Australian Family Party

Family Matters

Australia's economic future

Stork in the Road

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In 1926, Charles Vance Millar, a wealthy Toronto lawyer and lifelong practical joker, died leaving no direct heirs.

In his will, he bequeathed his shares in a racetrack to a number of anti-gambling crusaders; his brewery stock to temperance-preaching ministers; and his holiday house to three people who disliked each other, as joint tenants.

Most famously, however, he left the bulk of his estate to ‘… the woman who bore the most children in Toronto over the next decade!’

That final bequest became known as the ‘Great Stork Derby’.

The derby ended in a tie with four women sharing the prize, each having had nine children.

Millar’s final jest highlighted a timeless truth: when it comes to family formation, incentives matter!

A modern echo of the story came in 2004 when Australia’s Treasurer, Peter Costello, urged couples to have ‘one for mum, one for dad, and one for the country’ – sweetened by a $5,000 baby bonus.

Financial incentives alone, however, have proven to be limited against deeper structural barriers.

Extensive research has shown a clear link between affordable, low-density housing and higher birth rates. When young families can access low-density detached homes on large blocks at reasonable prices, they are more likely to have more children.

No surprises there.

Expensive, multi-storey apartments, on the other hand, delays or deters parenthood.

In this regard, South Australia’s abandonment of the Metropolitan Adelaide Transportation Study (The MATS Plan) in 1970 is an interesting case study.

The MATS Plan was a world-class road network for Adelaide’s future transport needs designed to service a vibrant, emerging city.

Released in November 1968, the plan envisioned an integrated road network supporting a growing city, together with ample, affordable fringe land for detached family homes—the ‘Menzies Dream’, named after Australia’s longest-serving Prime Minister Robert Menzies.

Menzies had presided over a golden age of owner-occupied houses with large gardens and private vehicle access (multiple academic studies and surveys have consistently shown that owning or having reliable access to a motor vehicle substantially improves a person’s chances of finding and keeping a job).

With a median house price just three times the median income, homeownership rates under Menzies reached over 70 per cent.

This conservative view of the world was, however – and continues to be – anathema to the radical Left.

Nurtured in our Universities, the Left’s campaign for dense, inner-suburban apartments and public transport, won over then Labor Premier Don Dunstan and Adelaide’s MATS Plan was ditched.

Its abandonment was, without doubt, South Australia’s biggest ever public policy failure.

As a result of that ill-fated decision, SA has suffered incalculable cost, inefficiency, and 50 years of congestion, due to its inadequate road system.

But a more consequential effect has been the limited access to new land supply resulting in elevated housing costs and suppressed family formation.

This pattern has been repeated across the Western world.

Median house prices in major Anglosphere cities (Australia, Canada, Britain, New Zealand, US) have more than doubled – even tripled in many places – in real terms relative to median incomes.

Young couples now spend a far higher proportion of their income on mortgage repayments, leaving less money available to spend raising children. Many even defer family formation altogether, reasoning they cannot afford both a home and children.

The results mirror the demographic catastrophe of China’s infamous ‘One Child Policy’ but through market distortion rather than government decree. The West has imposed its own version of China’s one child policy via housing unaffordability.

Future taxpayers will now face rising pension and aged-care burdens as smaller cohorts of young workers will be required to support larger retiree populations—precisely the demographic time-bomb China now confronts.

Politicians may have enjoyed the feel-good wealth effect that existing owners had in the early 2000s – as former Prime Minister John Howard famously stated in 2003, “I don’t get people stopping me in the streets and complaining that the value of their house has gone up” – but they now face a backlash.

Reversing this won’t be easy.

Removing urban growth boundaries, making residential use ‘permitted’ on fringe land, eliminating ‘upfront’ utility charges – all services should be paid for ‘as’ homeowners use them, not ‘before’ they use them – and simplifying approvals.

There is also much the Commonwealth Government could do to pressure State Governments namely:

  • Using the Corporations Power to allow any corporation that owns land to have the right to make it available for housing irrespective of any state planning law.
  • Instructing the ACCC to investigate land-price-gouging practices by State government land management agencies.
  • Reducing its grants to States or Territories that were found to have gouged publicly owned land for profit at the expense of housing affordability.

Such steps would start the process of lowering prices towards the historical three-times-income benchmark, enabling young families to buy, settle, and grow.

Charles Millar’s Great Stork Derby was a humorous private incentive.

Public policy, however, should not require such gimmicks.

By prioritizing affordable low-density housing, governments can remove one of the main barriers to the natural desire for children.

South Australia’s MATS Plan abandonment cost generations dearly in congestion, opportunity, road fatalities and births forgone.

Its lessons should not be forgotten.

The Australian Family Party

Where to now for the Party?

As discussed in our post-SA election Newsletter Remembering Al Capone, the political tsunami that was One Nation, swept all before it.

People who would normally have voted for one of the parties on the Right (Liberals, Nationals, Christian parties, Libertarians, etc) all went over to One Nation.

There is no doubt that what One Nation did in South Australia – and then the Farrer by-election – will continue across Australia. Similar results are likely in the Victorian election in November, the NSW election next March, and the Federal election in 2028.

We did all we could to present an alternative on the Right side of politics – as did other minor parties. All succumbed to the One Nation juggernaut.

Thank you once again to everyone who helped with the campaign.

We will now bide our time and maintain our registration, and watch what happens with One Nation. We wish them well.

In the meantime, my long-standing interest in housing and its supporting infrastructure has led me to establish the MATS Plan Institute – the Maritime Adelaide Transport System.

I trust it will be of interest to you.

Thank you again for all your support.

State Dogged by Political Circus

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duckA political candidate was once asked where he stood on the issue of duck shooting.

“I have friends who are duck shooters”, the aspiring politician answered.

“And I have friends who are against duck shooting”, he continued.

“And I always stand by my friends”.

They say that if you can’t ride two horses at the same time, you don’t belong in the circus.

The campaign trail can be a hazardous place for candidates. Sometimes all it takes is one slip and your election prospects are finished. The circus tent collapses on top of you.

