Dr Oleksandra Molloy is not a soldier. But war has defined her work, reshaped her life, and heightened her fears for the West.

A native of Kyiv, now based at the University of New South Wales, Molloy’s research has focused on aviation, emerging technologies, and the changing face of modern warfare. Her early work was on developing the skills of pilots.

“I’ve been interested in aviation for a long time from different perspectives,” she told Powerlines.

That fascination led her to drones. And nowhere has the war-fighting edge of that technology moved faster than in her birthplace, Ukraine. She has seen firsthand how large and small uncrewed systems are changing the nature of war.

“The battlefield is monitored 24/7. It’s very hard to hide anywhere.”

In Russia’s war on Ukraine, drone combat is constantly evolving and has shifted from large platforms to smaller, more agile ones.

“We are no longer talking about the payload of 200 kilograms, but we are talking about a small, cheap, expendable drone that may be delivering a precise strike. Any large systems, including these big and sophisticated ones, have become obsolete, because anything that is moving 100 kilometers away can be easily detected and destroyed.”

Drones have moved from the skies to the land.

“Uncrewed ground vehicles have been one of those important assets at the front line. Why? Particularly for logistics purpose, but also for saving wounded soldiers from the front line and also for mining and demining.”

At sea, Ukrainian systems have taken a heavy toll on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. And on June 1, Ukraine launched “Operation Spider’s Web,” using 117 drones smuggled into Russia to strike multiple airbases, destroying or damaging over 40 aircraft—including bombers and surveillance planes—in one of the war’s most audacious attacks. The operation, which inflicted an estimated $7 billion in damage, marked a new level of sophistication in Ukraine’s asymmetric drone warfare.

“They have become a relatively cheap option for destroying multi-million and multi-billion dollar assets.”

European nations are paying close attention to the war on their doorstep and are stepping up their spending on uncrewed systems.

“Now there is a sense of urgency on how to develop the systems at scale. How to find the right capabilities, how to keep up with the Ukrainian forces in their development, and also how can we learn and gain that experience so we are able to protect ourselves.”

But there is little evidence the Australian Defence Force has got the memo.

“We don't often hear about the experience of the ADF Ukraine. We just need to keep up and see what actually matters on the battlefield.”

Molloy says there is much to learn, but Australia must also consider the kind of theatre in which it will be operating.

“Context matters. And understand how these systems could be integrated within our geographical location, within our capabilities and providing that additional support to legacy systems. We are surrounded by water, so obviously naval drone capabilities are very important. There has to be a balance between large and powerful systems and small and expendable ones. And most importantly, we need to invest into electronic warfare and counter drone capabilities to be able to defend our assets, our people, and our country. We need to develop the systems indigenously in Australia and spend the effort to develop that manufacturing base.”

Right now, Australia is in a grey zone where the threat from China is driving a step-up in military spending but it lacks any sense of urgency. We should not waste that most precious of gifts.

“The difference between Australia and Ukraine is we have time. We have time, we have resources, we have many talented people who actually are doing the work in this space and we need to really think how to leverage those resources.”

China is not wasting time. Molloy says it is not just supplying drones and watching what is happening from the Russian trenches.

“I think some of their instructors are actually participating in some operations, in Kursk and so forth, together with North Korean. There are orders by 2027 or 2026 to develop millions of those drones. And I think we need to watch what our potential adversaries are doing. And they are investing in these systems. They are also getting the real world experience from the battlefield. And I think that's a little bit scary.”

Australia’s isolation has fed complacency, but a more dangerous world is on our doorstep and we need to rise to meet the times.

“There is no longer peace mentality, and we really need to be concerned and prepare now to defend ourselves.”

Canberra warns that our region faces the gravest military threat since World War II. But defence spending suggests it doesn’t believe it.

Peter Jennings, director of Strategic Analysis Australia, told Powerlines the gap between words and actions is unsustainable.

“To use an old Trotskyism… we may not be interested in a war, but war may well be interested in us.”

In an interview conducted before Israel attacked Iran, Jennings argues the West is facing an historic challenge from a coalition of tyrannies.

“The big story of our generation is the rise of China, now with the grouping of authoritarian powers around it—Russia, North Korea, Iran... All of them presenting a threat to the global order.”

He’s scathing about Australia’s strategic complacency.

“There seems to be a complete disconnect between that judgment, which everyone in Canberra shares, and what do you do about it? Because successive governments have simply failed to lift the level of investment in defence.”

