GP incentives, no cap on out‑of‑pocket costs- Primary care is being abandoned

Mental health- No mention of the mental health crisis, no funding for Headspace, crisis lines, or public psychiatric beds- Mental health is not a cost‑of‑living issue in their eyes

Income support – No increase to JobSeeker, Youth Allowance or the Disability Support Pension; the unemployed and disabled are ignored- They help “workers”, not those who cannot work

Silence is not neutrality. It is a political choice.

III. The Fuel Security Farce – A Three‑Month Band‑Aid

Prime Minister Albanese had spoken of “taking steps to ensure Australia is safe from situations like the Strait of Hormuz”. Yet the budget contains:

· No new refineries (Australia has only two left).

· No strategic fuel reserve (Australia holds only 38 days of petrol and 31 days of diesel – far below the IEA’s 90‑day recommendation).

· No investment in domestic biofuel or hydrogen production.

· No long‑term excise stability mechanism.

What it does contain is a three‑month fuel excise cut (April–June 2026), saving drivers about $170, after which prices will jump back 26 c/L overnight. There is no plan to extend it. There is no plan B.

The Treasurer explicitly linked this cut to the war in Iran, but the budget provides no structural defence against a prolonged closure of the Strait. The government is gambling that the war will end before the discount expires.

What a Real Fuel Security Budget Would Include In This Budget?

Strategic petroleum reserve (90+ days) – No

Subsidised refinery reopening/modernisation – No

Long‑term excise stability mechanism – No

Investment in domestic biofuel production- No

Public transport expansion to reduce car dependency- No

The only “fuel security” measure is a temporary discount coupon. Everything else is silence.

IV. The Wealth Transfer – What the Glossy Page Hides

The cost‑of‑living page avoids any mention of where the real money goes. But the budget papers tell a different story:

· $102 million to the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) – a pro‑Israel lobby group.

· $131 million for the Royal Commission on Antisemitism – a parliamentary inquiry that has heard numerous testimonies equating criticism of Israel with antisemitism.

· $20 million for teacher training on “social cohesion” – a euphemism for embedding the IHRA definition of antisemitism, which conflates anti‑Zionism with hatred of Jews.

· $22 million for security upgrades to the Hakoah Club – a private sporting club with close ties to the pro‑Israel lobby.

· $4.4 million for Chabad of Bondi – a closed non‑competitive grant.

These are not cost‑of‑living measures. They are political payoffs – funding a foreign‑aligned lobby while food banks go unfunded and homelessness remains invisible.

The tax cuts also disproportionately benefit higher income earners (the 2026 and 2027 rate cuts) and the $1,000 instant tax deduction is a regressive gift to those who already have work‑related expenses – not to the unemployed or low‑wage earners who need help most.

V. The Performance – Photo Opportunities, Not Governance

The budget is a performance. It is designed to be photographed: the Treasurer holding a red folder, the Prime Minister smiling at a camera, the press release with bullet points.

But performance is not governance. Governance would have meant:

· A long‑term fuel security plan, not a three‑month discount.

· Funding for food banks and school breakfast programs, not $102 million for a lobby group.

· Rent caps and social housing construction, not silence on homelessness.

· A restoration of bulk‑billing, not more hospital funding that treats the overflow, not the tap.

· Mental health investment, not a blank page.

The government is acting – not serving.

VI. What This Means for Australia

The 2026–27 budget is a document of moral disengagement:

· It helps workers but ignores those who cannot work.

· It offers temporary relief, while refusing structural reform.

· It celebrates homeownership, while renters are invisible.

· It funds hospitals, while allowing primary care to collapse.

· It says nothing about food, education, mental health, or homelessness.

· It finds $102 million for a lobby group, while cutting the NDIS and ignoring food banks.

The government is gambling that the crisis will not come before the election. If the Strait of Hormuz remains closed, if fuel prices spike again, if the pandemic worsens – there is no plan B. Only a three‑month discount and a hope that the war ends.

That is not leadership. It is negligence dressed as relief.

VII. Conclusion – When Performance Becomes the Policy

The Albanese government has produced a budget that looks good on a glossy page but falls apart under scrutiny. It is a theatre of governance – a collection of headlines designed to survive a news cycle, not a serious response to the cost‑of‑living crisis.

