Stewart Sweeney's recent articles
25 October 2025
From proletariat to boxetariat: The new working class
When Holden shut its gates at Elizabeth in 2017, Australia lost more than a car factory. It lost a symbol of national self-belief that we could design, build and export complex, high-value goods from Australia.
17 October 2025
War without end, peace without justice
The Gaza war has become the most searing mirror of our century’s political and moral contradictions.
15 October 2025
Trump’s war for peace: How the Nobel became his battlefield
Donald Trump’s pursuit of the Nobel Peace Prize has been one of the most grotesque spectacles of the modern era – a man trying to win a peace prize by promoting war.
3 October 2025
Quantico’s verdict: The silence that stripped Trump bare
Donald Trump has always measured power by applause. Rallies, ratings, and ovations have been his fuel, the noise that kept the illusion of command alive. But at Quantico, facing the nation’s military brass, the noise stopped.
29 September 2025
Labor has a narrow window to effect change
Australia is a quarter of the way into the twenty-first century and stuck on a trajectory that cannot last.
28 September 2025
The world in 2050 is already here
Dr Mike Gilligan has reminded us that Australia’s defence and foreign policies are pulling in opposite directions: we preach “equilibrium” in the Pacific while binding ourselves ever more tightly to Washington’s war plans against China. His warning is timely, but we must go further.
27 September 2025
Gas is not a climate policy
South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas has thrown himself into a fight that is not his own.
20 September 2025
Why the planet now needs China
The World Bank’s Reboot Development report has belatedly confirmed what scientists have warned for decades: humanity is breaching the safe operating limits of the Earth.
18 September 2025
Starmer’s collapse and the rebirth of a movement
In British politics, collapses come slowly and then all at once. Sir Keir Starmer, elected on the promise of competence after the chaos of Johnson, Truss and Sunak, has now seen his credibility unravel in record time.
12 September 2025
The retreat of social democracy and the rise of the hard right
From Warsaw to Melbourne, from Berlin to Texas, the streets of many OECD countries are witnessing anti-immigration rallies and the surge of far-right populism.
23 August 2025
Still talkin’ ’bout My Generation
The first time I heard The Who’s My Generation, I was a teenager and it sounded like a punch in the face.
6 August 2025
Bringing government back – but not all the way
The Albanese Government wants Australians to believe that the era of market dogma is over.
24 July 2025
Will Labor take Australia further from the global core?
As Anthony Albanese opens a new term and Treasurer Jim Chalmers signals a renewed focus on “abundance,” Australia stands at a pivotal juncture. Will Labor seize the opportunity to lead the nation into a high-value, sovereign economic future—or simply double down on the market-led path that has kept us stranded in the semiperiphery?
19 July 2025
Slaying the juggernauts
Barbara Preston’s recent reflection on Australia’s school funding system offers a quietly devastating insight into the paradox of public education reform.
18 July 2025
Even Ken Henry’s best ideas can’t fix a system addicted to growth
“Growth for growth’s sake is the ideology of the cancer cell.” – Edward Abbey
8 July 2025
Boomers bashing again: Change the rules
A departing editor-at-large from The Australian Financial Review, off to head the IPA, warns of an “intergenerational tragedy” facing young Australians.
1 July 2025
Labor’s Left majority: A defining moment
The May 2025 election delivered something quietly historic. For the first time since the 1970s, the Labor Left faction holds a majority in caucus.
19 June 2025
Not yet born: America at the crossroads
On a threatening June evening, America’s army turned 250 and put on a show that revealed more than it intended.
16 June 2025
Australia's dependence on the US does not end with Trump
Malcolm Turnbull’s recent Foreign Affairs essay, America’s Allies Must Save Themselves, is a good intervention in the debate about Donald Trump’s impact on global order.
31 May 2025
Beyond the sensible centre: A critical reflection on political imagination in the 21st century
The “sensible centre” is the most overpopulated address in Australian politics today.
27 May 2025
Dee Madigan and the art of the possible: Branding progress or boxing it in?
In the pantheon of contemporary Australian political strategists, few have the profile — or the punch — of Dee Madigan.
26 May 2025
Australia’s billion-dollar blind spot
Australia now ranks seventh in the world for the number of publicly listed companies worth more than a billion US dollars.
23 May 2025
From campaign genius to nation-builder? Paul Erickson and Labor’s long game
Paul Erickson is a name rarely heard outside political circles, yet his influence runs deep.
22 May 2025
Factional comfort gazumps innovation courage
Sandy Plunkett’s lament in the Australian Financial Review (15/5) over Ed Husic’s sacking as federal industry minister captures a familiar truth: innovation ministries in Canberra are often burial grounds for political ambition. Husic’s fall may have been sealed by factional headwinds, but the deeper problem is that “innovation” in Australia is rarely allowed to mean what it should.
20 May 2025
After the victory: Kelty’s warning and why it’s still not enough
The Labor Party has just secured a resounding second-term mandate – defying forecasts, media pessimism and internal doubts.
19 May 2025
The vanishing elders of Australian politics
Australia is ageing. An estimated 14% of our population is now over the age of 70 – more than one in seven citizens.
17 May 2025
Still waiting for the Asian Century? The world-system has moved on
Dr Allan Patience’s recent essay, Australia’s misunderstanding of the Asian Century, is a wake-up call we can no longer afford to ignore.
13 May 2025
Productivity with purpose: Roy Green, structural reform and Australia’s place in the world
Roy Green’s recent article on productivity reform offers one of the most cogent and hopeful visions for Australia’s economic future.