Lucy Hamilton 😵‍💫 @lucyham

"A man with a family, a person who loves this country, and an individual who represented the essence of the Australian spirit — of who we thought we are — is no longer caged in." My latest on McBride release: 'David McBride goes home' #auspol open.substack.com/pub/joeljenkin…

2/ 🔴Because the interesting question is what happens over decades when governments inherit, extend and then try to mitigate the consequences of these public-private infrastructure arrangements. And that brings us back to 2026. 🔴Victorian motorists are hurting from cost-of-living pressures. Tolls are expensive. So what does the Coalition propose? 🔴Not reducing what the private operator receives. Not ending the private concession. Not forcing the commercial toll itself down to $50. 🔴Instead, let the private toll system continue operating and use public money to reimburse eligible motorists above the proposed weekly threshold. Estimated taxpayer cost: $180 MILLION over two years. You really couldn’t make this stuff up. 🔴A private toll-road model established under a Coalition government. 🔴A concession subsequently extended under a Labor government as part of financing a huge new infrastructure project. 🔴And now a Coalition proposing that taxpayers spend millions cushioning motorists from some of the cost of using those privately operated roads. After decades of sermons about the sanctity of markets and the horrors of #Socialism, apparently we’ve discovered a new economic philosophy: 🔴PRIVATISE THE INFRASTRUCTURE. PRESERVE THE PRIVATE REVENUE. SOCIALISE SOME OF THE COST. #Socialism, apparently, isn’t always so frightening. It may simply depend upon who’s getting the cheque. 🔴And that is why I’ve reopened my old #IPAexposed archive. To be clear, I’m not claiming that the IPA devised the Victorian Coalition’s 2026 toll policy. 🔴I’m doing something much simpler. I’m putting an original 2000 IPA document beside the history of Victorian toll-road policy and a 2026 Victorian election announcement. Then I’m following the policy through time. 🔴Original documents. Original policies. Follow the people. Follow the organisations. Follow the ideas. See where they end up. Because sometimes the most interesting political stories aren’t found in today’s press release. They’re sitting quietly in a document somebody published 25 years ago. 🔴One bite of the elephant at a time. #IPAexposed #VicPol #VicVotes2026

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🔴PRIVATISE THE INFRASTRUCTURE. SOCIALISE THE COST? 🔴Sometimes you go digging through a 25-year-old archive and the timing is almost too perfect. 🔴The Victorian Coalition has announced that, if elected, it will introduce a $50-a-week toll cap for eligible Victorian motorists. Sounds pretty good. Except the #tolls themselves aren’t actually being capped. 🔴The private toll-road operators don’t stop charging once you reach $50. Motorists continue paying the normal tolls. Eligible motorists who spend more than $50 in a week would then claim the excess back from the Victorian Government. And where does the Government get that money? From us. The #taxpayer. 🔴The Coalition estimates the scheme will cost the Victorian budget around $180 MILLION over two years. Well, well, well. #socialism rears its ugly head. 🔴For decades we’ve been lectured about the virtues of free markets, private enterprise, small government and individual responsibility. The Institute of Public Affairs #TheIPA has been particularly enthusiastic about those ideas. #socialism? Good heavens. Wash your mouth out. 🔴Government interfering in markets? Public money cushioning the cost of privately operated infrastructure? Perish the thought. 🔴Except apparently there are occasions when #socialism can be made rather more presentable. Perhaps all it needed was a Coalition election policy. 🔴Because the proposed arrangement is rather remarkable: #Privatise the infrastructure. Preserve the private revenue. Socialise some of the cost. 🔴Who knew #socialism could scrub up so nicely? But here’s where my old #IPAexposed archive makes this story considerably more interesting. 🔴The modern Melbourne CityLink private toll-road arrangement was established under Jeff #Kennett’s Liberal–National Coalition Government in the 1990s. CityLink subsequently opened around the turn of the century. 🔴Then, in December 2000, the IPA Review published an article entitled: “Commercializing Highways.” 🔴This wasn’t merely an argument for putting a temporary toll on a new road until its construction costs had been recovered. 🔴The article envisaged continued expansion of privately concessioned toll projects. It discussed eventually turning existing highways over for rebuilding and modernisation as toll roads, and ultimately envisaged major roads operating as investor-owned road utilities. And guess which Australian project appeared in the discussion? 🔴Melbourne CityLink. 🔴Funny how interesting a 25-year-old document can become when you open it at precisely the right moment. But the story doesn’t stop there. 🔴Transurban’s original CityLink concession was due to expire in 2035. 🔴Under the Andrews Labor Government, as part of the financing arrangements for the enormous West Gate Tunnel project, the CityLink tolling concession was extended another TEN YEARS — until 2045. And this is where I want to add some context rather than simply turn this into another Labor-versus-Liberal argument. 🔴I understand why Labor made that decision. 🔴The Andrews Government embarked on an extraordinary infrastructure program across Melbourne and Victoria. These projects cost enormous amounts of money, and governments have to find ways of funding them. People can — and do — argue about whether individual projects were worth their cost and whether particular financing arrangements were wise. 🔴But friends of mine who live in Melbourne also tell me how transformative some of those infrastructure changes have been for their everyday lives. They’re relieved and delighted by improvements that came from governments being prepared to undertake large and sometimes politically difficult projects. 🔴So I’m not pretending the decision to extend the CityLink concession occurred in a vacuum. Nor am I giving Labor a free pass. 🔴#VicPol 🔴#Auspol 🔴#IPAexposed