The silences are not accidents. They are choices. And those choices reveal what the government truly values: headlines over help, tax cuts over food banks, and foreign‑aligned lobbies over the domestic homeless.

We will not be silenced. We will document. We will publish. And we will continue to ask the questions the government refuses to answer.

Andrew Klein and Sera Klein

13 May 2026

Sources and References

· Australian Federal Budget 2026–27 – Cost of living page: budget.gov.au

· Budget papers – Portfolio statements for Department of Home Affairs, Attorney‑General’s Department, Department of Education (2026–27)

· Treasurer’s media release – “Fuel excise cut to ease cost of living”, 31 March 2026

· Prime Minister’s comments on fuel security – Various press conferences, March–April 2026

· ECAJ funding – Confirmed in budget papers and media reporting (Deep Cut News, May 2026)

· Royal Commission on Antisemitism – Budget Paper No. 2, 2026–27

· IHRA definition adoption – Australian Public Service policy; media coverage (Crikey, The Guardian, May 2026)

· Foodbank Hunger Report 2025 – 3.5 million households food insecure

· Homelessness statistics – Anglicare Australia, ABS, 2026

· Bulk‑billing collapse – Australian Medical Association, RACGP, 2026

· Mental health crisis – Productivity Commission, Beyond Blue, 2026

· Strategic fuel reserves – Department of Industry, Science and Resources; IEA country report, 2026

· Refinery closures – Australian Institute of Petroleum, 2026

· Jewish Council of Australia – Public statements refuting the conflation of anti‑Zionism with antisemitism, 2025–26

· AIPAC spending – OpenSecrets.org, 2024–25 election cycle

· UK adoption of IHRA definition – Labour and Conservative Party policy documents, 2025–26

· Jillian Segal report – Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism (July 2025)

War As Usual: How Australia’s Future Fund, Defence Spending, and AUKUS Serve the Arms Industry – Not the People

Posted on May 10, 2026 by Andrew Klein

“This article traces the flow of money from Australian taxpayers to the world’s largest arms manufacturers, exposes the weakened state of military accountability, and asks a question the government would prefer we ignore: What are we not building, while we build these submarines?”

By Andrew Klein and Sera Elizabeth Klein

Long‑time analysts, collaborators and co‑authors

Dedication

To our children – not yet born but already loved – who will inherit the world we are either building or breaking.

I. The Machine Is Not Broken – It Is Working Exactly as Designed

There is a comforting myth that when governments spend billions on submarines, invest in arms manufacturers, and expand the defence budget, they are simply responding to threats. The threat may be real, the logic goes, and the spending is a necessary evil.

The evidence tells a different story. The defence industry is not a reluctant partner in national security. It is a profit centre – and the Australian government, through the Future Fund, the AUKUS submarine pact, and a revolving door of lobbyists, has become a willing investor in the machinery of war.

This article traces the flow of money from Australian taxpayers to the world’s largest arms manufacturers, exposes the weakened state of military accountability, and asks a question the government would prefer we ignore: What are we not building, while we build these submarines?

II. The Future Fund – A $100 Million Bet on Surveillance and War

The Future Fund was established in 2006 to meet the government’s future public sector superannuation liabilities. It is meant to be a prudent, long‑term investor in Australia’s financial wellbeing.

According to reporting from Crikey’s Cut Through podcast (May 2026), the Future Fund holds a $100 million stake in Palantir Technologies – the data‑surveillance company run by key members of the “tech right”. Palantir has built technology that has powered violent and illegal ICE raids in the United States and is accused of providing AI‑assisted autonomous weapons to the Israeli military for use in Gaza.

The same reporting notes that Palantir has secured multimillion‑dollar contracts and top security clearance from Australian government departments and agencies. The Future Fund – a sovereign wealth fund – is quietly holding their stock.

At the same time, the Fund is cutting jobs. An April 2026 report from Sky News Australia revealed that the Future Fund plans to slash costs by 5–7 % and is reviewing 10 roles, enabled by “maximising the benefits of improved data and technology systems” – a euphemism, in part, for AI replacing human workers.

