Culture wars, lazy discourse: What a depressing month this week has been

A democracy is only ever as strong as its institutions and people’s trust in it.

And yet, just this month, we have had Jewish people denied leave to appear in front of the royal commission into antisemitism, where they wished to speak on their experiences of antisemitism, as critics of Israel.

No one can really explain why.

Just this week, it became known that the Attorney-General’s Department had delayed the return of FOI documents so they wouldn’t be in the public domain ahead of a Senate estimates hearing last year.

Again, no one can say why.

The antisemitism envoy, Jillian Segal, hired the company run by Scott Morrison’s former principal adviser, Yaron Finkelstein on a $200,000 taxpayer-funded contract, without a public tender process.

For that, there was an answer: “Their knowledge of the Jewish community and the specialist nature of the work that they needed to do were part of the justifications for this procurement,” Home Affairs official Charlotte Tressler told a Senate estimates hearing.

Northern Territory police announced no charges would laid in the death of 24-year-old Kumanjayi White. The Warlpiri man died while being restrained by two police officers in the confectionery aisle of a Coles supermarket. There’s still no official cause of death known, but also no “reasonable prospects of conviction”, so case closed it seems.

The news director of the public broadcaster suddenly resigned this week, while the managing director admitted he had been “scouting informally” for his replacement, announcing a new news boss shortly after his own Senate estimates hearing, where the news of the appointment had already been leaked to the media.

Again, we’re not to know the whys, or hows, of how one of the most important roles in shaping the nation’s story had come to be so quickly vacated, or how it came to be that someone was being hired for the role while it was still filled.

That’s all just this month. Most of it, this week.

At the same time, we had the official opposition ask questions around why Israel was not awarded any points from the Australian public, or the seven-person jury appointed by broadcaster SBS at Eurovision, fail to pull off a chamber stunt because its members publicly displayed their plan ahead of time and embarrass itself in an attempt to hijack a parliamentary debate because apparently no one in the Coalition understands standing orders. It also had its minor partner demand the government call an early election, which on current polling numbers, would wipe it out. This was needed, the Nationals claimed, because “democracy was in distress”. Not for any of the actual, substantial issues, but because the Coalition doesn’t agree with the government’s tax changes.

Meanwhile, the greatest challenger to the major parties, Pauline Hanson, posted photos of herself enjoying cake with Clive Palmer for her birthday, nowhere near parliament; the teal independents spent the week talking about whether or not they should form a political party themselves, and the Greens tried to cut through but found no traction.

Look who’s come to visit me on my birthday, bearing gifts!

I really appreciate the gesture. pic.twitter.com/LYiBtx434m

— Pauline Hanson 🇦🇺 (@PaulineHansonOz) May 27, 2026

Angus Taylor’s biggest hit came after seemingly calling Anthony Albanese an “arrogant prick” in question time, a remark the Speaker didn’t hear but several MPs did. He was made to withdraw, after Albanese rightly pointed out that most Coalition MPs were on track to being voted out.

Who, in their right minds, would feel inspired by any of that? At this point, people might just take settled. Or maybe even vaguely amused. What it is, is depressing.

This same week, the government debated its NDIS legislation, which in its own explanatory notes laid out just how brutal some of these changes will be for people:

Nykolai is 14 years old and lives with his parents and two younger siblings. Nykolai was diagnosed with cerebral palsy when he was 18 months old and became an NDIS participant due to his physical impairment related to cerebral palsy.

Nykolai was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder one year ago and is undertaking a plan reassessment for an old framework plan. Nykolai’s parents have requested support to assist with Nykolai’s support needs related to the ADHD as they are struggling to manage some behaviours associated with ADHD, which are impacting on their other children and also causing issues for Nykolai at school.

When the NDIS planner is considering the reasonable and necessary supports for Nykolai, they cannot consider support needs related to ADHD as this impairment does not meet the disability requirements or early intervention requirements for access to the NDIS. The reasonable and necessary supports are developed to cover Nykolai’s support needs related to his physical impairment only.

There was crickets from the Coalition on that. Mostly because it agrees with the changes.

There was no examination of Labor’s “reforms” to JobSeeker – again, because the Coalition agrees with not paying jobseekers a liveable wage, while continuing the punitive mutual obligations system.

The Coalition agrees with what most of what Labor is doing – it just draws the line at taxing wealth even just a tiny bit more.

So here we are. There is plenty to push Labor with, and instead we have overwrought, sky-is-falling discourse about structural tax changes, and culture wars. What we don’t have is any indication that any of this will change and all the cuts that are slowly eroding people’s faith in democracy will be treated.

And meanwhile, Hanson is eating cake.

Amy Remeikis is a contributing editor for The New Daily and chief political analyst for The Australia Institute

This article was first published on The New Daily.