Fortunately, no such calamity has yet befallen us. But then again, there’s still a week to go!

As for the latest from the campaign trail, below is the first of a series of half page ads appearing in the Sunday Mail and Advertiser.

At the last State election, we drew box J on the all-important Legislative Council (Upper House) ballot paper.

As we know, J is the 10th letter of the alphabet.

Readers may recall my interest in Hebrew letters and in particular my reference to the 10th letter of the Hebrew alphabet, ‘Yud’.

Yud is a very important letter in Hebrew because it is the first letter of the name of God, YHWH: Yud – Heh – Vav – Heh.

In the Federal election that followed the State election, we drew the letter E, the 5th letter of the alphabet, which in Hebrew is Heh. Heh is the second letter of the name of God.

I mentioned at the time that we seemed to be spelling out God’s name “– just two more elections to go …”, I said.

Well, wouldn’t you know it, in this election we’ve drawn the letter F, the 6th letter of the alphabet, which in Hebrew is Vav – the third letter in the name of God.

In Hebrew, the letter Vav is a vertical line, symbolising the connection between heaven and earth. It’s the Jacob’s Ladder of the Hebrew alphabet. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth …”. In six days. The six days of creation. Vav is the sixth letter.

One more election, one more letter and I’m relocating to Jerusalem …!

Anyway, back to Adelaide and the State election.

For this election we have done the hard yards, put in the hard work, refined all our policies, put together a great team of 50 candidates – 47 in the House of Assembly and three in the Legislative Council – and negotiated some good preference arrangements.

All our How-to-Vote cards are listed here.

We have peace about all this.

Across the globe, however, there is little in the way of peace. In fact, there is havoc. Shakespeare’s ‘dogs of war’ are growling and Australia will not escape at least some of this havoc.

Saturday March 21 is election day. Without wanting to labour the point, we can’t let our State go to the dogs.

A toxic algal bloom has blighted the South Australian coastline and shows no sign of disappearing any time soon. The Malinauskas government is copping much of the blame for not acting when the bloom was first reported.

The Premier’s 2022 election promise to ‘fix ambulance ramping’ has not been fulfilled – in fact, ambulance ramping is worse now than it was in 2022.

State taxpayers are expected to lose $500 million on the government’s green hydrogen debacle.

State debt is climbing towards $50bn and South Australia, once considered the nation’s home-ownership capital, is now ranked the 2nd least affordable in Australia.

And the government has introduced legislation into the South Australian parliament enshrining an Aboriginal Voice, despite South Australians voting overwhelmingly ‘No’ in the Voice referendum.

In ‘The Adventure of Silver Blaze’, one of the Sherlock Holmes short stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Holmes is sent to investigate the disappearance – on the eve of an important race – of a champion racehorse called Silver Blaze and the murder of its trainer, John Straker.

In what has become a famous exchange known as ‘the curious incident of the dog in the night-time’ between Scotland Yard’s Inspector Gregory and Sherlock Holmes, Gregory asks Holmes, “Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?”

“Yes”, Holmes replied, “To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time”.

“But the dog did nothing in the night-time”, said Gregory.

“That was the curious incident”, Holmes replied.

That the dog didn’t bark told Holmes that the person who took the racehorse was known to the dog. The thief was not a stranger. It was an inside job.

This exchange has become symbolic of the need to speak up, or ‘bark’, when something is amiss.

Rest assured, here at the Australian Family Party we will not hesitate to bark.

Early voting starts on Saturday 14 March and goes through to Friday 20 March. All Early Voting Centre locations are listed here.

Each electorate has between 22,000 – 25,000 voters. Half of them vote on Election Day, the other half vote early.

While each electorate has around 14 Polling Places on Election Day, there is only one Early Voting Centre per electorate (although some far-flung rural electorates may have more than one).

Therefore, it is possible to get a how-to-vote card into the hands of half the voters at the one early-voting location.

So, if you have an hour or so to spare between 14th – 20th March we’d love to hear from you.

Thank you for your support.

Authorised by Bob Day, Australian Family Party, 22 Grenfell Street, Adelaide SA 5000

Seven Voices, One Clear Choice

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seven voicesAs the late Texas politician Robert Strauss used to say, “You can fool some of the people all of the time – and they’re the ones you need to concentrate on”.

Very funny.

In politics, the golden rule is: whatever result you get, that is what was intended.

Former Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson once said, “We live in an age of astonishing disengagement by far too many good citizens in the life of our nation. I suspect that without compulsory voting we’d have up to half the electorate not bothering to vote at all.”

If we apply the golden rule to John Anderson’s observation, then citizens being disengaged from politics is exactly what is intended. Keep people in the dark. Do things that turn them off politics.

Take parliament’s Question Time, for example.

Not only do our politicians behave appallingly, they take our money and our freedoms and say they will act in our best interests. But instead, they act in their own interest and the interests of the rent-seeking cartels. No wonder people are disillusioned and disengaged.

This world is not a playground; it is a battleground. The troubling aspect, however, is the consistency of the forces on that battleground.

Whether it’s rampant antisemitism, transgenderism or climate activism, the participants all seem to follow the same script – regardless of where they are in the world or how the issue affects them.

Most people, of course, are not into confrontation and therefore choose to opt out, leaving the world to be ‘ruled by those who show up’ as the old saying goes. The problem is that those who show up do not think the same as the ‘good citizens’ John Anderson had in mind.

The activists want everyone to be like them and embrace their views on everything from morality to marriage to matters of life and death. If you object, they say that “If you don’t shut up, we’ll shut you up”.

The Commonwealth Parliament, supported by both major parties, recently rammed through the Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism (Criminal and Migration Laws) Act 2026.

As Liberty Itch’s Steve Holland reports, “The subsequent political fallout for the so-called ‘Liberal’ Party comes as no surprise.

“The Liberal Party is no longer the liberal political movement it once claimed to be.

“Justifiably, the Nationals aren’t interested in a coalition partner that has abandoned its principles by supporting laws that are completely antithetical to its stated values and platform.