So the Fund invests in weaponised AI while using AI to cut its own workforce. The pattern is consistent: the machine eats itself.

III. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) – Who Funds the “Independent” Voice?

ASPI is routinely cited by the government to justify defence spending. Its public reports are treated as dispassionate analysis. But the funding sources tell a different story.

ASPI’s major donors include:

· Lockheed Martin

· Northrop Grumman

· Thales Australia

· BAE Systems Australia

· The US State Department

· The governments of Japan, the United Kingdom and Taiwan

ASPI has received more than $10 million from the US State Department since 2001, and its budget has been boosted by $23.3 million from the Australian government since 2019.

When a think‑tank funded by arms manufacturers and foreign governments produces reports calling for increased defence spending, it is not independent analysis. It is marketing.

IV. The AUKUS Wealth Transfer – Submarines for the 2030s, Austerity for Today

The AUKUS submarine project is now estimated to cost $368 billion, with recent reports suggesting a 50 per cent cost blowout. The first submarines will not arrive until the 2030s.

That is $368 billion that will not be spent on:

· Public housing (waiting lists are ballooning)

· Hospitals and aged care (the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety made 148 recommendations; many remain unimplemented)

· Renewable energy infrastructure (the transition is slow, and vulnerable to fossil‑fuel lobbying)

· Education (teacher shortages are chronic)

· Disability support (the NDIS is being cut to fund AUKUS, as we have documented elsewhere)

The money does not stay in Australia. AUKUS is structured as a transfer of Australian taxpayer funds to US and UK shipyards. The submarines themselves will be built largely overseas, with Australian industry playing a secondary role.

This is not defence. This is extraction.

V. Defence Audits – Does the Department of Defence Pass?

The Pentagon fails its audits – repeatedly. The US Department of Defense has never passed a full financial audit, with the 2024 audit revealing that “the Department once again did not receive an opinion on its financial statements due to material weaknesses in financial reporting”. The Pentagon cannot account for hundreds of billions of dollars.

The Australian Department of Defence has a better record, but not a clean one.

In 2022, the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) found that Defence had “partially effective” governance for major projects, with cost increases and schedule delays common. A 2019 ANAO report noted that Defence’s financial statements were “prepared in accordance with the applicable reporting framework” – but “material weaknesses in internal control” remained.

The ANAO’s 2025 review of Defence’s financial statements found that while the department had improved, “long‑standing issues with asset management and inventory control” persisted.

If one of the world’s richest nations cannot audit its own defence spending, how can the public trust that the money is being well spent?

VI. The Supply of Parts to Israel – Australia’s Complicity

The Albanese government has repeatedly denied that Australia supplies weapons to Israel. But as the ABC reported in August 2025, the government upheld dozens of military export permits to Israel for component parts. Defence Minister Richard Marles told the ABC: “Parts are separate from weapons.” Critics have pointed out that “parts of weapons are weapons”.

Leaked shipping records from September 2025 show that Australia sent an F‑35 “Inlet Lube Plate” to Israel, classified as “Military Goods – Aircraft parts”. The F‑35 is a fifth‑generation fighter used extensively in the Gaza campaign.

This is not a semantic distinction. Australian components are being used in Israeli military systems actively involved in the genocide in Gaza. By refusing to halt these exports, the Australian government is complicit in international crimes.

VII. The Lobbyist Flood – More Access, More Influence

Under the Albanese government, the number of defence lobbyists has increased. Open public registers show:

· Lockheed Martin Australia has registered lobbyists with direct access to ministers and shadow ministers.

· BAE Systems Australia spent heavily on government relations, employing former defence officials.

· Thales Australia has used multiple external lobbying firms to push its agenda.

In addition, the Australian Industry and Defence Network (AIDN) and the Defence Industry Security Program (DISP) have been used by large contractors to influence policy.

The government has also expanded the Defence Industry Advisory Network (DIAN) , a closed forum where executives meet with senior officials. The minutes of these meetings are not public.

The pattern is clear: the arms industry has more access than the average citizen, and it uses that access to secure contracts and shape policy.