Jennings traces the shift in urgency among Australia’s defence planners to the Morrison government’s 2020 strategic update, which concluded that we no longer had 10 years to prepare for conflict. Labor’s subsequent strategic reviews backed that assessment, but five years on, defence spending has barely budged.

“Successive Australian governments, really since the end of the last Cold War, have desperately wanted to see security delivered on the cheap... we spend something like two percent of gross domestic product on defence and have done for 30 years.”

The Albanese Government talks a good game on defence spending, but most of the planned increases are incremental. Meanwhile, China’s military transformation has been radical.

“China has moved from... being a vast land-based organisation which was primarily about creating internal stability inside China... into being a very high technology, tri-service military... with the ability to project military power at great distances.”

The People’s Liberation Army now boasts “long-range missiles, ships and aircraft with significant reach,” and is “significantly expanding their nuclear weapons holdings.”

China is flexing its muscles. It has established foreign bases, claimed much of the South China Sea, and is routinely confronting foreign navies, including Australia’s.

“Now every time an Australian ship sails through that region... it's going to come under severe pressure to get out of Chinese waters.”

He’s also critical of how Australia has reacted to provocations. When Chinese warships circumnavigated the Australian continent, “the most embarrassing thing of all... was that our Prime Minister, our Foreign Minister and our Defence Minister all came out and defended China in terms of what it was doing.”

The gap between Australia’s rhetoric and reality is fuelling American frustration. US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth recently told Defence Minister Richard Marles that Australia should lift its defence spending from two to 3.5 per cent of Gross Domestic Product.

“It couldn’t have been more blunt. And I think more of that’s coming.”

Yet, Jennings says the Albanese government has doubled down on long-term capabilities at the expense of readiness today.

“In order to pay for that fantasy force of the 2040s... they’ve cut a whole range of capabilities out of the current Australian Defence Force.”

He gives example after example: early retirement of Navy ships, axed upgrades, cancelled support vessels, reduced missile programs, a gutted armoured vehicle project—and helicopters “broken up, sold some bits for spare parts and buried the rest.”

“Our 2025 force... would not be able to mount the sort of stabilisation role we played in East Timor in 1999.”

So what happens if a war breaks out over Taiwan?

“If China attacks Taiwan, I can tell you this—we won’t be exporting iron ore and coal to China during that period... Most global shipping will have stopped... We’ll be on rationing the minute there’s a blockade around Taiwan.”

That’s because most of Australia’s fuel is shipped through the South China Sea and our reserves are pitiful.

“We’ve got about, at best, a fortnight, maybe three weeks’ worth of petrol supply.”

Beyond hardware, Jennings points to deeper vulnerabilities—cyber warfare and political cowardice.

“There’s a lot of Australian critical infrastructure which is now vulnerable to sabotage... hostile forces planting malware.” He warns that “cyber attacks against critical infrastructure will be the first stage of any military campaign.”

So what must be done?

“We need sort of an emergency, all-out effort to make the existing defence forces current and capable, as operationally ready to go as we can make them in the next six to 12 months.”

That includes lifting spending and rearming the defence industry. Jennings notes that Australian firms are “really struggling... because they can’t get contracts out of the Defence Department.”

Finally, he returns to the core political failure: spin over substance.

“We’ve now got a government which is incapable of talking to the Australian people about the strategic threats that we face. And on that basis, why would anyone want to increase defence spending if you can’t actually explain what the threat might be?”

If Australia’s strategic position is as perilous as our leaders say it is, Jennings has a blunt response:

“It’s never too late to start on making your own defence capability stronger. Every day is a good day to start the pushback.”

Link to Strategic Analysis Australia here.

Joe Hockey says it is time for governments to get out of the way of energy producers to allow industry to drive Australian productivity and help keep the nation wealthy.

Speaking at the Australian Energy Producers conference in Brisbane, the former Treasurer and Ambassador to the United States said the country is drowning in regulation.

“The cry of energy producers in Australia should be certainty. Give us certainty and stability and we can do the job. We can give Australians cheaper energy. We can give people of the world greater opportunity to consume our product. We can make Australia richer.”

In his current role as principal of the consultancy group, Bondi Partners, Hockey has a ringside seat on the brutal global geopolitics now shaping energy policy. He is crystal clear about the stakes for Australia.

“We are a major global exporter of energy. And we’ve got to keep facilitating that. It’s not just in our interest to export energy. It is in the interest of our region, the fastest growing region in the world. And if we do not continue to supply energy to our region and to the rest of the world, at our capacity, then it comes back on us in the form of global conflict. So we have a duty to continue to grow the oil and gas industry in Australia, to grow it for global consumption.”

