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not even a spicy meme........

Last week, a friend asked if I was worried about Chinese “nuclear threats".

I asked where he had heard that.

He showed me his phone.

“WE OPPOSE: CHINA ISSUES NUKE WARNING AFTER AUSTRALIA-US DEAL.”

 

Fred Zhang

The ABC and News Corp finally agree on something: China panic

 

Courtesy of News Corp. This time, the story was that China issued a “nuke warning” – because Anthony Albanese smiled a little too warmly at Donald Trump. Armageddon, apparently, was just around the corner.

But read past the ads and celebrity gossip, and you’ll find the real source: a bland Chinese statement reiterating opposition to nuclear proliferation. No missiles. No threats. Not even a spicy meme. Yet somehow, all those upper case letters make it feel like Canberra was about to get a call from the Pentagon.

We’ve seen the formula: take a dry statement, insert the word “warning”, sprinkle in “nuclear”, then hit caps lock.

News Corp knows exactly what it’s doing: junk-food storytelling, always ready to serve – fast, addictive, hollow. You know the menu: spy ships “lurking”, balloons “probing”, apps “harvesting”, EVs “spying”, Chinese Australians “betraying”.

It’s all fear, all the time. Because fear sells. Complexity? That’s bad for business.

And when fear becomes the background hum, every policy sounds like a threat. Every trade hiccup looks like sabotage. A handshake in the Pacific sparks strategic panic. Statecraft collapses into pantomime.

You’d hope the ABC — our most trusted national broadcaster — might rise above that. Act as the adult in the room. But, it delivered its own performance:

“China’s economic slowdown has become its diplomatic weapon in the Pacific.”

A clever headline – and classic Cold War theatre.

The argument? That China, facing domestic headwinds, is exporting overcapacity – not through job losses or capital flight, but via bridges and ports. Infrastructure as aggression. Punctuality as provocation. The Belt and Road, not as development, but disguise.

“China moves faster, demands less,” the piece warns – as if that’s suspicious in itself.

What’s next – on-time delivery as a threat to national security?

Build a port? Power play. Deliver a tunnel borer? Supply-chain trap. Hire local workers? Political rehearsal.

And to cap it off, we are told China offers “deliverables”, while the West brings “values”. A noble contrast – if you ignore the red tape, the PowerPoints, and the 24-month timeline to approval. Meanwhile, Pacific nations still need hospitals and bridges.

Which leads to the glaring omission: their voices. No proper quote from Pacific ministers. No local communities. No development experts. Just one long monologue. No inquiry. No dialogue.

And that’s the heart of the problem: two megaphones, no ears. One shouting for headlines. One preaching virtue. Both locked on the same assumption – that China is the whole story and everyone else just background noise.

Here’s where it gets absurd: our most trusted public broadcaster and our biggest media empire have both reduced the biggest geopolitical shift of our time into a B-grade thriller.

The costs aren’t just editorial. They’re strategic. The public gets jumpy. Diplomacy shrinks. Trade and aid start looking like zero-sum contests. Our neighbours begin to wonder whether we’re here to collaborate – or just to scold.

When Vanuatu’s internal affairs minister publicly told Australia to “respect” its policing deal with China last month, the subtext was clear: we’d become the hectoring voice they tune out.

Meanwhile, after months of careful negotiations with Beijing and Pacific capitals, our diplomats risk sounding like the loudest guy at the table – lecturing everyone on etiquette while knocking over the wine.

And the deeper danger? We lose the ability to operate in ambiguity – the murky, uncomfortable space where real diplomacy actually happens. Where interests clash, deals get struck and influence is built.

Beijing isn’t outplaying us. We’re tripping over our own feet.

And the fix isn’t more volume – it’s better vision. You don’t sharpen national preparedness by performing toughness on the news. You do it by actually understanding your rival. Balanced reporting isn’t a luxury. It’s how you defend sovereignty without beating your chest.

This is where the ABC should lead – not with the China hawks’ script or right-wing media’s hysteria, but with the questions that matter:

What does China want? What do we want? Where do those interests align – and where don’t they?

These aren’t hard questions. Yet no one can answer them properly when you are too busy shouting.

So let’s turn off the megaphones and turn on our ears.

Australians and our Pacific friends are watching – and some of them are already changing the channel.

https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/10/the-abc-and-news-corp-finally-agree-on-something-china-panic/

 

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT — SINCE 2005.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

news sponsors...