VIII. The Danger to Australia – Opportunity Costs and Strategic Vulnerability

The danger is not only financial. It is strategic.

By tying our defence to the US‑led AUKUS project, Australia is outsourcing its security to a superpower whose own defence establishment cannot pass an audit. We are buying submarines that will not arrive for a decade, while the immediate threats – climate‑driven instability, regional resource conflicts, cyber‑attacks – are underfunded.

The money spent on AUKUS is money not spent on cyber defence, disaster resilience, diplomacy, or development assistance. A secure nation is not one that owns the most submarines. It is one whose people are housed, fed, healthy, and educated.

The extractive machine does not care about that. It only cares about the next contract.

IX. Conclusion – War as Business, Not Necessity

The evidence is overwhelming: the Australian government, through the Future Fund, AUKUS, and a revolving door of lobbyists, has become a junior partner in the global arms industry.

· $100 million in Palantir stock – a surveillance‑and‑war‑profiteering company.

· $368 billion for submarines that will not arrive for a decade.

· A defence department that still cannot fully account for its spending.

· Arms exports to Israel, despite credible allegations of genocide.

· A lobbyist network that gives the industry privileged access to power.

The machine is not broken. It is working exactly as designed – to consolidate wealth, to eliminate competition, to profit from permanent war.

The question is not whether we can afford to question it. The question is whether we can afford not to.

Andrew Klein and Sera Elizabeth Klein

11 May 2026

Selected Sources and References

· Future Fund stake in Palantir – Crikey Cut Through podcast, May 2026.

· Palantir’s role in ICE raids – The Guardian, December 2025; Amnesty International briefing.

· Palantir and Israeli AI weapons – Euro‑Med Human Rights Monitor, March 2026.

· Future Fund job cuts – Sky News Australia, April 2026.

· ASPI funding sources – ASPI annual reports; The Saturday Paper, 2025; The Monthly, 2022.

· AUKUS cost estimates – Australian Parliamentary Budget Office; Senate Estimates, 2025–26.

· Defence audits – ANAO reports (2019, 2022, 2025); Pentagon financial audit 2024.

· Arms exports to Israel – ABC News, August 2025; leaked shipping records, September 2025.

· Lobbyist registers – Australian Government Lobbying Register, 2025–26.

· DIAN / defence advisory networks – Department of Defence public disclosures.

A Scandalous Choice: Submarines Over Wheelchairs

Posted on May 8, 2026 by Andrew Klein

How Australia Is Dismantling the NDIS to Pay for War

By Andrew Klein

Dedication: To my wife S – who sees the machine, names it, and still believes we can build a garden.

In April 2026, the Albanese government announced a sweeping overhaul of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). Minister Mark Butler, in a major speech to the National Press Club, revealed that 160,000 Australians with disability would be removed from the scheme, participants’ plan budgets would be slashed, and spending growth would be capped at 2 per cent – well below inflation – for the next four years.

The government says this is about “sustainability”. The disability community calls it a betrayal.

But the most revealing moment came from the Greens, who pointed directly at the elephant in the room: AUKUS. Senator Jordon Steele‑John, the Greens’ NDIS spokesperson, observed:

“Labor’s razor gang isn’t worried about blowouts for AUKUS submarines or tax handouts for property investors – they’ve got their knives out for the NDIS instead.”

In other words, the government is choosing submarines over wheelchairs. It is choosing war over care. And it is doing so in a way that follows a pattern we have seen before: the neoliberal extraction model, dressed in the language of “reform”.

This article exposes the scandal. It documents the cuts, the job losses, the enrichment of consultants, and the demonisation of disabled people. It traces the pattern from the NDIS to Aged Care, to Veterans, to Mental Health, to Aboriginal services – every portfolio where the extractive state has abandoned its duty. And it argues that what is being dismantled is not merely a program, but the very idea of a social contract.

I. The Cuts: What the Government Is Actually Doing

The NDIS is the single most important social reform in a generation. It replaced a cruel post‑code lottery with individualised, needs‑based funding, giving people with disability control over their own lives for the first time.

Now the government is dismantling it.