Yet, while we have plenty of energy, Australian industry and consumers are being crushed by domestic failures. Hockey lays the blame squarely on both major parties.

“For a single parent in a one-bedroom apartment in Sydney and facing a 10 percent increase in their electricity bills, there’s just something wrong about it, and it’s unfair. And so we need to get domestic policy right. It’s self-reflection on politics in Australia when we’re talking about energy shortages, particularly in New South Wales and Victoria, particularly over the next couple of years. That is a complete policy failure.”

Meanwhile, the rest of the world, and above all the United States, is on the move. President Donald Trump wants an energy dominant America.

“The starting point is every business that has exposure to a global market must have an understanding of what’s happening in Washington, D.C. I think there is such a strong link now between government and capital markets that you can’t be divorced from what’s happening in the United States. Because, as we see with volatility in capital markets or even volatility in the share market, so much of it comes down to geopolitical decisions and decisions made in Washington. I don’t think that’s going to change. I think we are going to continue to go through a very volatile period.”

Trump’s view of power is simple and transactional. He is not bound by process, nor by the usual constraints of diplomacy or institutional tradition. Outcomes are what matter. He enjoys being a disruptor.

“Whatever the end is, he’ll justify the means.”

He sees global and domestic politics as inseparable, and at the heart of both is energy and what Americans pay for it.

“When Donald Trump talks about increasing energy supply in the United States, he’s focused on meeting demand. The massive demand associated with Artificial Intelligence infrastructure, which represents the most significant challenge to the world in our lifetimes, is the growth, the rapid growth of AI and what that’s going to mean for ourselves and our children.”

Australia should beware of going out on a limb. While we chase ever more ambitious emissions targets, the rest of the world is pivoting hard toward cheap, abundant energy.

“Front of mind is affordability of life for everyday citizens. Cost of living is the number one issue. Wherever I go, it is the number one issue.”

And the cost of government is now unsustainable. Feckless Western governments have been spending too much, are running out of money, and are resorting to bad policy to plug the gaps by taxing more and regulating more, rather than doing the hard work of driving productivity and growth.

“We need to get back to some basic principles that if you have less regulation, if you have less onerous taxes and less tax, then you are more likely to grow your economy and, importantly, be able to meet the needs of everyday citizens on a more regular basis.”

Do not expect Trump to follow this advice. Hockey says the great big bill the President is driving will send US government spending soaring and push the deficit higher in the years ahead.

“He doesn’t care about that deficit. Let’s be honest about it. He hasn’t throughout his career. He is focused on creating wealth, on generating wealth, rather than focusing on how to get there. And that’s so much a story of Donald Trump, which people do not understand. Focus on his outcomes rather than his process.”

But the margins for error are narrow.

I think it’s entirely feasible that the United States does go into recession, which can have a material impact right around the world.”

Hockey sees the world as an increasingly dangerous place. And centre stage is the fraught relationship between Trump and China’s President Xi Jinping. On that front, Hockey is more optimistic.

“Well, they both need each other. That’s the point. And they both know that they need each other. They’re also fully aware that their economies are intertwined. You cannot decouple China from the United States. In fact, in the last readout of data, China increased exports to the United States. And I think it will resolve itself, you know, the tariff issue between the US and China will resolve itself.”

Australia’s competitive edge has long been its vast natural resources and access to cheap, abundant energy. But Samantha McCulloch, Chief Executive of Australian Energy Producers, says we risk squandering that advantage.

In a wide-ranging Powerlines conversation, McCulloch offers a clear-eyed assessment of the current paradox: this nation depends on gas for export dollars and to keep the lights on, but government actions have made it harder to produce.

“Gas is obviously really critical, in particular to our energy mix in Australia. It's almost more than a quarter of our primary energy needs. We rely on it every day—for electricity, for heating and cooking in our homes, for manufacturing. There are so many products we can't make without gas. So it's really integral to our economy and our way of life.”

With a career spanning both international and domestic agencies—from the International Energy Agency to the Australian Coal Association—McCulloch has witnessed the global energy debate evolve. Her message is grounded in experience and pragmatism: Australia is a resource superpower, and we should be proud of that.

“Liquefied natural gas is our third-largest export. It’s an industry that contributes around $100 billion a year to the Australian economy and supports 215,000 jobs across the country.”

That success is due in part to natural advantage, and partly to Australia’s reputation as a reliable supplier. Western Australia and Queensland leveraged both to build a multibillion-dollar export industry—one that delivers mutual benefits.

