I Expect Anyone Seeking to Be Prime Minister to Have a Basic Understanding of Foreign Affairs

I keep seeing people dismiss Pauline Hanson’s inability to name the leaders of Indonesia and Japan on the basis that “Albanese probably wouldn’t have known them before he became Prime Minister either”, that Hanson’s advisers and media staff would tell her what she needed to know, or,  astonishingly, that the election is two years away, so why does she even need to know now?

None of those arguments convinces me. The last one astounds me.

Firstly, Japan and Indonesia are not two random countries selected for a political trivia quiz. They are two of Australia’s most important strategic partners in the Indo-Pacific.

Indonesia is our largest immediate neighbour and a Comprehensive Strategic Partner. Japan is a Special Strategic Partner and one of our most important security, diplomatic and economic relationships. Any Australian politician presenting themselves as capable of national leadership should have a reasonable working knowledge of both.

I don’t expect Pauline Hanson or any politician to be able to name every world leader. I do think it is reasonable to expect someone aspiring to lead this country to know who leads Japan and Indonesia. Particularly when her inability to do so emerged during an interview about her foreign affairs credentials and her suitability to lead the country.

Some people have resorted to the usual whataboutism, pointing out that Albanese didn’t know the cash rate or the unemployment rate before the 2022 election.

That’s true. And we hammered him for it.

They then point out that he was elected anyway. Yes, he was, and look at the mess we’re in now. Frankly, that proves my point rather than theirs. That those making the argument apparently don’t recognise this is another issue altogether.

As for the claim that Albanese wouldn’t have known who led our major regional strategic partners before becoming PM, that is speculation presented as a defence. And when it comes to Indonesia, we have evidence to the contrary.

Albanese wasn’t suddenly plucked from obscurity when he became Prime Minister. He had been in federal parliament for 26 years, had served as a cabinet minister and Deputy Prime Minister, and had been Opposition Leader for three years. As Opposition Leader he was already engaging internationally. In fact, in August 2019 he chose Indonesia for his first overseas visit as Labor leader, specifically because of the importance he placed on the relationship.

Japan is slightly harder to demonstrate with the same direct evidence, but the proposition is still difficult to take seriously. Shinzo Abe had been one of the most prominent leaders in our region, and Fumio Kishida had been Japanese Prime Minister for around seven months before Albanese became PM. Australia-Japan relations, China, the Quad and Indo-Pacific security were hardly obscure subjects for an Australian Opposition Leader.

And then there’s the “her advisers would tell her” defence.

Of course they would. Every Prime Minister has advisers. Their job is to provide detailed briefings, intelligence, specialist expertise and advice.

But advisers supplement a leader’s knowledge; they shouldn’t substitute for it.

A leader still needs sufficient knowledge and understanding to interrogate the advice they receive, assess competing arguments, exercise judgment and ultimately make decisions. An adviser can whisper a name or hand over a briefing note. They cannot manufacture years of accumulated understanding of another country’s politics, strategic interests and relationship with Australia five minutes before a meeting.

And ultimately that is my point.

This isn’t about catching Pauline Hanson out because she couldn’t remember two names.

It’s about what level of knowledge we should reasonably expect from someone presenting herself and her party as capable of governing Australia.

If our standard has fallen to “don’t worry if the prospective Prime Minister doesn’t know who leads two of Australia’s most important strategic partners — somebody on the staff will tell her”, then I would suggest the bar has been set extraordinarily low.

And if we genuinely believe politicians only need to acquire that basic knowledge when an election rolls around, perhaps that extraordinarily low bar also goes some way towards explaining why we keep electing governments and then wondering how the country ended up in the mess it’s in.

WHEN ARE WE GOING TO FIX OUR ENERGY PROBLEMS RATHER THAN JUST MASK THEM?

Whilst I agree that we should be doing everything reasonably possible to protect Australian jobs and sovereign manufacturing capability, the joint federal and NSW government announcement of up to $2.5 billion in taxpayer support for the Tomago Aluminium smelter — Australia’s largest — to keep it operating through to at least 2039 raises some questions every taxpayer should be asking.

The first is: how many more businesses are taxpayers going to be put on the hook to support because Australia’s energy system can no longer provide internationally competitive electricity to major industrial users?