“It is a bitter betrayal by those who claim to safeguard our liberties.

“While primary blame lies with the Labor Government for concocting such appalling laws, the Liberal Party’s complicity is especially disgraceful given its supposed commitment to free speech and individual freedom. As is often the case, hypocrisy amplifies the backlash.”

The world is polarised like never before.

As we’ve said on our website previously, the (political) centre is disappearing. Public policy is becoming something of a gym barbell with weights on each end and a long bar between them. People are either at one end of the political spectrum or the other.

Science was once similar to mathematics in that there was general agreement on the facts.

Not anymore.

‘Follow the science’ is looking less like mathematics and more like economics, with one side of politics pushing their version of the science and the other side pushing theirs.

So, what is the answer?

As we have argued from the outset, ‘family, faith and freedom’ are the best bulwarks against division and authoritarianism. We must stand firm.

In the forthcoming South Australian State election, the Australian Family Party has nominated candidates in every House of Assembly seat (47 in total) together with three in the Legislative Council – a total of 50 candidates.

We have a great team – young and old, male and female, professional and trades – a wonderful cross-section of society which is such a contrast to the current political class.

And the support we have received from other minor parties has been phenomenal.

Six political parties who have decided not to contest this election have pledged their support for the Australian Family Party.

That’s seven parties standing together and putting South Australia first.

Seven voices, one clear choice for South Australia.

Thank you for your support.

Authorised by Bob Day, Australian Family Party, 22 Grenfell Street, Adelaide SA 5000

Soccer, Sin and a State Election

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soccerThe story is told of the UN Secretary-General proposing that, in the interests of global peace and harmony, all the world’s soccer players should come together and form one ‘United Nations Global Soccer Team.’

“That’s a great idea!” said his deputy, “but who would we play against?”

“Israel, of course”, the Secretary-General replied.

There is no mention in the Bible of Adam and Eve ever doing anything to provoke or anger Satan.

Adam and Eve were just minding their own business and enjoying all the benefits that God had provided to this perfect couple.

So why did the serpent set out to destroy their paradise?

It is not uncommon for someone who can’t hurt an enemy to hurt someone close to their enemy instead.

Mankind’s battle between good and evil may have started in the Garden of Eden – Eve biting the apple and Adam following suit – but the real battle started before that, with Satan’s revenge campaign against God.

Even before Abraham became the first Jew, the conflict was there.

As US commentator Dinesh D’Souza puts it, “Plan A was to overthrow God. When that failed, Plan B was implemented – find the things that God cares about and ruin them instead.”

The Magnificent Seven

magnificent-seven

The 2026 State election has been officially called, and I am pleased to report that six other political parties have pledged their support to the Australian Family Party.

None of the following parties are running in this election – all are supporting our campaign:

“I am pleased to announce that People First is supporting the Australian Family Party at the forthcoming SA election.
If we want government to be for the people, then it has to be by the people.
Building a strong grassroots movement is vital if we are to make that happen.
It is our intention to formally merge our two parties after the election.”—Gerard Rennick, President, People First Party

“The HEART Party is proud to endorse and support the Australian Family Party in the South Australian State Election on 21 March 2026.
As a party committed to Health, Accountability, Transparency, Individual Rights, Environmental stewardship, and a strong, thriving Economy, we believe the Australian Family Party reflects these shared values and is well placed to represent them in the South Australian Parliament.
As the HEART Party is not contesting this election, we strongly encourage our members, supporters, and all South Australians who share our values to cast their vote for the Australian Family Party.”—Michael O’Neill, President, HEART Party

“South Australian Election–DLP Supports Australian Family Party.
South Australian DLP members and supporters and others who are committed to traditional Christian values are urged to vote for the Australian Family Party in the state election on Saturday 21 March 2026.”—Richard Howard, National Secretary, DLP

“So many smaller parties getting behind Bob Day’s Australian Family Party is magnificent! It is a testimony to both Bob’s standing in the political realm, and the Australian Family Party’s genuine pro-Australia, pro-South Australia policies.”—Rodney Culleton, Party Leader, Great Australian Party

“We are committed to supporting the Australian Family Party at the upcoming South Australian State Election.”
Whatever we, as a party, can do – including encouraging our members to support the Australian Family Party at pre-polls, polling booths, scrutineering and more – we will do.”—Glenn O’Rourke, National Director, Australian Federation Party

“The Libertarian Party SA is proud to formally endorse Bob Day for the upcoming South Australia state election on March 21. Bob brings a wealth of experience and a tireless commitment to individual liberty, free markets, and limited government”.—Libertarian Party SA

The Australian Family Party will be running candidates in every Lower House seat (47 in total) plus three in the Legislative Council – a total of 50 candidates.

With One Nation grabbing most of the headlines and the Liberals in disarray, SA’s Labor Premier Peter Malinauskas is now in an awkward position.

He has enjoyed extremely high personal approval ratings since becoming Premier and a 2025 YouGov poll showed the Premier’s net satisfaction rating at +70, a phenomenal number. Labor’s two-party preferred was also a whopping 67–33!

Malinauskas has dominated the news cycle with his ‘bread and circuses’ strategy of big-name events such as golf tournaments, beach volleyball competitions, motor sport carnivals and Katy Perry-type concerts.

Over recent months, however, a number of more substantial policy areas have begun to chip away at the Premier’s seemingly impenetrable veneer.

A toxic algal bloom has blighted the South Australian coastline and shows no sign of disappearing any time soon. His government is copping much of the blame for not acting when the bloom was first reported.

His key 2022 election promise to ‘fix ambulance ramping’ has not been fulfilled – in fact, ambulance ramping is worse now than it was in 2022!

State taxpayers are expected to lose $500 million on his government’s green hydrogen debacle.

State debt is climbing towards $50bn and South Australia, once considered the nation’s home-ownership capital, is now ranked the 2nd least affordable in Australia!

And he has introduced legislation into the South Australian parliament enshrining an Aboriginal Voice, despite South Australians voting overwhelmingly ‘No’ in the Voice referendum.

All of these add up and eventually reach a tipping point.