More than a quarter of the National Press Club’s sponsors are part of the global arms industry or working on its behalf. Michelle Fahy with the story.

The National Press Club of Australia lists 81 corporate sponsors on its website. Of those, ten are multinational weapons manufacturers or military services corporations, and another eleven provide services to the arms industry, including consultants KPMG, Accenture, Deloitte and EY.

They include the world’s two biggest weapons makers, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon (RTX); British giant BAE Systems; France’s largest weapons-maker, Thales; and US weapons corporation Leidos – all of which are in the global top 20.

BAE Systems, which is the largest contractor to the Department of Defence, received $2B from Australian taxpayers last year.

In 2023, those five corporations alone were responsible for almost a quarter of total weapons sales ($US973B) by the world’s top 100 weapons companies that year.

Last year, UN experts named Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems, RTX (Raytheon) and eight other multinationals in a statement, warning them that they risked being found in violation of international law for their continued supply of weapons, parts, components and ammunition to Israeli forces.

The experts called on the corporations to immediately end weapons transfers to Israel.

None has done so.

Another of the Club’s sponsors, Thales, is being investigated by four countries for widespread criminal activity in three separate corruption probes. In a fourth, long-running corruption case in South Africa, the country’s former president, Jacob Zuma, is now in court, alongside Thales, being tried on 16 charges of racketeering, fraud, corruption and money laundering in connection with arms deals his government did with Thales.

Global expert Andrew Feinstein has documented his extensive research into the arms industry. He told Undue Influence that wherever the arms trade operates, it “increases corruption and undermines democracy, good governance, transparency, and the rule of law, while, ironically, making us less safe”.

Undue Influence asked the Press Club’s CEO, Maurice Reilly, what written policies or guidelines were in place that addressed the suitability and selection of corporations proposing to become Press Club sponsors.

Mr Reilly responded: “The board are informed monthly about…proposals and have the right to refuse any application.”

National Press Club

The National Press Club, established by journalists in 1963, is an iconic Australian institution. It is best known for its weekly luncheon addresses, televised on the ABC, covering issues of national importance, after which the speaker is questioned by journalists.

The Club’s board has 10 directors led by Tom Connell, political host and reporter at Sky News, who was elected president in February following the resignation of the ABC’s Laura Tingle.

The other board members are current and former mainstream media journalists, as well as at least two board members have jobs that involve lobbying.

Long-term board member Steve Lewis works as a senior adviser for lobbying firm SEC Newgate, which itself is a Press Club sponsor and also has as clients the Press Club’s two largest sponsors: Westpac and Telstra. SEC Newgate has previously acted for several Press Club sponsors, including Serco (one of the arms industry multinationals listed below), BHP, Macquarie Bank, Tattarang, and Spirits & Cocktails Australia Inc.

Gemma Daley joined the board a year ago, having started with Ai Group as its head of media and government affairs four months earlier. Ms Daley had worked for Nationals’ leader David Littleproud, former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull and former treasurer Joe Hockey, and, before that, for media outlets the Financial Review and Bloomberg.

Ai Group has a significant defence focus and promotes itself as “the peak national representative body for the Australian defence industry”. The group has established a Defence Council and, in 2017, appointed a former assistant secretary of the Defence Department, Kate Louis, to lead it. The co-chairs of its Defence Council are senior arms industry executives. One of them, Paul Chase, is CEO of Leidos Australia, a Press Club sponsor.

Conflicts of interest

Undue Influence asked Ms Daley for comment on several aspects related to her position on the board, including whether she has had to declare any conflicts of interest to date. She responded: “Thanks for the inquiry. I have forwarded this through to Maurice Reilly. Have a good day.”

Given the potential for conflicts of interest to arise, as happens on any board, Undue Influence had already asked the Press Club CEO what written policies or guidelines existed to ensure the appropriate management of conflicts of interest by board members and staff. Mr Reilly responded:

“The Club has a directors’ conflict register which is updated when required. Each meeting, board members and management are asked if they have conflicts of interest with the meeting agenda. We have a standard corporate practice that where a director has a conflict on an agenda item they excuse themselves from the meeting and take no [part] in any discussion or any decision.”

MWM is neither alleging nor implying inappropriate or illegal behaviour by anyone named in this article.

https://michaelwest.com.au/weaponising-media-national-press-club-and-its-arms-industry-sponsors/

 

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT — SINCE 2005.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.