The second is: why should taxpayers be required to underwrite the commercial viability of a largely foreign-owned operation whose owners include some extremely large and well-capitalised multinational corporations?

Because at the heart of the Tomago problem is energy.

Aluminium smelting is extraordinarily energy-intensive. Tomago requires around 950 MW of constant power, approximately 12% of NSW electricity demand, making it Australia’s largest electricity load.

Its existing electricity contract expires at the end of 2028 and Tomago warned last year that the replacement energy proposals it had received were simply not commercially viable.

That should be setting off alarm bells.

Yes, there is an important argument for keeping Tomago operating. It employs around 1,000 people directly, hundreds more contractors, supports thousands of indirect jobs and produces almost 40% of Australia’s primary aluminium.

And yes, the owners are also putting money on the table. They have committed at least $1.1 billion to the facility, including $100 million towards decarbonisation.

But taxpayers are potentially committing $2.5 billion, more than twice the owners’ required investment.

And that disparity becomes even more striking when you look at the financial capacity of the owners.

Rio Tinto alone, which owns 51.55% of Tomago, reported underlying earnings of US$6.8 billion in 2025, roughly A$10 billion.

So who ultimately owns and benefits from keeping this privately owned asset commercially viable?

Rio Tinto — 51.55%

Rio Tinto is one of the world’s largest mining and resources companies. It is publicly traded through its dual-listed structure and owned by institutional and private shareholders around the world.

Its largest single shareholder is Chinalco, the Chinese state-owned aluminium corporation, which holds a substantial stake in Rio Tinto.

Gove Aluminium Finance — 36.05%

This interest is more complicated. Gove Aluminium Finance is an incorporated joint venture between CSR and AMP Life. CSR historically owns 70% of GAF and AMP Life 30%.

CSR itself was acquired in 2024 by Saint-Gobain, the giant French multinational.

So a substantial portion of this Tomago interest ultimately sits within another foreign multinational corporate group.

Norsk Hydro — 12.4%

Norsk Hydro is one of the world’s largest aluminium and renewable-energy companies and is listed in Norway.

Its largest shareholder is the Norwegian Government, which directly owns approximately 34% of the company.

So Australian taxpayers are potentially committing $2.5 billion to ensure the continued commercial viability of an operation owned principally by multinational corporations — including companies in which foreign governments themselves have substantial interests.

That doesn’t necessarily mean the government should have allowed Tomago to close. The economic, employment and sovereign-capability consequences of losing Australia’s largest aluminium smelter could be enormous.

But it does mean taxpayers are entitled to ask why they are being required to shoulder substantially more of the financial burden than the multinational corporations that actually own the asset.

And it raises an even bigger question:

Why has electricity become so expensive and uncertain that one of Australia’s most important industrial facilities cannot secure commercially viable power without billions of dollars of government intervention?

Tomago isn’t the only Australian business struggling with energy costs. And governments cannot keep writing multibillion-dollar cheques every time an energy-intensive business becomes commercially unviable.

Saving one smelter may protect thousands of jobs.

Fixing the structural problems in Australia’s energy system could protect Australian industry itself.

𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩 𝐌𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐬 𝐀𝐜𝐜𝐞𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐒𝐜𝐫𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐲

“Strong leaders don’t measure themselves by how little criticism they receive. They measure themselves by how well they withstand it. Politics isn’t for those seeking comfort or protection from scrutiny. It’s for those prepared to defend their ideas, answer difficult questions and let the public judge.”

It’s against that standard that I increasingly find myself questioning Pauline Hanson.

Based on her reactions, comments and approach to media scrutiny, I’m starting to think Pauline Hanson has something of a glass jaw. She demands accountability from governments, political opponents and the media, yet appears far less comfortable when the scrutiny is directed at her.

That’s politics.

Applying these democratic principles directly to Pauline Hanson and One Nation illustrates why restricting interrogative media poses a risk to effective self-government. Across her political career, Hanson has maintained a tense relationship with news outlets that challenge her policies, frequently barring specific reporters—including journalists from the ABC, The Guardian Australia and Nine newspapers—from party briefings, while also advocating the abolition of SBS and significant cuts to the ABC.