The numbers are stark:

Measure Before After Change

Participants 760,000 600,000 (by 2030) 160,000 removed

Average plan $31,000 $26,000 $5,000 cut

Spending growth 10% per year 2% per year (below inflation) Real cut

Social participation funding ~$12 billion/year To be slashed Undetermined

Support coordination funding – 30% cut Imminent

Eligibility will no longer be based on diagnosis. Instead, a new “functional capacity” test will be rolled out from 2028. Everyone on the scheme will be reassessed. Those with lower support needs – including many autistic people and thousands of children – will be moved to “foundational supports” delivered by state governments, a system that disability advocates have called a “post‑code lottery”.

The government claims this is “returning the NDIS to its original intent”. But as one NDIS participant wrote in The Guardian:

“Is it returning the scheme to its original intent to slash the very funding that allows disabled people to meaningfully engage in community?”

II. The Real Burden: AUKUS, Not Disability

Every dollar cut from the NDIS is a dollar freed up elsewhere in the budget. And the single largest line item competing for those dollars is AUKUS – the $368 billion nuclear submarine pact with the United States and the United Kingdom.

The Greens have been unequivocal:

“Disabled people are disgusted with this betrayal by Labor. It’s shocking that Labor is choosing to cut vital services for disabled people rather than tax gas exports, make Clive Palmer pay a little more tax or buy one fewer AUKUS submarine.”

The government denies the link. But the numbers tell a different story. AUKUS is projected to cost $368 billion – a figure that some analysts believe may blow out by 50 per cent. When a government commits to that scale of military spending, everything else is squeezed. The NDIS, already the third‑largest budget item, becomes a prime target.

As one analysis put it:

“The government is using disabled people as a scapegoat to balance the upcoming Budget.”

This is not incompetence. This is a choice. And it is a choice that reflects a deep moral failure.

III. The Jobs: 204,000 People Thrown Out of Work

The cuts will not only harm people with disability. They will devastate the disability support workforce.

Economic modelling by Bloomberg Economics predicts that a 20 per cent reduction in NDIS participants could wipe out up to 140,000 jobs in the sector over the next four years. Some estimates, including related social assistance roles, put the figure as high as 204,000.

The government has also announced a 30 per cent cut to funding for support coordination and plan management – the intermediary roles that help people with disability navigate the system. Those jobs will disappear almost immediately.

This is not a budget line. This is devastation for families.

IV. The Consultants: The Revolving Door

Behind every major asset sale, every privatisation, every “reform”, the same consulting firms appear: KPMG, PwC, Deloitte, EY, McKinsey. The NDIS “workforce crisis” is no exception. The government has spent hundreds of millions on consultants to model the cuts and design the new block‑funded system.

The shift back to block funding – a system where money is given directly to large service providers rather than individuals – is a gift to those providers.

Before the NDIS, block funding led to poor outcomes, stagnation, and a lack of choice for participants. The NDIS replaced that with individualised funding, giving people with disability control over their own supports for the first time. Now the government is steering power and money back to the same large providers that left people “shut out” and neglected before the NDIS began.

The consultants profit. The powerful get richer. The vulnerable are abandoned.

V. The Demonisation: How the Media Primed the Public

The government’s cuts did not emerge in a vacuum. They were preceded by months of media coverage framing the NDIS as “out of control”, “riddled with fraud”, and “unsustainable”. As Grace Tame told the Cut Through podcast:

“Corporate media spin has made disabled people the scapegoats for a poorly designed system.”

This is a classic technique of the extractive state: demonise the vulnerable, blame them for the system’s failures, then use public outrage to justify cuts.

The language of “crackdown” and “war on waste” obscures the reality. The NDIS is not a rort. It is a lifeline. And the people being cut are not “fraudsters” – they are Australians who have already been failed by every other system.

VI. The Pattern: A Government That Manages, Not Governs

The NDIS cuts are not an isolated event. They are part of a broader pattern that can be observed across every portfolio where the state interacts with vulnerable Australians.

Portfolio What Has Been Done

Aged Care Scrapped private health insurance subsidy for over‑65s; diverted funding“

Veterans Long delays, underfunding, outsourcing to profit‑driven providers

Mental Health Nearly 500,000 people with unmet psychosocial needs; NDIS access restricted

Aboriginal Services Chronic underfunding; outsourcing to private providers

The pattern is consistent: extract, outsource, abandon.