“We’ve had $400 billion of investment in our export industry in the last decade or so. That scale of investment wouldn’t occur without access to large international markets. And our LNG exports literally keep the lights on in cities like Tokyo and Seoul. So any threat of interruption to those exports is existential for their economies.”

LNG exports came under fire as domestic prices spiked in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In NSW and Victoria, supply was in steep decline due to years of exploration bans. Calls to reserve Queensland gas for domestic use and heavy-handed federal interference shook international confidence.

“The interventions we've seen, and some of the messaging from governments and other groups, have really caused concern for our trading partners. Increasingly, we’re seeing them look to diversify—signing long-term contracts with Qatar and the US—to ensure they have the supply that’s critical for their economies.”

The shortages in NSW and Victoria are entirely the result of political decisions. Victoria had a moratorium on all onshore gas exploration and permanently banned fracking and coal seam gas. In NSW, Santos has been trying to develop the Narrabri gas project for over a decade.

Both states and the federal government now acknowledge that the weather-dependent grid they are building won’t function without gas to support it. The Australian Energy Market Operator’s plan for the National Electricity Market requires 15 gigawatts of gas capacity to act as the backbone of the system to 2050 and beyond, enough to power 15 million homes.

“Fifteen gigawatts is a big number. It's actually equivalent to almost all of the installed wind capacity we have in Australia today. It’s a lot of gas. And when you look at the AEMO system plan, it calls for a 170 percent increase in gas use in the 2040s compared to today.”

While the federal government and southern states now back more supply, the change of heart has come too late to avoid near-term shortfalls. Astonishingly, both NSW and Victoria are now building LNG import terminals.

“Australia is a gas-rich nation. It’s an absolute head-scratcher to think that we’re looking at import terminals to bring gas into Victoria and New South Wales when we have so much of it under our feet. We should be developing that, not importing it.”

Meanwhile, competition for export markets is heating up. The United States—freed under Donald Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” directive—has overtaken Australia as the world’s largest LNG exporter and is aggressively expanding.

“They are unapologetically investing in their resources. They want to supply LNG to the world. So Australia really needs to ensure it's able to compete in those new markets.”

Whether Australia remains competitive depends on the decisions made now. The governments in WA and Queensland understand where their prosperity comes from and intend to protect it. But in NSW and Victoria, years of poor policy mean there are no quick fixes.

“The situation's got to a point where there's probably not one solution that will solve this challenge. We need investment in supply, in infrastructure to move gas around, and in storage so we can draw on it during peak periods. And we need to fix the approval system to get projects moving—so we have the gas supply when it’s needed.”

Note: This interview was recorded before the decision to extend the operating life of the North West Shelf gas processing plant in Karratha, Western Australia, beyond the expiry of its current approval in 2030.

From a ringside seat in Australian government departments, David Pearl watched the nation lurch from rational economic policymaking into what he calls “a moral panic.”

Pearl’s experience is broad: he is a former senior Treasury official, economic adviser to a future Labor Prime Minister, and a diplomat posted to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) at the dawn of global climate talks.

In different roles, he saw governments wrestle with some of the greatest challenges of our time: the global financial crisis, COVID-19, and climate change. He learned that good intentions don’t always lead to good outcomes, that government can do as much harm as good, and that consensus can be a dangerous thing.

Climate policy, he argues, has replaced religious faith. And those who dissent — even mildly — are cast as apostates.

His message is deeply unfashionable in Canberra: Net Zero is failing, global coordination is a fantasy, and climate policy has reversed the moral order, “under the guise of morality.”

“It’s beyond ironic that the modern-day climate policy agenda amounts to a massive transfer from the poor to the rich.”

Australia’s early position in international climate negotiations, Pearl explains, was pragmatic. Because of our growing population and resource-intensive economy, we secured the right to increase emissions by 12 percent under the Kyoto Protocol.

That pragmatism evaporated after the landmark 2006 report for the UK government penned by economist Nicholas Stern. It argued that the economic costs of inaction on climate change would far exceed the costs of taking early and aggressive action to reduce emissions. Pearl recalls the moment well:

“It triggered a bizarre moral panic across the Western world where climate change ceased to be seen as an economic issue… and became a moral crusade.”

Though the economics of the Stern Review were sharply criticised — most notably by Nobel Laureate William Nordhaus — its political effect was profound.

