PJ Rochester

Australia Institute Live — Daily Updates Stay updated with the latest from The Australia Institute.

Parliament is back and so is the blog
live.australiainstitute.org.au/2025/10/parl...

#auspol

So, what are the chances that Australia is also on the hook due to similar “arbitration clauses” with say… Woodside… or other fossil fuel and mining corporations?

Any journos want to investigate this?

Australia's way of life is being destroyed right in front of us. That's not a warning, but a Labor promise

The catastrophic National Climate Risk Assessment isn't a warning — it's a promise of what Australia will look like under Labor's policies, @keanebernard.bsky.social writes.

The shuttering of Meanjin is a further reminder of how hard it is to find spaces for left-of-centre voices. Getting such stuff published was never easy & even in the era of new media there are enormous barriers. Solidarity is needed to stand against the endless attempts to muzzle progressive writing

Cover of the Album "Kentucky" by Panopticon. A forested mountain, rocky, at dawn or dusk. Superimposed is a transparent image of a man and young boy, who appear to be coal miners

And also, discovering Panopticon was amazing. *Kentucky* is an incredible album. Blackened Bluegrass, huh?

#Panopticon

Pete's Tidal top artists for August: Bonnie Prince Billy, Panopticon, Black Sabbath, Palace Music, Pixies

Slow month, not much listening time. But *quality*.

#BonniePrinceBilly #Panopticon #BlackSabbath #Pixies #Tidal

By all means, tread on those people We know you love freedom, we just wish you’d share.

doctorow.medium.com/https-plural...

#enshittification #fascism #conservatism

A magazine-style card for a Guardian Australia article titled "Bumper whale carving season a 'sign of hope' for South Australia's oceans"; the image is a while leaping from the ocean, with fins in the air. The fins look like ears and the mouth is in the right place to strongly resemble an alpaca.

Took me a moment . . . was absolutely sure I was looking at an alpaca . . .

#alpaca #whales #guardian #auspol

Every issue we face is a consequence of a highly flawed and corrupted decision making process - where this 👇 plays a major role.

More here #auspol > newsapp.abc.net.au/news/2025-08...

Bad news days for AI and everyone who slops it. 'If your incredible business idea – key word here, business – is to bake cakes for sale and then you complain that you have to pay for eggs and flour then I have some terrible news about your business idea and also quite possibly your soul and brain.'

Gripped by an 'Abundance fever' that makes us see only red Canberra is in the grip of Abundance fever, a virus that threatens to overwhelm public policy with a diagnosis of overregulation.

Haven't read it, but appears this *Abundance* thing is equivalent to tobacco industry dodgy research on the health benefits of cigarettes. That the legacy parties of the left are all over such obvious bollocks is . . . sigh

#auspol #abundance #shitfuckery

www.thenewdaily.com.au/opinion/2025...

Large pink orchid in center of book cover with text: How Flowers Made Our World. The story of nature's revolutionaries. David George Haskell

Coming in March 2026: Flowers! When flowers appeared, nothing was ever the same. They are the world’s great collaborators and creators. Writing this book transformed how I see life’s history and future. Cooperation, beauty, and illusion transform the world. Can't wait to share these stories

Caitlin says it well.

he’s biting the heads off angels now

So many of the "rusted ons" here (aka ALP social media) betray themselves by hammering the idea that the quality of a policy is determined by the vote it's proponent party got. Did not hear them sprout this rubbish during the LNP years.

Real people argue ideas. Party hacks see only numbers.

#auspol #STOPtheGenocide #FreePalestine

Our PBS may become a battlefront. Be prepared to defend it!
#auspol #measles #publichealth

When reporting Israel's attacks on Iran it's important journalists remember Israel is a genocidal state, whose armed forces in the past 2yrs have murdered tens of thousands of civilians, many of whom were children and babies.

So maybe not treat everything they say with total credulity

If the Americans come for the Australian PBS you’ll get riots. If you touch our Ventolin inhalers we’ll be out in the streets, well walking slowly and breathing shallowly anyway

There is neither merit nor consistency to any of our systems except for the rule that the rich and powerful will be rewarded no matter what. They can only fail upward.

The biggest problem with the ALP right now is it is led by someone who irrationally hates the Greens.

He doesn't really like to "fight Tories"; he loves to fight the party that reveals his actual lack of "left-wing" positions.

Someone needs to tell him to get over his uni politics crap.

*NB: The Nightmare Sequence is included in this photo of my five published books (with two international editions) purely for completion's sake. Purchasing the book does not directly support me as author royalties will be donated to Palestinian charities. Which is more important than supporting me.

Layne Staley and Jerry Cantrell by Michael Lavine (1993)

Just finished reading. This is very, very good. Also terrifying. But per all Lucy's work, absolutely compelling.

The Right's eugenics: Gaza, illegal deportations, breaking DEI, South African "refugees"... It's not an accident that so many injustices are being perpetrated against people coded as non-White. It's the result of decades of promotion of myths that one "race" is scientifically better.

Gaza & the Voice to Parliament and Waitangi & Salvadoran gulags & South African “refugees”. All enabled by the hard graft of a network of networks to make people believe in racial superiority and wHiTe gEnOcIdE. #Auspol #NZpol

open.substack.com/pub/lucyham2...

Again: Australian contributions to the F-35 jet program are valued at $5bn, and involve 75 Australian companies. Australia invests $1.7bn annually into the Israeli economy.

Words are not enough. We need sanctions and we need them now!

TIL: When the Original Star Wars Trilogy finally aired on Chilean TV in 2003, the network spliced custom beer commercials into the films themselves to avoid cutting to commercial breaks.

these additional scenes turn Obi-Wan & Luke into raging space alcoholics who are constantly shotgunning booze.

Even accepting the premise that AI produces useful writing (which no one should), using AI in education is like using a forklift at the gym. The weights do not actually need to be moved from place to place. That is not the work. The work is what happens within you.