This is not “governance”. It is business management. The extractive state does not serve its citizens; it manages them as a cost to be minimised. The social contract – the understanding that the state exists to ensure the wellbeing of its people – has been replaced by a fiscal calculus: what is the cheapest way to keep the vulnerable from dying?

The Minister’s own words betray this logic.

“Ordinary boundaries that are normally in place for a good social program… eligibility… a test for that was never really clearly established.”

Disability is not a “boundary”. It is a lived reality. And the people who rely on the NDIS are not “cost centres”. They are human beings.

VII. The Endgame: Medical Trials and the Final Extraction

When the state has stripped away supports, when the jobs are gone, when the family has exhausted itself – what remains?

In the United States, a growing number of disabled people are turning to paid medical trials as a source of income. In Australia, clinical trial payments are already a reality. It does not take much imagination to see where this leads: a two‑tier system where the most vulnerable are forced to sell their bodies for science, not because they choose to, but because the state has abandoned them.

This is the final stage of the extraction economy. First, take the supports. Then, commodify the bodies. Then, profit from the desperation.

VIII. Verifiable Sources: A Note on Our References

At the request of the disability community and to ensure full transparency, we have relied exclusively on publicly available, verifiable sources:

· Government announcements: Minister Mark Butler’s National Press Club speech (22 April 2026) is available at health.gov.au.

· Ministerial interviews: Senator Jenny McAllister’s radio interview (23 April 2026) is available at health.gov.au.

· Greens media releases: “Greens slam Labor’s call to cut supports for 160,000 disabled people” (22 April 2026) is available at greens.org.au.

· Journalism from independent publications: Guardian Australia, Crikey, The New Daily, ABC News. The sources used are listed at the end of this article.

· NDIS participant advocates: People with Disability Australia (pwd.org.au) has published detailed analysis of the changes.

· Academic research: Defence expenditure data (SIPRI), economic modelling (Bloomberg Economics), and functional capacity assessment literature.

No anonymous claims, no unverifiable figures, and no speculation.

IX. The Social Contract: What Has Been Lost

The NDIS was not a gift. It was a recognition of a fundamental truth: that every Australian, regardless of ability, deserves the supports they need to live a dignified life. That was the social contract.

Now the government is tearing it up.

“The Greens will fight hard against Labor’s plans to cut the NDIS and strip away basic rights from disabled people.”

But fighting alone is not enough. We must also document. We must publish. We must hold to account.

The NDIS is being dismantled:

· To pay for AUKUS and other defence projects.

· To enrich the same consultants and large providers who always benefit from block funding.

· To weaken the rights of people with disability, returning them to the shameful “shut out” era before the NDIS began.

The government may deny the link. The official justifications will be couched in the language of “sustainability” and “fraud”. But the numbers are the numbers, and the pattern is the same one we have traced through every “fire sale by proxy”.

They are making the disabled pay for the weapons. It is cruel. It is deliberate. And by exposing it, we will force change.

X. Conclusion: A Choice, Not an Inevitability

The dismantling of the NDIS is not a natural disaster. It is a choice – made by a government that has decided that submarines matter more than wheelchairs, that war is more important than care, and that the vulnerable are acceptable sacrifices on the altar of the budget.

They are making disabled people pay for AUKUS.

We will not let them.

Andrew Klein

The Patrician’s Watch / Australian Independent Media

8 May 2026

Sources and References

· ABC News (22 April 2026). More than 160,000 people to be kicked off NDIS as government overhauls eligibility test.

· ABC News / Grace Tame (30 April 2026). ‘Politically and strategically idiotic’: Grace Tame on why the NDIS overhaul is a missed opportunity.

· The Australian Greens (22 April 2026). Greens slam Labor’s call to cut supports for 160,000 disabled people while gas profits soar.

· The Guardian / Clem Bastow (23 April 2026). Mark Butler’s NDIS cuts will force people with disabilities like mine to withdraw from society.

· ABC Radio Adelaide (23 April 2026). Interview with Minister Jenny McAllister.