That tipping point could well be election day.

Can you help?

Are you available to do some letterboxing in your area or hand out some how-to-vote cards for us on election day – or better still, at early polling stations? If so, please contact us here.

Thank you for your support.

Authorised by Bob Day, Australian Family Party, 22 Grenfell Street, Adelaide SA 5000

Aussie Osborne – AUKUS 2026 Part 2

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Yesterday, in Part 1 of Aussie Osborne – AUKUS 2026, we looked at connecting Adelaide’s new maritime defence precinct with the northern Adelaide plains via a new gateway bridge over the Port River. An industry sector this size we said was going to need a massive amount of defence procurement support, including manufacturing, commercial, retail, education, housing, health, and other professional services. In Part 2 of our proposal, we connect these support industries with long-haul freight infrastructure. One thing is for sure – there will be a lot more freight and a lot more heavy vehicles on our roads as a result of this announcement.

“Fatal crash closes freeway”

This has become an all too familiar news headline in Adelaide.

Whether it’s taking children to school, taking farm produce to markets or long-haul interstate freight, road safety is paramount.

My first project when I began working at the SA Highways Dept in 1969 was the new SE Freeway. To be fair to the government of the day, when it designed the freeway, it did not expect the level of residential development to take place that has occurred since. The Adelaide Hills has become one of the fastest growing urban areas in the State and commuter traffic on the SE Freeway has increased exponentially. Long-haul freight transport has become incompatible with that level of commuter traffic. Truck drivers dislike the current SE Freeway situation as much as commuters.

A solution is available. A solution that takes trucks and semi-trailers off the freeway, off Portrush Road, off Hampstead Road, off Grand Junction Road and will get freight to the shipyards and new northern precinct quicker, safer and cheaper.

First let’s put things into perspective. Long-haul freight transport on the SE Freeway is mainly coming from Melbourne – a 740km journey. A new north-bound road from Murray Bridge, connecting to the existing Sturt Highway at the new $200m Truro by-pass would deliver freight to the northern Adelaide development precinct by-passing the SE Freeway and Adelaide’s suburban roads completely.

While adding approximately 70 kms to the overall journey – less than 10% of the distance from Melbourne – this non-stop route would not increase the journey-time. Adelaide’s suburban road congestion and approximately 30 sets of traffic lights between the Tollgate and Port Adelaide reduces freight transport to a snail’s pace.

According to the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics (Report No 148), the cost of building new highways in Australia is approximately $5m per lane per kilometre. A new 90 km four-lane Murray Bridge–Truro highway would therefore cost around $2bn. The safety benefits of such a project however would be incalculable and the cost of building the road would be recouped through increased productivity, fewer accidents and less suburban road maintenance.

To summarise these two Aussie Osborne – AUKUS 2026 reports, the new Osborne nuclear submarine announcement has changed everything.

The new maritime defence project is a $100bn endeavour spread over the next 30+ years. Again, to put things into perspective, spending a small portion of that amount to ensure the project works properly makes good sense. A new gateway bridge and a new Murray Bridge to Truro connection should be included in the overall cost of the maritime defence project.

As stated in Part 1 of this proposal, SA has been blessed with two great infrastructure visionaries in (former Premier) Tom Playford and (former Commissioner of Highways) Keith Johinke. Perhaps we could name the above infrastructure projects after each of them.

Thank you for your support.

Aussie Osborne – AUKUS 2026 Part 1

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Aussie-Osborne

Without doubt, South Australia’s biggest ever public policy failure was the abandonment in 1970 of the MATS Plan (Metropolitan Adelaide Transport Study). The MATS Plan was a world-class road network for Adelaide’s future transport needs servicing a vibrant, emerging city. As a result of that ill-fated decision more than 50 years ago, SA has suffered incalculable cost, congestion and inefficiency due to its inadequate road system.

At that time, I was working for the SA Highways Department as a Laboratory Technician in the Department’s Materials, Research & Testing Laboratories at Northfield. Our then Commissioner Keith Johinke and all his staff were at the forefront of road transport planning and innovation. The excitement was palpable. Then came a change of government and the announcement that the MATS Plan was to be cancelled. It was an insane decision. All the land for the new road corridors had been acquired and the project was ready to go. So distressed was Commissioner Johinke by this announcement, he refused to sign the papers for the project’s cancellation, leaving it to an underling to carry out the Minister’s orders. The Department never recovered. Nor did Adelaide’s road transport system. I left the Department 5 years later to go into the private sector as did many others. In the 1980s the Department merged with a couple of other government departments and changed its name. A sad end to a once great institution.

Let’s not make that same ‘future planning’ mistake regarding the needs of the new Osborne submarine project which has just been announced. An industry sector this size is going to need a massive amount of support industries, including manufacturing, commercial, retail, education, housing, health, and other professional services.

In 1955, another great South Australian visionary, Sir Tom Playford, oversaw the growth and development of SA identifying that one key element for successful growth – cheap land.

The support industries for SA’s new maritime sector will need two things – affordable land, and easy ‘MATS Plan’ style access to the shipyards. Do not underestimate the importance of transport access.

Adelaide’s north can provide the land, and a new world-class gateway bridge over the Port River can connect the naval precinct with the northern Adelaide plains. Such a bridge and road system – perhaps even a rail line down the middle – would provide essential access to housing, supply chains and tourism opportunities – not to mention a ten-minute drive from the Edinburgh military air base.

The cramped suburbs around Port Adelaide are already under unsustainable pressure. Grand Junction Road is at maximum capacity. More traffic congestion, air pollution, the destruction of bio-diversity (bulldozing tree-lined streets and low-density housing) or increasing pressure on electricity, water, sewage, or stormwater infrastructure, in other words more urban densification, would be a disaster.

One thing is certain, the new naval industry will need support systems. We don’t want to be spending countless billions of dollars retrofitting like Adelaide’s current South Road debacle.

The Federal Government has given South Australia a new multi-billion industry. The SA State Government now needs to respond by opening up Adelaide’s north to supply this industry. Over the next 30 years tens of thousands of direct and indirect jobs are there for the taking.