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@mel_wright123 But also, he’s been on the very well subsidised gravy train with pro-Israel US money since at least 2009. Lots of grift in her business model.

This is more interesting than Aaron observes. This puts Hanson squarely in the pro-Israel Islamophobia network with “Tommy Robinson.” Rebel’s Ezra Levant trained Robinson away from broad bigotry to pro-Israel bigotry pre 2009 before JDL founded his EDL. #Auspol

Aaron Smith @aaronsmith

2 weeks ago

Fucking extraordinary. Pauline 'Trump Media Banning' Hanson has come to Vic. The parting shot 'we have Rebel News, I'm happy with them' - a pretend news outlet fronted by a man found guilty of unlawful assault after throwing a chopping board at his wife.

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@Simon_Nixon Hi Simon. I read this at Byline this morning. Any clues you’re able to share regarding which think tanks are involved? I’m undertaking doctoral research on them and the Islamophobia generation is part of my remit.

I was alerted to this by @toiletpaperaus1. One Nation’s newest Vic candidate says she’s proud the party secured a WA pilot program to reduce reliance on 457 visas. A useful achievement, given the last 457 visa was granted in 2018. So wtf is going on here? A🧵 1/

Ignore the clickbait title and watch the evidence ^ youtu.be/QkhbsR4yiS0?si…

@clare_mcivor Congratulations!! 🏆🏆🏆

An absolute thrill to see this report tabled - a legitimate framework where we can stop cult abuse and recognise that it’s not about belief. It’s about group-based coercive control. To be involved in writing a paper that is quoted so heavily in the recommendations is 🤯

Fairness-in-Religions-in-School @secularschools

3 weeks ago

Aspects of the recommendations of the Victorian inquiry into cults could well apply to groups associated with SRE in NSW public schools #nswpol #auspol abc.net.au/news/2026-07-2…

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@hardenuppete @DHughesy @aaronsmith Grifter