Pearl even admits to writing the first line in the Labor Government’s incoming brief that climate change was “perhaps the most significant economic and political challenge of our time” — a flourish he added to attract attention. New Prime Minister Kevin Rudd seized on it, added the word “moral,” and made it central to his public platform.

“It may have been the reason he ultimately fell.”

Today, Pearl says, Net Zero is unattainable without enforceable global commitments — which do not exist. The United States, China, India, and Russia have no intention of hitting the target.

“Absent that international regime, the only rational response is adaptation. We’re doing entirely the wrong thing, that will have absolutely no effect on the problem.”

He draws a damning historical parallel: Net Zero is modern-day temperance. Like Prohibition, it’s driven by zealotry, cloaks public policy in moral absolutes, and fuels hypocrisy and corruption. And it was futile.

“Everybody kept drinking. Everybody’s going to keep generating emissions.”

Worse, he says, Net Zero is not merely ineffective — it has become an industry. A class of green grifters now profits from policies that don’t achieve their stated goals.

Pearl sees parallels with the indulgence economy of the medieval Catholic Church. Offsets and emissions-neutral labels are bought like spiritual pardons. Being seen to be involved in “climate action” becomes an end in itself.

“It’s the indulgence that matters, not the climate outcome.”

As a career public servant, he’s scathing about how policy advice has been captured by ideology. He describes how Treasury — once a ‘debating society’ — has become an orthodoxy factory. Those who worked on climate programs a decade ago have been rewarded for their faith.

“We have people in very senior positions in our bureaucracy who are passionate climate zealots and completely incapable of applying a rational cost-benefit lens.”

Pearl sees the same pattern across the major crises he’s worked on — from the financial crisis to COVID: government positioning itself as the cure for all ills. The greatest danger in the bureaucracy, he warns, is rewarding people for thinking like everyone else.

We tend to think of conflict between states as something that arrives with a bang: bombs falling, missiles fired, ships sinking, or borders breached. Today, it might come as a whisper in the wires: our power flickering out, our water supply cut, our communications down.

Katherine Mansted fears we are not ready for that kind of fight.

Mansted is executive director of Cyber Intelligence at CyberCX, Australia and New Zealand’s largest cybersecurity firm, and a senior fellow at the Australian National University’s National Security College. She has spent years tracing the blurred line between espionage, cybercrime, and information warfare—watching authoritarian regimes and criminals exploit every online weakness. Her assessment is clear: the battlefield has shifted.

“In my view, any future war will start with surprise cyber sabotage before we even know we're on a war footing.”

And it will be fought in all domains.

“No matter how many boats we have or how many missiles we have, if they're not cyber worthy, if they're not cyber resilient, we won't be in a fight. And we won't be able to mobilize and get to the fight if our logistics are crippled and our social cohesion is upended.”

Grey zone conflict is already raging, with adversaries targeting anyone connected to the internet.

“It is a constant fight. It's a constant cat and mouse game between attacker and defender. And sometimes those attackers are criminals. Often they're organized crime groups. They're sometimes ideologically motivated bad guys. Sometimes it's nation states as well.”

Four nation-state adversaries are well known: China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. But each has a different profile, a different motivation. Russia, for example, excels in disinformation.

“You put out the fire hose of falsehood, where you put out so many different views that the public becomes bewildered, or you pick up a couple of new polarizing views and you amp them up so the public turns on itself. They mess with the very DNA, the very lifeblood of that information ecosystem in a way that’s so hard to pick apart.”

China’s cyber ambitions are broader. Once focused mainly on economic espionage—“the greatest wealth transfer in history”—Beijing has evolved. It now uses cyber tools to monitor diaspora communities, track dissidents, and gain persistent access to critical systems. This isn’t just about spying. It’s about coercion and sabotage.

The United States has already gone public on Vault Typhoon—a Chinese state-linked cyber operation that’s been quietly embedding itself in American infrastructure.

“Vault Typhoon’s not doing your ye olde espionage. It’s breaking into systems and hiding there, sometimes for five years or more, to maintain access, to be able to sabotage that infrastructure if it wants to, if the Chinese government demands in future.”

It’s not just in the U.S. We’d be “nuts,” Mansted says, to think China isn’t doing the same things here.

What makes the cyber threat uniquely difficult is its ambiguity. You can’t always see the adversary. You may not know whether an outage is a failure or an attack. And because critical infrastructure in Australia is mostly privately owned, securing it is more complex and demands a high level of awareness and resilience across the community.

Hostile nation-states have also enlisted criminal partners and weaponised cybercrime. Many of these operations run out of Russia or former Soviet states. The lines between criminals and governments are vanishing.

