The Battler

This week we talk to Joana Partyka: artist and activist with Disrupt Burrup Hub. DBH have been protesting against Woodside’s gas mining bonanza up around the Pilbara for the last several years. Joana takes Pat and Tim through their strategy, their actions and the extreme, terrifying response of Western Australia’s police force. This is heavy stuff, and shows the lengths to which the petro-state is willing to go in order to protect capital and prolong the waning boom.

Before the interview, the fellangists talk about Dutton’s festering personality problem; the debate; and the recent candidate’s forum on environmental policy in the Division of Wentworth, to which Timbo went last Tuesday.

For the record, Jo was right that Wentworth is the old seat of Mr Trumble; also the piece of legislation to which “honest” Tim refers is the 1999 (not 1997) Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.

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Also, if you know an editor that wants to relieve Tim of cutting up the episodes, slide into comments/dms.

Music: No Strain by the Southend Rainbows.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thebattler.substack.com

It’s not real campaign unless it’s from the campaign district of the Liverpool plains. In this episode, Pat and Tim talk about Dutton’s bareback entry to the electoral Stakes; the Tealification of politics; the “Australian Left;” Matt Canavan’s forehead and the smell of parliament.

Things are moving quick, and we know that the world has changed in the short time since Thursday of Last Week. We’re gonna try stay abreast of the cataracting effluence, but please bear with us as we Trumble along.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thebattler.substack.com

Albanese handed down his budget on Tuesday night, Then, Albanese hadned down his election date on Friday. In between, a creature from the deep bubbled its antiphony.

Pat and Tim walk through the powerful mildness of the budget, the standings of the various parties and the independents, the stakes of a short election campaign and the possible advantages of Labor’s small-target approach. Tim didn’t have a mic this time so it’s gross audio.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thebattler.substack.com

No guest this week, as Pat and Tim talk about a big few days in global bastardry. The brutishness of Israeli foreign policy is laying waste again to Gaza. In response, our Defence Minister has announced the production of new precision missiles in Australia to eventually send to Israel, and the leader of the opposition has announced a free trade deal with Israel. The CFMEU is under attack from Channel 9, ABC, Schwartz and the Liberals, as acts of corruption are inflated into a moral panic and calls come for the de-registration of one of the most militant unions in the country. We also talk about the revelations of abuse in Australian childcare, and its place in the broader narrative of public service privatisation since the 1980s.

Please also consider donating to Alex Mckinnon’s gofundme for Palestine: it’s already at $50k and is hoping to raise $100k. https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-more-than-80-palestinian-families-rebuild.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thebattler.substack.com

This week we speak to Peter Korotaev, from the substack Events in Ukraine. If you know nothing about the war, this is a fantastic background. If you know a little bit, this is an excellent update. If you are currently fighting in the region, write in for a chance to win a Nissan Pulsar– Australia’s safest family car.

Pat and Tim also talk about AUKUS, Tariffs, and all the things that we’ve been right about (the antisemitism hoax; Westralian election etc). We also start to prod the very tender point of Australian publishing and the dearth of good writing in the continent.

In the next few weeks, we’re gonna be looking at more matters literary, and also thinking chatting about the war on the unions.

Good on yas and up the tigers.

Love

The Fell*s

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thebattler.substack.com

In this episode we chat with Alex McKinnon (https://everythingisfine.beehiiv.com/c/about), a freelance journalist who has been covering the restriction and censorship of pro-Palestine speech in the Australian media. We talk through some of the particulars of rightwing strategy; the culture of preemptive capitulation and the march of McCarthyism through the university sector.

Before that, Pat and Timbo talk shop on the WA Election (congratulations to all those who celebrate); Dutton’s Escape To The Hemmesphere and the possible disintegration of AUKUS.

Next week, we’re talking Ukraine.

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Title song: No Strain by the Southend Rainbows.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thebattler.substack.com

In this episode, Tim and Pat talk to Rachel Withers, Crikey Journalist and host of “Well Hung” (successor to “Forget the Frontbench”) as well as RRR’s “Spin Cycle.” Rachel tells us about where the polls stand and why Albo is looking at a flogging. She also clues us in to what a hung parliament might look like. Before the interview, we chat Tony “Burqa”s mass Qassam Brigades recruitment (citizenship ceremony), ABC’s $1.1 million hush fund and the slapstick gymnastics of incomprehension that Australian commentary ha shown in the face of the Sabsabi censure.

Next week the battler takes on the ABC. We are doing all of this ourselves, so getting episodes out with any regularity is not so easy. Our technical prowess is also a work in progress; though Tim is getting better at pretending to know what he is talking about. Please subscribe to the pod, as well as Straying for the Morsel and Patrick Marlborough’s “Yeah Nah Review,” as well as the requisite meme pages. You can also fling us a pledge with a little cash so we don’t have to succumb to Clive Palmer’s incessant overtures to fund and promote us.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thebattler.substack.com

A bad week to be Australian. A good week to start a podcast. Pat and Tim take a look at the appearance of Ita Buttrose in court over the Antoinette Lattouf unfair dismissal case; the appearance of daily telegraph journalists at a small café in Sydney confecting fake narratives of antisemitism; the two nurses shamed across media and politics for comments made on an Israeli vlog; and the quick, spineless response of Creative Australia to federal parliamantarians’ attack on Khaled Sabsabi’s representation of the country at the 2026 Venice Bienalle.

We’re still figuring this out, so it can be a little glitchy. We’re also in disagreement about using KIIS FM style house music under each episode. There are also some factual corrections to point out: the parliamentarian who brought the Sabsabi case to Question Time was in fact Senator Claire Chandler, Shadow Minister for the Arts, as Pat pointed out. Also, at one point, Tim referred to one of the Sydney nurses as a doctor; this was characteristic confusion on his part.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thebattler.substack.com