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The Wrap with Hayden Starr

For the last five years I’ve worked behind the scenes, helping communicate the Australia Institute’s research online and on social media, including writing and editing this newsletter. As my time with the Australia Institute comes to an end, it’s my pleasure to write The Wrap for my last newsletter with you.

It takes a lot to change someone’s mind. It takes a lot to change a country. Even more so when you are up against the very well-resourced and very powerful misinformation machines that serve to defend and consolidate power, wealth, and the status quo.

There are few better examples than that of the fossil fuel industry. Greenwashing gas, overinflating economic benefits, spreading lies about renewable energy, all while digging new coal mines and gas wells and paying a pittance (or nothing) in tax.

“Australia is one of the biggest gas exporters in the world.

“Yet when gas prices go up, it’s Australians that feel poor.”

‘Making the Good Society’ is a video series from the Broadbent Institute and Perspectives Journal that asks progressive leaders and thinkers about their vision for a good society that is humane, just, and democratic.

In this episode, Lee Caprio of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 353 explains how unions build sustainable careers—not just jobs—for thousands of workers. IBEW’s “learn as you earn” apprenticeship model ensures safety and skills training, while initiatives like the Pathways and Hammer Heads programs open doors for more women, Indigenous, racialized and newcomer workers to enter the trades.

The American Mind’s ‘Editorial Roundtable’ podcast is a weekly conversation with Ryan Williams, Spencer Klavan, and Mike Sabo devoted to uncovering the ideas and principles that drive American political life. Stream here or download from your favorite podcast host.

Nobelesse Oblige | The Roundtable Ep. 288

These claims have been dutifully repeated, but a close look at the university’s audited accounts tells a very different story.

To be clear, the numbers signed off by their auditor state that in 2024 ANU recorded a $90 million surplus and increased the value of its net assets.

So, how do you turn a $90 million surplus into a $142.5 million deficit?

Easy. You just exclude nearly a quarter of a billion dollars of revenue that the auditor thought should be included.

By excluding $232.4 million of revenue recognised by the independent auditor, the ANU was able to transform its healthy surplus in 2024 into a “underlying operating deficit.”

Sounds scary, right?

The auditors ticked off on one set of numbers, and the senior leadership waved another set at their staff, students and community in order to justify the spending cuts they want to make.

To be clear, according to the ANU’s audited financial results, it had $3.8 billion in net assets at the end of 2024, compared to $3.7 billion at the end of 2023.

The assassination of Charlie Kirk was not just evil, it was cowardly—and above all, dishonorable.

That an action might be dishonorable used to bother men, dissuading them from perpetrating such an act. When Themistocles was on the run from both the Spartan authorities and his own Athenian countrymen, he fled to the royal court of Molossia. Though Themistocles and King Admetus were mortal enemies, he supplicated his host. Themistocles said that if the king wished to take vengeance on him, honor demanded he should pick another time, when the two were on equal footing. With thoughts of honor swirling in his mind, the Molossian king protected his guest from his pursuers.

Honor codes are the most powerful restraint—much more powerful than state law—on those who are able and willing to use violent force. No wonder we see honor so highly prized among warrior castes and the political classes of healthy nations—knights, Spartiates, the admiralty, military aristocracies, and so on. A sense of honor not only curbs chaotic violence among the energetic, but it also channels that aggression toward productive ends, even toward excellence.

However, left-wing activists have spent at least the last generation demolishing the edifice of honor in the hearts of young men. We are now reaping the whirlwind.

Losing the Telos

Michael J. Fleming, Jonathan Palash-Mizner, and Or Shachar

Foreword: Stained Glass Woman remains on Substack because I, frankly, can’t afford any of the competing options that have even passable security. Because this newsletter is and will always be free and because of its size and traffic, functional hosting alternatives would cost into four digits.

On this episode of Dollars & Sense, Greg and Elinor discuss housing affordability, how so many of Australia’s biggest companies manage to pay zero (0) corporate tax, and how Trump made solving the tax problem that much harder.

Use the code ‘podcast’ to get 50% off tickets to the Australia Institute’s Revenue Summit. Discount available for Dollars & Sense listeners while stocks last.