“It’s that revolving door between Russian intelligence, the criminal underworld.”

Then there’s the compounding challenge of artificial intelligence. AI isn’t just making things faster—it’s making them cheaper, more scalable, and harder to trace. Mansted’s team at CyberCX recently discovered 8,000 disinformation accounts on X (formerly Twitter) linked to China, likely run by robots.

“That network was controlled end-to-end by a large language model based AI system. One person had probably programmed that system. He was using just pretty low-cost, a low-cost server running on consumer-grade hardware.”

You no longer need a troll farm. You just need one motivated person and a laptop.

What should governments do? It starts with honesty and clarity. Mansted objects to naming foreign hacking groups things like “Vault Typhoon” or “Fancy Bear.”

“I’d prefer us to call things what they are—in this sense, Chinese government.”

If the Australian public is to take threats seriously, they need to know where they’re coming from. And yet, our politicians and officials still balk at naming China.

“So I think we need an even more transparent and open conversation with the public. I don't want to see the C-word diminish from use in Canberra. I want us being open about who the bad guys are and what their objectives are.”

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Jennifer Parker’s assessment of Australia’s strategic vulnerability is brutally simple: to defeat us, you don’t need to set foot on our soil; just cut our sea-based supply lines.

Parker speaks from the experience of a naval officer who served in the South China Sea, the Middle East, the Caribbean, and at the heart of maritime operations.

In a wide-ranging interview for Power Lines, Parker offered a blunt assessment of Australia’s maritime readiness in a world where the chance of war is rising.

“Do people understand that Australia is an island nation? That it’s the fifth-largest user of international shipping? We’re wholly dependent on imports and exports. Ninety-nine percent of our international trade passes through the maritime domain. We import 91 percent of our fuel.”

The idea that Australia could be isolated into submission is not new. But Parker is a powerful voice warning just how little we’ve done to prepare for it.

When China’s navy recently circumnavigated Australia and conducted live-fire exercises off our coast—the first such act by a non-ally since World War II—Australia’s Navy couldn’t keep up because our supply ships were in dry dock. Even if they were seaworthy, it’s not enough.

“The Australian Navy currently has two auxuliary replenishment vessels. To refuel, provide fuel and amunition to keep ships at sea longer, so they don’t need to go into a port. What that means is you will not have a tanker available 365 days a year.”

The gaps go further. Mine warfare capability is outdated. Maritime patrols are stretched. And Australia has just 15 Australian-flagged merchant vessels—none large enough to carry much cargo.

“In World War II, we requisitioned local ships to move fuel and supplies. We couldn’t do that now.”

The 2020 Defence Strategic Update removed the assumption that Australia would have ten years of warning before a major conflict. But that urgent message met a complacent response.

“We're five years in now. And we’ve barely progressed on most of the priorities the 2020 structure plan identified.”

Part of the problem, Parker believes, is Australia’s comfortable isolation.

“I don’t think Australians can truly contemplate what conflict in our region looks like. We still imagine it as something that happens far away, something we choose to join or not.”

That complacency also extends to our political leaders, who are not acting with the urgency the circumstances demand.

“I don’t think you can genuinely believe that we’re facing the most serious strategic circumstances since World War II and then fail to invest in defence the way we need to.”

And everyone needs a change of mindset. Parker is calling for a fully integrated national maritime strategy. One that includes:

* Submarines and surface combatants

* Maritime-focused Army and Air Force roles

* Fuel resilience and supply chain continuity

* A strategic merchant fleet

* A proper Coast Guard

* Civil mobilisation plans and national stockpiles

Parker offers a measured response to the mecurial nature of US President Donald Trump and fears that he may damage our most significant alliance.

“We can’t delegate our entire defence to a major power. We need a degree of self-reliance, even within the alliance. We need the capability to conduct certain missions on our own.”

It’s a sobering message. But Parker is no alarmist. Her call is not to panic—but to plan. And that starts with honesty.

“Number one is having a clearer conversation with the Australian people about the threat.”

Above all, she argues, we must start thinking differently. Not like a nation that assumes it will be rescued. Not like a people who believe geography is defence. But like an island nation whose survival depends on what can sail in—and what can sail out.

As Parker says:

“I don’t think conflict is inevitable, but I think it’s increasingly likely…. The echidna needs to swim.”