In 2013, I was elected to parliament on a platform of “every family, a job and a house”. If every family had a job and owned a house, I argued, the benefits to the state and the nation would be great indeed. Clearly, a lot of people agreed with me.

Adelaide as the new maritime defence industry capital of Australia has the opportunity to provide ‘every family with a job and a house’. Let’s not blow it.

Part 2 tomorrow.

 

Cult Fiction

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cult-fictionA fourth-year medical student had just finished top of his class at university.

His parents were so proud of him they gave him a holiday in Nepal for a month-long trek to clear his mind and prepare him for his next year’s study.

While in Nepal the young man met an Indian guru who told him of the futility of Western society and culture – always striving for success and being dependent on someone else’s failure so you can be successful. “That will never make you happy”, the guru told him. “Give up all this competitiveness and come and live with us in a community where we all love each other and where no-one is trying to take anything away from anyone else.”

The young man had finished five years of private schooling and four years of university and was ripe for this kind of influence.

He rang his parents from Kathmandu and said he was dropping out of medical school and going to live in an Ashram.

You can imagine how pleased they were to hear this.

Six months later they received a letter from their son:

“Dear Mum & Dad
I know you weren’t pleased with me for dropping out of medical school, but I can’t tell you how happy I am. For the first time in my life, I feel good about the way I’m living. I’ve got the poison of competitiveness out of my system. This new way of life is so in harmony with the essence of my inner being that in only six months I’ve become the No 2 disciple in the whole Ashram, and I reckon I’ll be the No 1 disciple by the end of the year.”

Irony and self-awareness were clearly not the lad’s strong suits.

The late Rabbi Sacks wrote, “Those who are naïve about human nature find themselves disappointed again and again.

“Revolutions, protests, and civil wars continually take place because people think that removing a tyrant or having a democratic election will end corruption, create freedom and lead to justice and the rule of law. People are surprised and disappointed however, when that does not happen. All that happens is a change of faces in the corridors of power.”

After the French Revolution, Napoleon was more dictatorial than Louis XVI. After the Russian Revolution, Stalin was far more brutal than the Czar, and after the Cultural Revolution, Chairman Mao was more autocratic and murderous than any of the Emperors of the Chinese dynasties.

Each of these tyrants – Napoleon, Stalin and Mao – as well as fomenting anti-sovereign hatred – also held a deep hostility towards God:

“We will never be free until we strangle the last king with the guts of the last priest”, proclaimed French philosopher Denis Diderot.

Charming.

As with our young man in the Ashram, what the people who support these tyrants naïvely overlook is the inability of human beings to prevent the abuse of power and position once it has been attained.

The threats to Australia – and the Western world – are not climate change or health epidemics or economic instability, they are in the slow takeover of every aspect of our lives by those who seek more and more power over us.

What we are witnessing is the ascension of a new authoritarianism.

“Know everything in order to control everyone,” said Adam Weishaupt.

And technology and mass surveillance will allow governments to do just that – know everything.

The State is accumulating more and more power – all, of course, in the name of ‘fighting crime’ or ‘public health’ or ‘protecting children’ or ‘social cohesion’. Yet it always turns out the same – a compliant and submissive population.

The Commonwealth Parliament, supported by both major parties, has just rammed through the Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism (Criminal and Migration Laws) Act 2026.

As Liberty Itch’s Steve Holland reports, “The subsequent political fallout for the so-called ‘Liberal’ Party comes as no surprise.

“The Liberal Party is no longer the liberal political movement it once claimed to be. Justifiably, the Nationals aren’t interested in a coalition partner that has abandoned its principles by supporting laws that are completely antithetical to its stated values and platform.

“It is a bitter betrayal by those who claim to safeguard our liberties. While primary blame lies with the Labor Government for concocting such appalling laws, the Liberal Party’s complicity is especially disgraceful given its supposed commitment to free speech and individual freedom. As is often the case, hypocrisy amplifies the backlash.”

In England, zone restrictions have been introduced preventing motorists from driving from one part of town to another.

In Holland, banks are tracking what people spend their money on with a ‘carbon emissions summary’ – from food to airline tickets to petrol – noted on their receipts.

In Australia, smart meters are being used to control people’s power usage remotely.

What you buy, what you say, where you go, how much power you use …

Sig Samuel wrote, “This is religion minus all the God stuff. These atheists are more religious than Christians!”

The State, its gurus and high priests every bit as dogmatic and dictatorial as you’ll find in any sect, cult or Ashram, has become the new religion.

We must stand firm.

Thank you for your support.

The State vs the People

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Feature Article by Chris Uhlmann

Uhlmann

Australia’s agencies of state have become a danger to the Commonwealth. Instead of acting as a handbrake on bad ideas, they share the delusion that government fiats on energy can override physics, conjure cheap power and invent new industries.

These institutions inhabit a model world, where real-world hikes in retail power bills, the hollowing-out of industry and the growing risk of blackouts are dismissed as trivial, anecdotal or transient. Evidence is an inconvenience to be explained away as bureaucrats recast themselves as co-authors of a modern morality play.

Worse, the blizzard of government publications produced in 2025 does not even cohere into a single, consistent whole. A survey of the past year’s documents on the energy transition, churned out by some of the world’s highest-paid bureaucrats, delivers a cacophony of confusion. Outdated information is embedded in new advice, assumptions grow ever more heroic, and mantras masquerade as policy.

The essential purpose of the grid, delivering secure, reliable and affordable power, has been relegated in pursuit of the ideological goal of cutting carbon emissions. Once the core function of a system is perverted, everything that depends on it begins to fail. Prices rise and reliability erodes as policy drifts into fantasy, sustained by the conviction that everything is justified by the cause of saving the planet.

The architects of this disaster appear not to understand that they are conducting surgery on the nation’s central nervous system. Get this wrong and the damage is catastrophic and permanent. And this is only the beginning: electricity is merely the first stop on the road to a much broader and more destructive dismantling of the energy system.