Thank you, Dave. I appreciate you reaching out to ask what you got wrong. The clip we’re discussing is less than 90 seconds long. What I’m about to do demonstrates Brandolini's Law: where the amount of energy required to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude greater than that required to produce it. Or, in this case, it takes around 600 words to correct 90 seconds of your economic fan fiction. 1⃣ Between 0 and 30 seconds You begin by confusing government debt with the Future Fund and appear to suggest that the Future Fund can't exist along side Govt debt. They’re different things. One can exist without the other, and in Australia they do. Australia's Future Fund was established in 2006 with an initial govt investment of about $60B. Its first annual report, in 2008, showed assets of around $64 billion - not the $100B you suggested. Then, at around 27 seconds, you talk about the Future Fund as though it ceased to exist (you used the word 'had' as in past tense). It still very much exists Dave. In fact, it's grown every single year since it was created. Today it's worth around $270 billion, or over $330 billion once the other funds under management are included (eg Medical Research / Housing Australia / Drought). So before we're even 30 seconds into the clip you've managed to confuse government debt, the Future Fund, its size, and whether it still exists. That’s a lot of economic history to get wrong in under 30 seconds. 2⃣ Around 32 seconds You then claim Kevin Rudd used the Future Fund to "flush money through the economy". Again, that’s simply false. The Future Fund wasn't used to fund the stimulus. It wasn't used to build school halls. It wasn’t used for any of the things you’re describing. In your defence, you do briefly flirt with the possibility that you don’t actually know what you’re talking about. Sadly, it was a very short-lived relationship. The GFC stimulus was funded through government borrowing. For context, construction approvals were collapsing, more than a million Australians worked in construction, and the objective was to stop unemployment exploding during the worst global financial crisis in generations. You're welcome to argue that was the wrong policy (but you didn't). You’re not entitled to rewrite where the money came from. 3⃣ At about 44 seconds You say, "I might be wrong". I concede you were correct during this part of the video. 4⃣ From 44 seconds onwards You make a series of broad claims about the GFC response. Yes, government debt increased. That's true. What you omit is that Australia's stimulus largely went directly to households rather than primarily rescuing financial institutions, as happened in many other countries. The aim was simple: keep people spending, businesses operating and Australians employed while global demand collapsed. It's known as counter-cyclical fiscal policy. Whether you agree with it politically is your business. The specific outcome for Australia isn't contested though - Australia was one of only two economies in the OECD to avoid recession during the Global Financial Crisis. There's no reality where that wasn’t a comparatively impressive outcome. The money didn’t need to "trickle down". The entire point was that it started at the bottom. 5⃣ Government debt Throughout the clip (and in life generally) you repeatedly return to the theme Labor is responsible for Australia’s debt (which btw is comparatively low). Here are the actual numbers of net debt added by each Govt since 2007. > Rudd/Gillard: about $190 billion over six years. > Abbott/Turnbull/Morrison: about $366 billion over nine years, around two-thirds of which pre-dated COVID. > Albanese: about $75 billion over four years. Those figures don’t support the story you've been telling people. And that’s really the issue. This isn't about getting one date wrong or misremembering one statistic. Nearly every claim in your 90-second clip turns out to be either wrong or misleading. If you're going to publicly lecture Australians about economic history, the bare minimum expectation is that you’ve first acquainted yourself with it. Because once the errors have been pointed out, as they have been to you multiple times, every repetition stops looking like an accident and starts looking like a strategy. Given your very public coffee with Angus Taylor last week, perhaps people are entitled to ask what that strategy might be.

Dave Hughes’ understanding of the economy appears to be on par with his understanding of US entry requirements. x.com/MisinfoFact/st…

@clare_mcivor Sounds great 💜

Hoping to build this picture, so if you’re expert, constructive suggestions are welcomed. How did the US build this bizarre chimera of anarcho-capitalist economics merged with theocratic “Christianity”?

@clare_mcivor Not sure if that’s a personal plan or a suggestion. With the kids this Sunday for husband’s death day 😩 It’s a blah week visiting those Facebook post memories like stations of the cross. 😭

Solidarity with the AEU and all teachers striking for better pay and conditions today. You help educate our children and keep them safe. You deserve better.

Link to read: lucyham29.substack.com/p/how-did-free…

@bonnieallan72 @BrentHodgson Thank-you so much, Bonnie. 🙏