Labor’s victory in Australia’s federal election is still being counted, both in scale and its place in history. With the party set to command more than 90 seats in the 150-member lower house, it is arguably the biggest win for Labor since Federation, 124 years ago. Barring a catastrophe, it is now set up to govern for at least the next six years.

This result elevates Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to the pantheon of party heroes and invests him with enormous power. But beneath the surface lies a more complex tale. Labor’s primary vote rose slightly but remains near historic lows, standing at 34.7 percent. That means nearly two out of three voters did not put a “1” in Labor’s box.

This extraordinary outcome reveals not so much a surge of support for the government as a catastrophic collapse in confidence in the Liberal brand. Labor’s huge majority was delivered on a wave of preferences from minor parties and independents.

Over the course of the last two federal elections, the dominant party in the Liberal–National coalition has lost 26 seats. Its combined primary vote is 32 percent—its lowest level since the end of the Second World War.

This has reduced the Coalition to a rump of about 42 seats (down from 58) and left the Liberal Party within it in ruins. It has lost its leader and its way.

As former President of the Senate Scott Ryan observes in his conversation with Powerlines, his party has been all but erased from the cities where two-thirds of Australians live. This defeat isn’t cyclical. It’s structural.

Australia’s electorate has fractured into thirds: between Labor, the Coalition, and anyone but the major parties. Ryan highlighted the rise of what pollsters call the “double haters” – voters who reject both Labor and Liberal. But in this election, those voters punished the Liberals in the distribution of their second preferences.

Ryan points to a long drift for the Liberals—starting in Melbourne, then spreading to Sydney and Brisbane. It’s not just a rejection of policies or candidates. It’s cultural and tonal. The party has failed to speak to women, to younger voters, to urban professionals. And instead of course-correcting, it kept tightening its ideological filter: narrowing its base and driving out dissent.

That has to change. And the path back isn’t in mimicking the grievance politics of America. Ryan is blunt:

“Donald Trump has been politically destructive for the centre-right movement every time there's been an election He effectively changed the result in Canada.”

That model will not work in Australia’s compulsory, preferential voting system. Instead, the party needs to return to first principles.

So what are those principles? For Ryan, the bedrock of liberal philosophy is intergenerational equity. Governments should not spend money they don't have and leave the bill to the next generation.

“It's a moral issue.”

He argues that the Coalition also needs to reframe its energy policy. This isn’t about denying climate change. It’s about opposing unaffordable, unreliable policy responses.

“The people have been promised cheaper power and stable power. Well, elections can decide policy, they don't decide physics.”

The public may not yet fully grasp what Net Zero entails, but they will when power bills spike and reliability collapses. The Coalition needs to be ready with a credible alternative.

Ryan thinks that leadership of the party is important—but that discipline matters more.

“You know stability in leadership is almost not dependent upon the leader. It's actually dependent upon the mindset of a party member.”

Ryan believes the Liberal Party's strength has always come from its broad ideological heritage, drawing from both classical liberalism and conservatism—what John Howard called “the custodian of two traditions.” That breadth has allowed it to speak to a wide cross-section of Australians. The party loses support, Ryan argues, when it strays too far from that balance.

To regain its footing, the Liberals must modernise their message without abandoning their foundations, tuning their policies and values to meet the real-world problems, aspirations, and perspectives of contemporary Australians.

This defeat could be the Liberal Party’s felix culpa—a fortunate fall. But only if it learns the right lessons. Otherwise, as Ryan warns:

“It can always get worse.”

The Albanese government’s failure to hold a Royal Commission into Australia’s response to COVID-19 will leave a historic stain on its record.

We lost the opportunity to shine a bright light on the worst crisis the nation has faced this century. We lost the chance to test what worked and what didn’t. It is a betrayal of a future generation, in defence of today’s politicians, doctors, and bureaucrats.

Instead, Labor opted for a limited, stage-managed inquiry that specifically excluded the actions of state governments—the very jurisdictions responsible for the longest and harshest lockdowns. There will be no public accounting for border closures. No scrutiny of the health bureaucrats who became, briefly and disastrously, unelected premiers. No spotlight shone on the world’s longest lockdowns, or on curfews that we now know were imposed on a political whim.

Dr Nick Coatsworth was on the frontline and says one thing was always true:

“In a pandemic where nobody is immune, the disease will come through the community. It is not a matter of if, it’s when.”

He should know. As one of Australia’s most prominent medical figures during the pandemic—serving as Deputy Chief Medical Officer—Coatsworth was both inside the tent and, increasingly, outside the consensus. He supported the early national response, but what followed was a descent into risk-averse groupthink that lost all sense of balance.