This is not an isolated incident or an emotional response to a single unfavourable story. It reflects a pattern extending over many years. In 2017, ABC journalists were excluded from One Nation’s Western Australian election headquarters while other media organisations were admitted. During the 2026 Farrer by-election campaign, ABC journalists were again denied access to a One Nation media event. Most recently, journalists from the ABC, The Guardian Australia and The Age were barred from a Melbourne press conference announcing One Nation’s Victorian candidates because the party considered their reporting biased.

Many Australians support reducing or even abolishing taxpayer funding for the ABC and SBS. Their concerns are not without foundation. Critics argue that political reporting and current affairs programming can, at times, reflect institutional bias or blur the distinction between objective journalism and opinion. Others point to governance, editorial decisions and questions of value for money.

I have some sympathy for those arguments. However, I also recognise that both organisations produce a great deal of high-quality content beyond political commentary. Their emergency broadcasting, regional reporting, educational programming, arts, science, documentaries and cultural coverage provide services that commercial media often cannot or will not deliver. Like every media organisation, they produce some outstanding journalism and some reporting that deserves robust criticism.

The broader issue is not whether public broadcasters should exist or how they should be funded. That is a legitimate policy debate. Nor is it whether journalists should be immune from criticism—they should not be. The real question is whether any government or political leader should decide which journalists are permitted to ask questions simply because they dislike the outlet they represent.

That principle cuts both ways. Many conservative voters believe the ABC and SBS exhibit political bias. Many progressive voters believe commercial outlets such as Sky News Australia, News Corp or Nine display bias in the opposite direction. Bias, whether real or perceived, is not resolved by excluding journalists from the democratic process. It is resolved through greater transparency, editorial accountability, competition between ideas and allowing the public to weigh competing narratives for themselves.

Taxpayers fund public broadcasters regardless of how they vote. No section of the community has a greater claim over those institutions than another. Likewise, no political leader should expect only sympathetic questioning or favourable coverage. In a healthy democracy, governments are accountable to all Australians, and journalists—whether from the ABC, SBS, The Guardian, Nine, News Corp or any other legitimate outlet—should be free to ask difficult questions. Those questions can be challenged, corrected or rebutted, but they should never be silenced.

If a political leader with this mindset were to form government, the democratic consequences could emerge in three important ways.

First, excluding or blacklisting critical outlets creates a chilling effect throughout the media landscape. When journalists see colleagues denied access for asking difficult questions, newsrooms may begin to self-censor to protect their access to government briefings. The inevitable result is softer reporting and fewer decisions subjected to rigorous public scrutiny.

Second, allowing governments to choose which media organisations may question them undermines public confidence in democratic transparency. When access depends on favourable coverage rather than equal treatment, citizens have greater reason to question whether they are receiving objective information or carefully managed political messaging.

Third, shutting out investigative journalists fragments the electorate. As Australians retreat into separate information silos, voters are deprived of the broad range of facts and competing perspectives needed to make informed democratic choices and hold governments accountable at the ballot box.

This isn’t about agreeing with journalists or defending every story they publish. Newspapers, broadcasters and commentators get things wrong. They have biases. They make mistakes. They often blur the line between reporting and opinion. They should be challenged when they do. But challenging journalism is fundamentally different from deciding which journalists are allowed to ask questions in the first place.

Every political leader faces criticism, hostile questioning and unfavourable reporting. Tony Abbott endured years of relentless attacks over everything from policy to personality. Scott Morrison was subjected to sustained criticism throughout the pandemic and beyond, with his handling of events such as the Black Summer bushfires and the COVID-19 pandemic attracting intense and often highly personal commentary. Peter Dutton has likewise been the subject of consistently hostile coverage from parts of the media, with criticism frequently extending beyond policy into character and personality.

Reasonable people can disagree about whether every headline, editorial or television segment was fair. That isn’t the point. The point is that none of those leaders attempted to solve the problem by deciding which journalists were entitled to ask questions. They answered them, disputed them, criticised them and, at times, simply endured them.

Whether media coverage is fair is almost beside the point. Political leadership has never come with a guarantee of favourable headlines. Sometimes reporting is accurate. Sometimes it is opinion dressed up as analysis. Sometimes it is simply wrong. Every leader has to live with that reality.

I would make exactly the same argument if Anthony Albanese, Peter Dutton or Adam Bandt began excluding journalists because they disliked the questions being asked. Democracy isn’t protected by friendly interviews. It is protected by allowing difficult questions to be asked—especially of those who hold power.

