Attempts by the Murdoch Media to control the politics of the summer season are temporarily on hold after attempts to abort the anti-hate legislation by the Albanese Government and new gun control measures were soundly defeated.
The Albanese Government has the numbers to consolidate its control of the political agenda. Strengthening links with progressive senate crossbenchers is imperative to Advance Australia Fair in 2026.
Past insults to justify Invasion Day rallies abound. As a bicycle rider, I often pass this monument to the arrival of John Oxley in Brisbane in 1824 (Images: Wikipedia Commons):
Opinion polling trends were good even prior to the passage of the anti-hate and gun control legislation:
The Queensland Government continues to direct its wrath against funding from Canberra which provides over 40 per cent of all state revenue in grants and GST distributions to blame the former state Labor government for a record deficit level of $9 billion in the 2025-26 fiscal year. Queensland is not on LNP Watch and Premier Crisafulli is fully responsible for the current deficit which has worsened since the Labor Government was defeated.
Conservative leaders seem to be out of touch with their local surroundings. Protected from the window views at Police Headquarters in Roma Street by the embankment above the inner-city bikeway, the litter and graffiti from largely abandoned homeless encampments of homeless persist just below the John Oxley Monument. These sites of deserted levels of alienation and despair have been vacated for ages.
Brisbane’s LNP Lord Mayor Adrian Skinner ethically advocated the relocation of people living in the city’s parks to the then empty $400 million COVID quarantine centre at Pinkenba.
Since 2023, the Albanese Government has announced plans to significantly expand its Pinkenba Hub as a central pillar for the Pacific Policing Initiative (PPI), a Pacific-led, Australian-backed partnership designed to bolster the region’s law-enforcement capabilities, and safety and security. Details are readily accessible online of the housing affordability crises:
Also brushed out from public view today by the commercial media are the appalling levels of indigenous incarceration both in Queensland and across Australia as captured by ABS data (11 December 2025):
Key ABS Incarceration Statistics
As of 30 June 2025:
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- there were 46,998 adult prisoners in Australia, up 6% (2,595 prisoners) from 2024
- the imprisonment rate was 216 prisoners per 100,000 adult population, up from 208 prisoners in 2024
- prisoners with a most serious offence/charge of acts intended to cause injury accounted for 29% of the prisoner population
- there were 17,432 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander prisoners, up 10% (1,561) from 2024.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander prisoners
From 30 June 2024 to 30 June 2025, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander prisoners increased by 10% (1,561) to 17,432. Over the same time period, the age standardised imprisonment rate for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander prisoners increased from 2,318 to 2,500 prisoners per 100,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adult population.
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- Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander prisoners accounted for 37% of all prisoners
- 89% (15,597) of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander prisoners were male, 11% (1,833) were female
- the median age was 33.9 years
- 76% (13,186) had experienced prior adult imprisonment.
In juxtaposition, corporate anti-social behaviour persists in the leadership offered by some multinational companies. SBS News (2 October 2025: See the full list: The biggest Australian companies paying the least tax).
Australian conservatives and the Murdoch press still hope that the Opposition rabble can be reunited under a new leadership team. The worst possible outcome in 2028 would be a LNP Minority Government with support from One Nation on the sidelines.
As with other middle powers globally, the far-right is still in the ascendency from Japan to Western Europe. The remnants of Australian social democracy under the Albanese Government are always a potential target of the Trump administration and its commercial media supporters like News Corp.
States and territories are being denied billions of dollars in revenue by corporate tax evasion. In true National Party style, the Queensland Government blames Canberra for shortfalls in the allocation of grants and GST revenue.
As a complex and diversified multinational company, the finances of News Corp are difficult to investigate. With my resources, I must rely on Gemini Google Bard for insights into the finances of News Corp. The place of News Corp on the ATO’s Tax evasion list becomes more ambiguous by its absence from the roll call across the 420 web pages of data on the ATO list.
News Corp has extended its financial outreach from established print media to Sky News to a range of streaming services with links to Disney, Warner Brothers and Foxtel. Opportunities for tax offsets abound.
News Corp has added a 61 per cent stake in realestate.com.au (REA Group) as well as equity in Mortgage Choice and PropTrack. The company effectively influences the entire consumer journey from reading about home trends to securing a loan. This situation is repeated in the US and other global economies.