“COVID zero had a very, very long tail. And it was that tail that caused the harm.”

He believes a key reason states like Victoria and Western Australia resorted to long lockdowns and border closures was because the premiers knew their health systems couldn’t cope with any kind of crisis.

“The Western Australian health system will blow over in a sneeze… and I think Mark McGowan knew that, and that's why he tried to keep the virus out for so long.”

Coatsworth reflects on healthcare through professional experience and a deeply personal lens. He believes modern medicine too often confuses care with cash.

So I don't hold much truck with the clinicians who say, "Just give us more money." Not a solution. You've got to spend your money in a more wise and judicious fashion.

His critique extends far beyond COVID. On health economics, Coatsworth is devastatingly frank:

“Almost all new medical technology—the benefit to the patient is overstated.”

He is not arguing for less investment in healthcare. He is arguing for smarter, focused spending. He says the National Preventive Health Strategy’s modest goal of adding two years of healthy lifespan by 2030 should be used to assess value.

He is equally blunt on the political failure of the Coalition to counter Labor’s Medicare scare campaigns:

“Labor has them on ground that they are uncomfortable with, and they're not even on the battlefield.”

Other uncomfortable conversations are being avoided. The National Disability Insurance Scheme is collapsing under the weight of its own good intentions and mission creep—by covering too many children with learning and behavioural disorders.

“How much leakage do you have from what's going to be a $68 billion program in order to get to the people you actually want to target?”

Throughout our conversation, one theme keeps returning: the immaturity of our public debate. He paid the price for dissent when he challenged the COVID Zero orthodoxy.

“Academics wrote to the Australian National University asking for my clinical academic title to be revoked… and that was all because I committed the mortal sin of calling people Zoom professors.”

We now live in a time when an unorthodox truth is treated as dangerous heresy. But it is our refusal to have difficult conversations that is truly dangerous.

It takes more than 25 minerals to build the phone in your pocket, but few ever pause to wonder how it’s made.

It is true of so much of modern life. Our largely urban society is so disconnected from its sources of wealth, food, and energy that many are now actively voting against them. The Minerals Council of Australia is trying to turn perceptions around, but it is pushing against a wall of ignorance and regulation and a political and media class that treats mining and energy as an embarrassment.

Tania Constable, the Council’s CEO, sees the gap widening. In a conversation for Power Lines, she laid out the challenges facing the industry that still underwrites Australia's prosperity — and warned of the consequences if the disconnect continues.

Mining is, by far, the largest contributor to Australia’s export wealth, bringing in $330 billion last year from minerals alone. It pays $77 billion in company tax and royalties and employs over a million Australians both directly and across its supply chains. Yet as Constable points out, this engine of prosperity is often painted as an enemy of progress.

"If you look at a phone, a fridge, a car, a microphone — everything we use relies on mining. Every single person needs the minerals industry."

Energy is where the contradictions multiply. Australia is already an energy superpower in coal, gas, and critical minerals. Yet policy settings on the east coast are driving up costs, blocking new supply, and creating sovereign risk for our allies. Japan and South Korea, once unshakeable trading partners, are now looking elsewhere for stable, long-term energy contracts. Meanwhile, Victoria and New South Wales are preparing to build gas import terminals because they refused to develop the reserves under their own feet.

“It’s absolute madness. We’re going to pay the international price for gas that we already have sitting there.”

The plan to transform Australia into a "renewables superpower" sounds great. But it is built on layers of fantasy. As Constable notes, to meet the pledged targets would require an explosion of mining activity — copper, lithium, rare earths — on a scale the current approval system simply cannot deliver. It takes, on average, 18 years to bring a new mine into production. Even if political will existed, the clock is not on our side.

And then there is nuclear. Australia's refusal to even consider nuclear energy for domestic use, while embracing nuclear submarines for defence, is a triumph of ideology over reason.

“The excuses are running out. There is no reason why we can’t tap into nuclear power as part of our overall approach.”

What would fix it? Getting the basics right: an industrial relations system that works, energy prices that are globally competitive, streamlined environmental approvals, and tax settings that encourage investment instead of scaring it away.

“We know what we need to do. We just need governments that are willing to back the industries that create wealth for the country.”

Energy realism demands hard conversations about where our power comes from, how it is priced, and who benefits when we choose slogans over substance. Political leadership means having tough conversations, not fanning prejudice.

Australia has a choice: use its abundant resources, or become a textbook case in how to squander a natural advantage — an energy superpower that chose to unplug itself.