This is not a dispute about climate change or the demand to cut emissions. It is about whether the Australian state understands the physical system it is attempting to command, and whether it grasps that what it is doing will depower the economy, drive up costs across the board and place the nation on a path to poverty.

Study last year’s blizzard of official advice underpinning Australia’s emissions target and it is littered with glaring errors, deliberate sins of omission and fragmentation, as old assumptions are preferred over real-world limitations.

Start with the Australian Energy Market Operator. AEMO’s Integrated System Plans are the sacred text on which the mantra of the “least-cost” path to a decarbonised grid rests. Let’s be clear, these documents are explicitly about hitting government-decreed carbon-cutting targets, not delivering cheap, abundant energy. The 2024 ISP assumed rapid coal exit, an unprecedented build-out of renewables, firming and transmission, and smooth delivery across multiple states. Ministers cite it. Regulators lean on it. Every other agency inherits it.

Then, in August last year, AEMO began rewriting it.

In its Electricity Network Options report, AEMO admitted that transmission costs had surged, in some cases by up to 100 per cent, driven by supply-chain constraints, labour shortages, project complexity, social-licence issues and rising contracting risk.

It made this admission:

“AEMO recognises that increases in costs for electricity transmission network development would impact bills for electricity consumers.”

The message was clear: the 2024 “optimal development path” was no longer reliable and would be rewritten in the 2026 draft Integrated System Plan. That should have triggered a pause across government. Instead, the machine chugged on as it prepared for the September release of the 2035 emissions target.

The Climate Change Authority’s advice that Australia should cut emissions by 62–70 per cent below 2005 levels by 2035 is explicitly anchored to the central scenario in AEMO’s 2024 ISP. That pathway assumes coal-fired generation largely exits the system by the late 2030s, and that replacement renewables, firming and transmission are delivered on time and at scale.

“Scaling up capacity in the National Electricity Market (NEM), including six-fold growth in utility storage, quadrupling wind capacity, tripling utility solar capacity and doubling rooftop and distributed solar capacity by 2035, consistent with the Australian Energy Market Operator’s (AEMO’s) Step Change scenario,” the report says.

But the Authority was leaning on a grid plan the system operator had already flagged for revision. When that revision arrived, in December’s draft 2026 ISP, coal’s exit was pushed back by a decade, with closures no longer smooth or front-loaded but slower, lumpier and far more dependent on announced retirements rather than modelling ambition. Transmission delivery was treated with greater caution. Workforce constraints, supply-chain delays, social-licence barriers and system-security risks were elevated from footnotes to central planning assumptions.

The certainty that underpinned the 2024 Step Change pathway, and on which the Authority based its advice, had evaporated. That is not a minor technical adjustment. It goes to the credibility of the entire advice chain on which the government’s 2035 target rests.

And, as Powerlines has pointed out in an earlier post, AEMO has yet to revise its outdated assumptions on worst-case wind droughts. The critical generation gap in the 2024 ISP was identified by Queensland-based Global Power Energy, a specialist consultancy whose 15-strong leadership team has more than 400 years of combined technical, regulatory and commercial experience across generators, networks and the market operator.

The eastern grid is being built on an AEMO model that assumes wind power will never fall below 14 per cent of capacity for multiple days. Yet a GPE study of the real-world 2024 autumn wind drought shows wind collapsing to roughly half that level during three separate week-long slumps, raising serious questions about whether a weather-dependent grid can keep the lights on.

When Treasury rolled out its modelling of the net-zero transition, it assumed decarbonisation of the electricity sector would proceed “consistent with recent trends and the (outdated) ISP”. It does warn that a disorderly transition would drive up wholesale prices and undermine investment. But the disorder it imagines is political. The disorder now confronting Australia is structural.

So Treasury is no longer stress-testing policy. It is amplifying error and manufacturing reassurance. And when the nation’s most important economic agency starts publishing comfort fiction for government instead of confronting reality, it betrays its heritage and the community it is meant to serve.

The headline act in this bureaucracy-wide institutional collapse came with the December 19 release of the Productivity Commission’s Orwellian-titled Investing in cheaper, cleaner energy and the net zero transformation. That demonstrably false slogan reveals the document for what it is: activism dressed up as economics.

The Productivity Commission was established to be a guardian of economic rationalism, providing governments with independent, evidence-based analysis to enhance productivity and economic welfare, not to act as a cheerleader for political objectives. Its legitimacy rested on its willingness to pull bad policy apart, test assumptions and champion markets.

All pretence of that evaporates here. The opening paragraph declares, without qualification, that “reducing emissions from greenhouse gases is an important national priority”. There it is: the cart of net-zero ideology placed firmly ahead of the horse of productivity.

From that point on, the conclusions are foregone. Markets are no longer trusted. Capital allocation is no longer disciplined by price signals. When the sole goal is to nail down a carbon target, everything is hit with the hammer of government intervention. An institution created to interrogate political ambition has instead absorbed it, transforming itself from devil’s advocate into preacher.

One recommendation is to accelerate the closure of coal-fired power stations by expanding and repurposing the Safeguard Mechanism, shifting from a sector-wide approach to facility-level emissions constraints, tightening the screws until coal generators are squeezed out, starting with brown coal in Victoria and moving on to black coal in NSW and Queensland.

This is not productivity reform. It is environmental activism by regulatory attrition.

The Commission claims faster decarbonisation will reduce the overall cost of the transition, while ignoring the constraints AEMO flags in its 2026 draft plan. It assumes gigawatts of reliable power can be conjured on demand and that the known risks of premature coal closure, price spikes, reliability failures and rising system-security costs, can be waved away.

The report’s superficiality is striking. It advocates a rapid build-out of renewables and transmission as markets struggle to meet existing targets. It favours large-scale wind even as private capital retreats due to rising costs, planning delays and community opposition.

Reliability is treated narrowly, with scant regard for system security. Coal closures require extensive stabilisation infrastructure, synchronous condensers with lead times of four to five years and price tags approaching $160 million each. Transgrid alone plans around ten in NSW by 2030. This barely registers in the Commission’s analysis.