Dead Centre: How political pragmatism is killing us by Richard Denniss is available now via the Australia Institute website.

This discussion was recorded on Thursday 9 October 2025.

Host: Greg Jericho, Chief Economist, the Australia Institute // @grogsgamut

Host: Elinor Johnston-Leek, Senior Content Producer, the Australia Institute // @elinorjohnstonleek

Show notes:

Adam Copeland and R. Jay Kahn

On this episode of Follow the Money, Matt Grudnoff and Ebony Bennett discuss the latest data from the Australian Taxation Office showing that 30 per cent of large corporations paid no company tax in 2023-24 – with the gas, coal, salmon and tech industries among the worst offenders.

Use the code ‘podcast’ to get 50% off tickets to the Australia Institute’s Revenue Summit. Discount available for Follow the Money listeners while stocks last.

Guest: Matt Grudnoff, Senior Economist, the Australia Institute // @mattgrudnoff

Host: Ebony Bennett, Deputy Director, the Australia Institute // @ebonybennett

Show notes:

New government data confirms gas exporters continue to pay no tax, the Australia Institute (October 2025)

Big gas is taking the piss, Follow the Money, the Australia Institute (April 2025)

Theme music: Pulse and Thrum; additional music by Blue Dot Sessions

This interview is also available on podcast platforms and Rumble.

Historian Rashid Khalidi, author of The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine, joins host Chris Hedges to detail the dwindling academic freedom in American universities and society at large as Donald Trump’s grip on free speech tightens.

Khalidi notes that while the conflation of anti-Zionism with antisemitism is an old tactic to stifle academic scrutiny of Israel, its current deployment is unprecedented. Today, professors are intimidated out of teaching about Israel and Palestine, entire Middle Eastern studies departments are threatened with receivership and federal funding is withheld from universities.

Loyalty can elevate or enslave. Placed in truth, it anchors. Placed in tribe, it distorts. Though I have known both, I abandoned the latter and embraced the former. That is why when I look at Ilhan Omar and Charlie Kirk, I see two distinct moral universes.

Charlie’s foundation was faith in Christ and country, in family and the free market. His faith was that America embodies true freedom and dignity because our country was founded on biblical principles—principles that demand that power be checked and the weak be protected.

Ilhan Omar’s foundation rests on three pillars: clan, Islamism, and leftism. Each demands loyalty not to principle but to faction. Each reduces life to a struggle for dominance.

I know Omar’s world. It is a place without law, where men with swords and guns decide the fate of neighbors, where girls are cut to mark them as pure, where bribes stand in for justice. These are not random misfortunes, but the dynamics of the system Omar embodies. It incentivizes and rewards absolute and unchecked power—even at the expense of life, limb, and property.

The Trump Administration’s approach to the government shutdown is aimed above all at recovering the unitary executive as envisioned by the framers of the Constitution. Article II’s vesting clause, the epitome of “short and sweet,” empowers the president to control the executive branch, as Alexander Hamilton explained in Federalist 70. Though the administrative state steadily seized the chief executive’s power throughout the 20th century, President Trump seems determined to wrest it back by reasserting his authority over the executive agencies under his purview.

In preparing for the shutdown, each agency created contingency plans for operating during a lapse in appropriations. These are required by law and managed under guidance from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to ensure that essential government functions continue even when Congress fails to pass funding.

Each shutdown plan outlines an agency’s core mission, identifies which functions are critical, and lists how many employees will keep working and how many will be furloughed. It also explains how the agency will communicate with staff, why certain programs are allowed to continue, and how operations will restart once funding is restored.

Update at 7:30 CST: There are now over 50 questions, so I’ve got to shut comments down to keep the Q & A at a reasonable length. Themes addressed by multiple people will get top priority. I hope to have the new article up by the end of the week. Thank you very much everyone!

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Hello subscribers (and future subscribers!) It’s time for a Q & A. For those new to this feature, here’s how it works:

1) To ask a question, join as a paying subscriber, and post your question in the comments section below:

2) I will answer as many questions as I can in a separate article. Sometimes I bundle questions to address common themes. Please keep questions brief and ask only one!