The robots at Gemini Google Bard know more about News Corp than national leaders from the disunited conservative opposition and the three LNP Governments in the NT, Tasmania and Queensland.
A ban on property developers making political donations in state elections will be lifted under sweeping new legislation in Queensland (ABC News 11 December 2025). This financial sector of course strives to raise housing prices in the interests of investors relying on negative gearing options.
Hopefully, our guardians in the Bluey family have been on watch through the summer when the electorate has been seeking relaxing diversions. Let’s hope that their barking of family members raises more red flags about unresolved taxation problems as conservative state government resort to more regressive direct taxation measures to cope with the shortfalls.
In my own case, I am paying $213 a week to the Crisafulli Government in Land Tax for a fibro house which my deceased parents bought for $7,000 as a holiday retreat in my name so that they could in fact receive the full pension. This tax increased by almost 47 per cent since the last land tax bill. Payments are required in advance for a full fiscal year to avoid extra interest charges.
Just prior to the holiday season, the Government Revenue Office (GRO) forwarded a reminder notice but my account has already been paid. The interest rate warning came with a Merry Christmas message.
Access to the GRO office at 150 Mary Street, Brisbane is totally controlled on security grounds. Conversations about the land tax must be by email or phone so I sat on the chairs in the palatial air-conditioned foyer to discuss this matter.
A helpful staff member on the Sunshine Coast responded to my call on a 1300 number and advised me that there was no possibility of a refund of the Land Tax for the January to June half-year.
All phone calls are recorded so I maintained my politest tone with a staff member who was completely empathetic and knew her brief so well. I wished her well and hoped that she would be serving Premier Steven Miles when the Crisafulli government is defeated by a Labor Opposition that can talk up a commitment to needs based political agendas to assist with its re-election.
Needs based policies were a forte of long-serving Labor Governments in Queensland but the far-right of politics in Queensland, Australia and in other middle powers has stolen this old thunder.
Denis Bright (pictured) is a financial member of the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA). Denis is committed to consensus-building on the critical issues raised in each article. Your comments on this and related articles can be recorded on theaimn.net site.
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Bring on the change of government, and Crisafulli can go back to his job as a waiter in an Italian restaurant.
Yes, bring on the change of Queensland government to limit/prevent to continuing ”scams for mates” occurring in the NLP misgovernment.
The Crisisfully political career was protected by an about $200,000 fine paid for trading a corporation while insolvent. Why was a politician protected from a jail sentence for a suitable improper white collar crime??
Many families cannot even afford uniforms and items for their children at school. Thanks to State Labor member, Bisma Asif MP, in Sandgate Brisbane for buying stationery and other items which are available from her office to assist local families.
Failure on this anti-hate legislation would have resulted in a year of political regrets
What a conflict of interest: News Corp invests in the real estate sector and then blames Labor government for higher housing prices and rent
The LNP and the far-right across Australia prefer regressive taxes on disadvantaged people with a total tax exemption for national horrors like News Corp. News Corp operates here as a US company with tax offsets through linked companies that are part of their media and real estate networks. Every house and business across Australia has a property evaluation from real estate companies related to News Corp. The Gobble and Go Tax Away in Normanton in the Gulf Country and its adjoining house are on the national list with 3,084 square metres of adjacent land for $500,000 or near offer.
Very topical at the moment. Thank you for raising these issues.
Never ceases to amaze me how Queensland always bites the hand that feeds it.
The loudest squeaky wheel always gets the attention, and it has never been fit for purpose.
The only way they can seek redemption is to pay their own way, and yes, I have always donated to support these people from floods and fire yet they seek to nullify the ordinary person’s existence.
Couldn’t be more quixotic if you tried.
The Murdoch pox,a galloping disaster on any expected progress in social, economic, political and cultural ways, by phone tapping, government coercing, is controlled by a foreign expatriate, taxbludging, wifedumping, imperious turdish, chonically irritable money gouger. You’d see a lovelier sight in a brimming bedpan. But it is the lack of decency, soul, heart, generosity that ruins it for us, extreme oppression. Imperious righteous ratbaggery is awfully mediaeval, filthy vanity, ugly egofixation.
Thanks everyone for the comments on the Crisafulli Government in the Deep North.
Hopefully the Crisafulli Government will be an exotic one term wonder as with Campbell Newman (2012-15).
The tough on crime rhetoric as engineered by advertising consultants Toham Guerin defeated Labor in 2024 in Queensland.