The Commission also urges fast-tracking approvals by privileging the energy transition over biodiversity, heritage and community objections. It proposes a federal strike team and coordinator-general to bulldoze resistance. It calls for expanding the Safeguard Mechanism by lowering thresholds to 25,000 tonnes, dragging hundreds more businesses into carbon compliance.

More costs. More intervention. How does any of this improve productivity?

Now consider the reports from all these agencies alongside the draft 2026 ISP. What matters is not a single number but the tone. Where 2024 was confident, the draft is hedged and conditional. It flags workforce shortages, long lead times, higher costs, social-licence barriers and sequencing risk. Caveats multiply.

This is how engineers write when they are no longer confident the system can be bent to a timetable.

Politically and institutionally, however, the language has hardened. Targets are higher. Regulatory pressure is intensifying. The insistence that the transition will be “orderly” grows louder even as disorder spreads.

AEMO revises its assumptions. Other agencies build their case on the old ones. The Productivity Commission abandons markets in favour of coercion. Each institution amplifies error. Collectively, they appear to believe their policy prescriptions can dominate physics.

The only glue binding this together is ideology, the belief that net zero by 2050 is paramount and the real world will comply if pushed hard enough.

All this for what?

Australia produces around one per cent of global emissions. China produces roughly 30 per cent and continues building coal-fired power stations to guarantee energy security, industrial dominance and political stability. Coal is a strategic asset baked into China’s future.

Australia, meanwhile, is destabilising its electricity system, driving up costs and hollowing out energy-intensive industries. Next comes the push to torch the billions in export income that comes from coal and LNG in exchange for hypothetical green industries. Then we will impose more costs on transport and agriculture.

This is not climate leadership. It is unilateral economic disarmament and an act of deliberate self harm.

Reality will not bend to ideology. It never does. And the longer Canberra pretends otherwise, the higher the price Australians will pay, in bills, reliability and lost industrial capacity.

This is institutional betrayal.

As with the electricity system itself, the bureaucracy has lost sight of its purpose. Once that happens, everything that depends on it begins to fail. Agencies meant to test ideas, restrain excess and ground policy in reality have instead become ideological amplifiers. When the state forgets its obligations to the community, to security, prosperity and resilience, it ceases to be a steward of the Commonwealth and becomes a risk to it.

Chris Uhlmann first published this article on his Substack, Powerlines, on 20 January 2026. Reproduced with permission.

Which is Witch in ’26?

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witchIn Act 1 of Shakespeare’s great play Macbeth, the three witches appear before Macbeth and his friend Banquo. The witches predict that Macbeth will be king, and that one of Banquo’s sons will also be king one day.

Banquo is not convinced and responds, “If you can look into the seeds of time and say which seed will grow and which will not, speak then to me”.

Echoing Banquo, as we start another year, let us ask ‘who can look into the seeds of time’? Who can predict the future?

None of Banquo’s sons became king.

As with the witches in Macbeth, today’s economic forecasters, weather forecasters and social/population forecasters get it wrong time after time.

We are inundated with pundits’ predictions of what to expect in the year ahead.

Australia’s political pundits are predicting that in 2026 Labor will win both the South Australian and the Victorian State elections, Andrew Hastie will become Liberal leader, that house prices will continue to rise, and that there will be not just one, but several interest rate rises in 2026.

It’s been said that politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and then applying the wrong remedies.

They are similar to the guy who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.

As one wag put it, ‘In politics, if it’s honesty you want, stick to horse racing’.

So many predictions turn out to be wrong.

At the start of 2025, for example, Bitcoin was sitting at US$94,000 per coin.

Leading international analysts Standard Chartered, Bernstein Research and VanEck all predicted a rise in value in 2025 to somewhere between US$120,000 and US$250,000!

It is currently sitting at US$87,000.

Instead of rising 100 per cent or more, it dropped 7 per cent.

Other predictions have also proven to be spectacularly wrong – think ‘the internet will be a passing fad’, ‘online shopping will never take off’, ‘interest rates won’t rise for the next two years (they went up 13 times in a row), ‘Perth will be the 21st century’s first ghost metropolis’, ‘global warming is so baking the Earth that even the rain that falls won’t fill our dams and river systems’, ‘2009 may be the Arctic’s first ice-free year’ (in 2009 Arctic ice was around 5 million square kms, the same as it is today).

As someone wryly observed, ‘Ice doesn’t lie, but climate scientists do’.

Upping the ante, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres stated, ‘The era of global warming has ended; the era of global boiling has arrived”. 

You get the picture.

When it came to Covid, politicians, public sector bureaucrats, pharmaceutical company executives, the media – all in cahoots with one another – were all wrong on lockdowns, border closures, school closures, masking, and even the vaccines themselves.

While we here at the Australian Family Party are not going to get into making predictions about what may or may not happen in 2026, we can clearly see what has been unfolding globally.

As discussed in previous posts here, here and here, Australia – and South Australia in particular, given its similar climate and topography to Israel – would benefit enormously from a much closer relationship with Israel.

Israel is a nuclear and intelligence superpower with the will and ability to project power across vast distances. The Bondi massacre would not have happened had we availed ourselves of that intelligence.

Similarly, if we want to have a strong enough economy that can build a strong enough military to be able to withstand looming regional threats, then we are going to need to abandon the obsession with useless forms of energy generation, such as wind and solar.

At the Australian Family Party:

We like …
South Australia, Australia, Farming, Mining, Small Business, Free Markets, Free Speech, Property Rights, Home Ownership, School Choice, Income Splitting, Traditional Family Values, Pro-life Policies, Low Immigration, Australia’s Defence Forces, Israel.

And we dislike …
Big Government, Big Business, Big Unions, Rent Seekers, Wind Turbines, Solar Farms, Green Hydrogen, Net Zero, The Voice, Toxic Algae, Ambulance Ramping, Urban Growth Boundaries, $50bn State Govt Debt, Digital ID, High Immigration, High Crime Rates, Transgender Ideology, The UN, The WEF and The WHO.