The answer to journalism you disagree with is better journalism, corrections where necessary, and robust public debate—not deciding which journalists are entitled to ask questions.

If you’re prepared to scrutinise everyone else, you should be equally prepared to accept scrutiny yourself. That’s not persecution; it’s accountability.

A politician’s true character isn’t revealed by how loudly they criticise others. It’s revealed by how they respond when the criticism comes back at them.

 

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐌𝐲𝐨𝐩𝐢𝐜 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐟 𝐕𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬

“The weakness of the party has turned many like me away, and the years when they had the opportunity to do something are lost and behind us. The only way back is a deep cleaning cycle, and this will be painful.”

Well, the “deep cleaning cycle” began in 2022 and continued in 2025. The result? Australia is in a mess.

And “painful” doesn’t even begin to describe it.

It’s far more than painful for the more than 45,000 businesses that have entered administration or closed their doors. It’s more than painful for families struggling to keep a roof over their heads, food on the table and the lights on. It’s more than painful for those sleeping in cars, living on the streets or relying on overstretched food banks simply to survive. And it’s far more than painful for Australians trying to get ahead while facing an ever-increasing tax burden under the Labor government.

This is the price of voting to “teach the Liberals and Nationals a lesson”. Australia is now into its second term of a Labor government that, in my view, is systematically undermining the nation’s economic strength and prosperity. Yet sentiments like the quote above suggest some people are prepared to do it all over again. That is madness.

The lesson people think they are teaching political parties is, in reality, a punishment borne by the Australian people. And Australians have suffered. Worse still, Labor’s agenda is far from complete.

When voters become so consumed by their own grievances and narrow self-interests that they lose sight of the broader consequences of their vote, the entire nation pays the price. Governments change, policies change and economies change, but the damage inflicted on businesses, families and communities can take years—sometimes decades—to repair.

No political party is perfect. Every party deserves scrutiny and criticism. But voting out of spite, or to punish one side without properly considering the alternative, is a luxury a country can ill afford.

Yes, I am angry. Not because people voted differently to me, but because so many seemed more interested in “teaching a lesson” than in considering the long-term consequences for Australia. Political frustration is understandable. Political myopia is far more costly.

𝐖𝐞 𝐍𝐞𝐞𝐝 𝐌𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐏𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐖𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐓𝐨 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐃𝐨𝐭𝐬 𝐑𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐒𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐲 𝐀𝐫𝐠𝐮𝐞 𝐎𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐦

“Our talent for division, for seeing the parts, is of staggering importance – second only to our capacity to transcend it, in order to see the whole.” — Iain McGilchrist

Iain McGilchrist is highlighting the fundamental tension between how our brains attend to reality. One mode of thinking analyses, categorises and breaks things down into parts, while another integrates those details to perceive the unified, living whole.

We need both. Our talent for division—the rational, focused and detail-oriented mode of thinking—is what allows us to solve problems, build tools and function effectively in our daily lives. But if we remain trapped in that analytical mindset alone, we risk losing context and meaning.

Once we’ve analysed the “parts”, we need to step back and see the bigger picture. We need to ask the what, why, how, when, where and at what cost? We need to understand the relationships, dependencies, trade-offs and unintended consequences. That is how we move beyond analysis towards a more holistic search for truth.

McGilchrist argues that losing this holistic perspective is one reason modern society often feels disconnected or chaotic.

Have we become so skilled at arguing over the parts that we’ve lost the ability to see the whole?

Increasingly, I think the answer is yes.

Political exchanges over recent months have reinforced something I’ve been thinking about for some time. Debate increasingly revolves around isolated facts, individual grievances and ideological talking points, while the wider context is ignored. People defend one part of the picture without asking how it fits into the whole.

Perhaps that helps explain the fracturing of political reason and public debate. The critical path is often missing. We increasingly make political demands without seriously examining the likely consequences, the trade-offs involved, the dependencies that determine success, or whether the proposed solutions have any realistic prospect of achieving their stated objective.

Good public policy requires both rigorous analysis and thoughtful synthesis. One without the other produces either ideology or technocracy. Neither produces wisdom.

The absence of that only reinforces my belief that we need more people willing to connect the dots rather than simply argue over them.