Queensland is heading back to the Joh days in talking up provocative legislation on the Bondi Beach Massacres and Opposition to Gun Control.
The Labor Opposition through parliamentary committees should investigate any lingering links between advertising agency Toham Guerin and government communications which would be paid for by Queensland taxpayers.
The robots at Google Bard can be consulted on these issues which the Labor Opposition can pursue on parliamentary expenditure review committees.
Even Old Queen Victoria’s governments in Queensland would have welcomed such initiatives which are far from radical in their scope.
Parliamentary committees certainly need to investigate the ongoing influence of Topham Guerin in government policy communications in Queensland.
My guess is that all this passes the ethical test.
Queensland has a record government deficit in 2025-26 of around $9 billion and has not delivered on its fresh start rhetoric.
The emotional thrust of Topham Guerin permeates government communications in Queensland with an emphasis on emotional content in communications through vacuous rhetoric and print communications which are being applied by policy bureaucrats without the need for direct Topham Guerin involvement.
Thanks for your commitment to social justice on Australia Day, Denis. Public transport fares here in Brisbane and to the Coast have been reduced to 50 Cents per full journey: That helps as bicycle can be carried on electric trains.
I see that National Party MP Colin Boyce has been set up as a ‘stalking horse’ to topple David Littleproud.
Colin Boyce would not himself be an inspiring Leader for the National Party but by setting up a ‘spill’ he leaves room for others – watch out for Michael McCormack having another run !!
The last time they did this was 2021 when Joyce tried to topple McCormack to resume leadership himself: he missed out and allowed Littleproud to come through and topple McCormack.
The Gold Coast has become unaffordable and so have other resort centres. Just an overnight stay at North Stradbroke Island costs one thousand dollars in ferry costs for cars ($300), accommodation and food. A parcel of fish and chips cost $140 for four family members. Special ice-creams were ten dollars each.
Why is the LNP so silent on the extent of tax evasion by multinational companies as the Crusafulli Government struggles with a $9 billion and record deficit in Queensland while resorting to regressive taxes to survive?
The Queensland LNP generated false promises in 2024 to get elected on a populist themes as in the NT and with Peter Dutton’s failed take-over in 2025.
The Albanese Government is still too soft on multinational tax evaders, including News Corp. Albo maintains negative gearing options for speculative investors in rental housing. Some investors own a dozen properties to offset other income and interest payments.
Albo, don’t let Pauline Hanson and the LNP steal your rhetorical thunder. News Corp will never support Labor no matter how much political insiders try to appease this US company. News Corp is embedded in legalized multinational tax evasion and real estate links which inflate housing prices. Take heart from Keir Starmer in Britain who is fighting off the far-right after squandering his government’s massive majority. Working with the crossbench in the senate is so important to control the drift to the far-right which was mobilized on Australia Day in those nasty rallies.
Thanks for the comments on this important article.
I expect needs based public policies to be a highlight of the 2030s as the ascendency of the far-right here and overseas becomes history.
I used the bikeway below the Oxley Monument yesterday.
I reported the amount of littering on the embankment once frequents by large numbers of homeless people to the LNP Lord Mayor’s office.
Friendly staff members were not sure of the boundary of responsibility between the LNP’s state and local government for this problem and the remnants of the graffiti of despair.
It seems the LNP is not interested ion needs based agendas.
What a contrast between this area and the ambient landscaping completed adjacent to the main City Cat terminal a few hundred metres down the track by the previous Labor Government. A former black spot has become an aesthetic delight.
When will our leaders arrange for some media interviews for eyewitness news programmes to highlight the littering and graffiti problems near the Oxley Monument site?
Tax evasion is a financial game within the capitalist rule book with support from President Trump. Our leaders add to the mix by buying more gadgets from the military industrial complexes of Britain and the US which will break the Australian economy in the decade ahead at the expense of social housing, public broadcasting, health and infrastructure. The LNP here can’t even clean up the litter when the homeless are moved on from Riverside Brisbane. They have gone to the opposite bank away from Police HQ.
Check which companies are on the shame list: In juxtaposition, corporate anti-social behaviour persists in the leadership offered by some multinational companies. SBS News (2 October 2025: See the full list: The biggest Australian companies paying the least tax).
The LNP have done nothing to fix this graffiti problems and its associated litter problems below the Oxley Monument: BCC Council and the state government rely on communication hype over substantial policy moves.