As I write this review over the Australia Day long weekend, a few items from the national media stand out as exemplary reminders of how poorly Australians are being served by our political class. First, in an embarrassingly transparent nod to Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s juvenile Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Opposition Leader Peter Dutton appointed Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price to the new shadow ministry for government efficiency. Second, Dutton’s deputy Sussan Ley likened the First Fleet’s 1788 arrival in Australia to Musk’s delusional fantasies about occupying Mars. ‘Just like astronauts arriving on Mars,’ she told an Albury church congregation, ‘those first settlers would be confronted with a different and strange world, full of danger, adventure and potential.’ Around the globe, many are increasingly wary of the political trajectory of the United States in its current phase of advanced decadence, but for Australia’s alternative government, now is the time to cling to the sinking ship that is the American empire.
Australia: The politics of degraded democracy by William Maley
Australian Scholarly Publishing, $49.95 pb, 285 pp s
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