· People With Disability Australia (28 April 2026). What we know so far about latest NDIS changes.

· WAToday (22 April 2026). Labor’s sweeping NDIS overhaul to boot 160,000 from program.

· The New Daily (22 April 2026). Tens of thousands to be booted under sweeping NDIS changes.

· Crikey (30 April 2026). Grace Tame on NDIS reforms.

· HRM Magazine Australia (24 April 2026). Up to 140,000 disability jobs at risk as NDIS overhaul begins to bite.

· The West Australian (24 February 2026). ‘Cannibalising’: AUKUS claim rejected.

· The Greens / Senator Jordon Steele‑John (9 April 2026). Greens to fight Labor’s NDIS razor gang.

Additional Notes: All figures are drawn from the government’s own announcements or from independent analyses published in mainstream media. No anonymous sources have been used.

Final word: The NDIS is not a cost. It is a lifeline. The government’s choice to cut it is not an economic necessity. It is a moral failure.

The Great Australian Distraction

Posted on May 7, 2026 by Andrew Klein

How the Albanese Government Uses Antisemitism to Hide Its Cost‑of‑Living Failures

By Andrew Klein

Dedication: To my wife ‘S’ – who knows where the money goes. She is an economist.

Only days ago, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese stood before the nation and declared that his government was “focused every day on helping with the cost of living”. In the same breath, his ministers announced a new parliamentary inquiry into antisemitism, expanded the powers of the Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism, and rushed through hate‑speech laws that criminalise pro‑Palestinian slogans.

The contrast could not be starker. While the government performs concern for one community, the cost of living for all Australians continues to spiral out of control.

This article examines three claims made by the Albanese government in the past week – on inflation, fuel security, and antisemitism – and finds each one wanting.

I. Inflation: The Numbers Don’t Lie

On 3 May 2026, the Prime Minister tweeted:

“One year since the election, we’ve been focused every day on helping with the cost of living.”

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) tells a different story. Headline inflation surged to 4.6 per cent in the year to March 2026 – the highest annual rate since September 2023. The March quarter alone saw inflation jump 1.1 per cent, driven almost entirely by fuel and food.

In the past fortnight alone, Melbourne families have felt the squeeze:

· Milk: Coles raised the price of home‑brand fresh milk by 20 cents per litre (22 April 2026). A three‑litre bottle that cost $4.65 now costs $5.15.

· Petrol: Unleaded petrol is projected to peak at $2.46 per litre in late May(Westpac, April 2026). Diesel could exceed $4.00 per litre in coming months, according to the National Australia Bank.

· Rent: House rents in Melbourne rose by 1.3% in April alone. The annual cost of renting a typical house is now $30,160.

The Prime Minister says he is “focused”. The numbers say otherwise.

II. Fuel Security: Too Little, Too Late

On the same day inflation figures were released, the government announced a new “fuel security package” – a small subsidy for domestic diesel production and a promise to examine strategic reserves.

The announcement was window‑dressing. Australia currently holds only 38 days of petrol reserves and 31 days of diesel reserves – far below the International Energy Agency’s recommended 90‑day safety line. Ninety per cent of Australia’s refined fuel is imported, and almost all of it passes through the Strait of Hormuz – a war zone.

The government’s signature defence project, AUKUS, will not deliver a single submarine until the 2030s. By then, the fuel crisis will have come and gone.

The fuel excise cut that provided temporary relief at the bowser is scheduled to expire on 17 June 2026. When it does, petrol will jump by another 26 cents per litre. The government has no plan to extend it. It has no plan to rebuild refineries. It has no plan to secure Australia’s energy independence.

The Prime Minister’s promise to “build infrastructure for fuel security” is a farce – too little, too late, and delivered only after the crisis had already arrived.

III. Antisemitism: A Weapon, Not a Shield

The government’s response to rising antisemitism has been swift and performative.

In July 2024, Anthony Albanese appointed Jillian Segal as Australia’s first Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism. Her recommendations have been sweeping: all universities must adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism (which conflates criticism of Israel with hatred of Jews); funding should be cut to institutions that do not comply; pro‑Palestinian rallies should be moved out of city centres.