Standing Guard
If Parliament House were a night club, they’d have a bouncer on the door only admitting those who would add value. Undesirables would be turned away!

Walk …. Get Fit …. Go Letterboxing ….
As we often say, it’s one thing to have an opinion – it’s a very different thing to support a cause.

And our primary aim now is the South Australian State election.

It’s summer, so what better time to get fit, go for a walk …. and do some letterboxing.

Can you help?

If you would like to do some letterboxing, please let us know here (choosing ‘Admin’ as the recipient).

Happy New Year everyone and thank you again for your support.

Bounce Back Better

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bounceIn a much-quoted exchange, a pollster once asked an Australian voter the following question: “Going into this election, and thinking about the average voter, what would you say is the biggest problem facing Australia today – ignorance or apathy?”

The voter replied, “I don’t know, and I don’t care”.

As we approach the South Australian State election, our key messages are crystal clear:

1. Competence & Care
Are you competent? And do you care?
Whether it’s your doctor, your mechanic or your child’s teacher, all you want to know about them is: ‘Are they competent?  And do they care?’
At the Australian Family Party, we stress the importance of appointing capable people.

2. Understanding the Times
In uncertain times, the choices we make shape our future.
At the Australian Family Party, we are focused on electing strong principled leaders — people who understand the times and know what needs to be done

3. Climate Change
If we wish to have a strong enough economy that can build a strong military to be able to defend ourselves against looming regional threats, then we are going to need to abandon our obsession with useless forms of energy generation, such as wind, solar and green hydrogen.
There is no climate emergency, there is no cause for panic.

4. Israel
In today’s uncertain world, the choices we make as a State and as a nation will determine our future. At the Australian Family Party, our support of Israel is what sets us apart.
Protecting our nation, strengthening our economy, and supporting our families is the foundation of a strong society. Australia – South Australia in particular, given its climate and topography – would benefit enormously from a closer relationship with Israel.

5. Let’s Make South Australia Great Again
Many South Australians can probably remember the time when more than a dozen of Australia’s top 100 listed companies had their head offices in Adelaide – News Ltd, Fauldings, Southcorp, Elders, Normandy Mining, Adelaide Bank, Adelaide Brighton, Standard Chartered Finance to name just a few. Today there’s just one – Santos (and even Santos is on borrowed time).

At the time of Federation, South Australia led the constitutional debates and had an influential hand in shaping the new Commonwealth of Australia.

For decades after, Adelaide was Australia’s Number 3 city – bigger and more prosperous than either Brisbane or Perth.

South Australia prospered when it supported people who made things, grew things, and built things.

Over recent years, some bad ideas have found their way into the South Australian Parliament resulting in some awful legislation being passed. These include: the ‘Urban Growth Boundary’ which gave us severe housing affordability problems; ‘Transforming Health’ which led to chronic hospital ramping; ‘Renewable Energy’ which resulted in SA having the most expensive power bills in the nation; ‘Anti-Life’ legislation that has given us those grotesque abortion-up-to-birth, assisted suicide and prostitution laws.

In addition, a conga-line of rent-seekers, bootleggers and carpetbaggers looking to exploit the public purse. These crony-capitalists, who base their business models on schmoozing politicians and convincing them that their particular goods or services are essential – and that the government should either pay for them or limit competition to providing them – have essentially created another layer of taxation.

This is important as South Australians already pay enormous amounts of tax in the form of GST, stamp duties, registrations, and numerous other levies and taxes hidden in water and power costs.

When state governments privatised SA’s water and power utilities, for example, they did deals with the purchasers permitting them to increase power and water charges in exchange for a higher purchase price of the utility – just taxation by another name. Consumers simply ended up paying more for their power and water. On top of that, utilities such as SA Water, then pay ‘dividends’ to the SA state government every year – ever more taxation under a different guise. SA Water has paid over $3bn in ‘dividends’ to the SA State Government over the past ten years. That $3bn should have been used to provide much-needed water infrastructure.

Yet in spite of all the revenue and dividends collected from SA taxpayers over the past ten years – up from $12bn in 2015 to $17bn in 2025 – the State Government’s reliance on subsidies from the other States to meet its spending commitments has also risen from $7bn in 2015 to $12bn in 2025, taking the SA State Government’s total spend from $19bn in 2015 to $29bn in 2025!

Why the other States continue to put up with South Australia’s flagrant spending habits is beyond me.

Likes and Dislikes

As you would have gathered, at the Australian Family Party:

We like …
South Australia, Australia, Farming, Mining, Small Business, Free Markets, Free Speech, Property Rights, Home Ownership, School Choice, Income Splitting, Traditional Family Values, Pro-life, Low Immigration, Australia’s Defence Forces, Israel.

And we dislike …
Big Government, Big Business, Big Unions, Rent Seekers, Wind Turbines, Solar Farms, Green Hydrogen, Net Zero, The Voice, Toxic Algae, Ambulance Ramping, Urban Growth Boundaries, $50bn State Govt Debt, Digital ID, High Immigration, High Crime Rates, Transgender Ideology, The UN, The WEF and The WHO.

bouncerStanding Guard
The key role of an independent or minor party member of parliament is that of a gatekeeper – ‘standing guard at the gate’ to prevent bad laws getting into the Parliament – someone who will ‘sound the alarm’ when dodgy legislation is presented to the parliament.

If Parliament House were a night club, they’d have a bouncer on the door only admitting those who would add value! Undesirables would be turned away.

As a former Senator, I know how to stand up to destructive policies and how to stop laws that drive up costs, disrupt society and make life harder for everyday Australians.

Walk …. Get Fit …. Go Letterboxing ….!

As we often say, it’s one thing to have an opinion – it’s a very different thing to support a cause.

With summer approaching, what better time to get fit, go for a walk …. and do some letterboxing!

Can you do some letterboxing in your area? As few or as many letterboxes as you like would be just fine.

Note: Political material is not junk mail. It is defined and protected by legislation as political communication.

If you would like to do some letterboxing, please let us know here (choosing ‘Admin’ as the recipient).

Thank you for your support.