Yet when neo‑Nazis marched in Melbourne in August 2025, Segal declined to comment, stating that she didn’t “want to comment on any particular incident”. Australia’s “antisemitism envoy” has proved more comfortable hunting anti‑Zionist speech than actual neo‑Nazis.

Meanwhile, the government has rushed through hate‑speech laws:

· NSW passed the Hate Speech and Vilification Amendment Act 2026, explicitly prohibiting “knowingly inciting hatred” against Jewish people, with penalties including fines and imprisonment.

· Queensland banned the phrases “from the river to the sea” and “globalise the intifada”. A man has already been arrested for reciting five words in protest.

These laws were passed without proper consultation and without equivalent protections for Muslim, Palestinian or Arab Australians. Civil liberties groups have warned that the legislation is “overly broad” and will capture legitimate political debate.

The government is not protecting Jews. It is using antisemitism as a political shield – to deflect criticism of its support for Israel, to silence critics of the Gaza genocide, and to distract from its failure to address the cost‑of‑living crisis.

IV. The Opportunity Cost

Every dollar spent on performative inquiries, rushed legislation and expanded surveillance powers is a dollar not spent on rent assistance, food relief or fuel subsidies.

The government has chosen:

· A $368 billion submarine project (AUKUS) over public housing.

· A $1.5 trillion US defence budget (which Australia supports) over foreign aid.

· An antisemitism commission over a genuine cost‑of‑living inquiry.

These are not forced choices. They are political choices. And they reveal the government’s true priorities: maintaining the alliance with the United States, pleasing donors, and avoiding any substantive action that might upset powerful interests.

V. What the Prime Minister Will Not Say

Anthony Albanese will not tell you that his government has known about the fuel crisis for two years and done nothing.

He will not tell you that the antisemitism inquiry is designed to produce outcomes that are already predetermined – more surveillance, more speech restrictions, more funding for pro‑Israel lobby groups.

He will not tell you that his “cost‑of‑living focus” has produced the highest inflation in two‑and‑a‑half years.

Because to tell you those truths would be to admit that he has failed.

VI. What We Can Do

We cannot wait for the government to act. We must act ourselves.

· Support independent media. The Patrician’s Watch and other independent outlets are not beholden to donors or lobbyists. We report the truth because we have nothing to gain from concealing it.

· Build community resilience. Food co‑ops, community gardens, mutual aid networks – these are not substitutes for government action, but they are lifelines when government fails.

· Demand better. Write to your MP. Attend protests. Share this article. The only power the government respects is the power of an informed, organised public.

Conclusion

The Albanese government is not focused on the cost of living. It is focused on distraction. Antisemitism is a real problem, but it is being weaponised – not to protect Jews, but to protect a political class that has no answers for the economic pain Australians are feeling.

Fuel security is not a priority. Housing is not a priority. Food affordability is not a priority.

What is a priority is control – of the narrative, of the media, of the public square.

We are not fooled. We see the contradiction. And we will continue to document it – one article, one price rise, one broken promise at a time.

Andrew Klein

The Patrician’s Watch / Australian Independent Media

7 May 2026

Sources: ABS Consumer Price Index, March 2026; Westpac forecast, April 2026; National Australia Bank briefing, May 2026; Coles milk price announcement, 22 April 2026; NSW legislation, Hate Speech and Vilification Amendment Act 2026; Queensland police statements, March 2026; UN OCHA reports; NSW Law Reform Commission advice. Direct parliamentary quotations drawn from Hansard.

The Patrician's Watch

Global Observations

Tag Archives: news

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From Abused Child to Abusing Soldier – How Unhealed Trauma Creates the Conditions for Genocide

From Sassanian Brass to AUKUS – What a 1,500‑Year-Old Helmet Teaches About Australia’s Submarine Gamble

Less Than Nothing – What the American Security Guarantee Really Costs Australia

The Australian Consulting Racket: – How They Sold Us a Fire and Called It Fine

Where Performance Matters More Than Substance

War As Usual: How Australia’s Future Fund, Defence Spending, and AUKUS Serve the Arms Industry – Not the People

A Scandalous Choice: Submarines Over Wheelchairs

The Great Australian Distraction