Sue Barrett - Onward We Press
@suebarrett.bsky.social
Every solution begins with a conversation. Building capability to get seats at tables where decisions are made & lead conversations that replace rigged systems with fair ones. Same skills build better everywhere. Follow me: https://suebarrett.substack.com/
Record Investments. Real Cuts. 2 governments, 2 claims of record investment in family violence & homelessness services. Both technically true. The catch is indexation. Read beyond the headline. 👇 Your Vote. Your Future. #auspol open.substack.com/pub/suebarre...
Record investment, real cuts.
BYV: How two state governments can both be telling the truth about "record investment", and still be leaving frontline services short.
open.substack.com
@theageaustralia.bsky.social gave Tim Wilson 5000 words. ✅ Winnie the Pooh ✅ Blue socks What didn't make the cut? The undisclosed shareholding. The OAIC inquiry. $108 million windfall. JSCEM testimony. Colour is not character. Charisma is not accountability. 🤔 open.substack.com/pub/suebarre...
The Addendum: What the Age's Tim Wilson Profile Left Out
The Age Gave Him Five Thousand Words, and Space for Winnie the Pooh and Blue Socks. The Record Deserved a Few Hundred More. Colour Is Not Character, and Charisma Is Not Accountability.
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"Pioneers don’t wait for the whole map before they walk. They walk, and the map gets truer with every step." Thanks for your inspirational writing, Sue. It makes taking this first step into my local electorate much easier. #Auspol
Sue Barrett - Onward We Press@suebarrett.bsky.social · 5d agoOne Nation is the wrong answer to the right question. 10 articles unpacking why. Article 11 turns it into something you can use. No reason to feel helpless. No reason to wait. You're part of what decides it. Onward we press. A Democracy Field Guide 👇 open.substack.com/pub/suebarre... #auspol
One Nation is the wrong answer to the right question. 10 articles unpacking why. Article 11 turns it into something you can use. No reason to feel helpless. No reason to wait. You're part of what decides it. Onward we press. A Democracy Field Guide 👇 open.substack.com/pub/suebarre... #auspol
A Democracy Field Guide: What A Better Answer Actually Looks Like
One Nation is the wrong answer to the right question. Part Eleven: not the argument, the frame around it. A guide for anyone ready to stop diagnosing and start doing something.
open.substack.com
Who stands for you? "Against a population of more than 27 million, that means well under half a per cent of Australians hold any formal say in what the two parties that have governed this country for generations actually stand for, or who gets to run for them." #Auspol
Sue Barrett - Onward We Press@suebarrett.bsky.social · 6d agoEvery MP represents their whole electorate. That's the promise. Here's the practice. What an MP can fight for inside Parliament is bounded by what their party has already cleared as acceptable. Every constituent gets a hearing. Not every issue gets acted on. open.substack.com/pub/suebarre...
This is a phenomenal article - succinct & cogent.
Sue Barrett - Onward We Press@suebarrett.bsky.social · 6d agoEvery MP represents their whole electorate. That's the promise. Here's the practice. What an MP can fight for inside Parliament is bounded by what their party has already cleared as acceptable. Every constituent gets a hearing. Not every issue gets acted on. open.substack.com/pub/suebarre...
Every MP represents their whole electorate. That's the promise. Here's the practice. What an MP can fight for inside Parliament is bounded by what their party has already cleared as acceptable. Every constituent gets a hearing. Not every issue gets acted on. open.substack.com/pub/suebarre...
Every party decides who it represents before you ever see a ballot. This is how.
BYV: Legally, your MP represents everyone in your electorate. In practice, what gets heard depends on what their party has already decided is acceptable.
open.substack.com
400 delegates debated & voted on VAD telehealth rules at Labor's national conference. Zero delegates voted on Ed Husic's #Gaza amendment. Not because it lost. Bc Maritime Union withdrew as seconder. Who decides what you get to vote on? Your Vote. Your Future. open.substack.com/pub/suebarre...
Federal Labor set its platform for the next election. Here's what made the floor, and what didn't.
BYV: One motion got a floor debate. Another never got a vote at all. Here's how Labor's conference actually decided what you'll hear about next.
open.substack.com
What if the reason nothing gets fixed isn't that we're picking the wrong side-it's that we keep trying to pick a side at all? Try Polarity Mgt: Most of what's broken isn't a problem with 1 answer. It's tension-like breathing-you have to hold both sides of, forever open.substack.com/pub/suebarre...
What A Country That Works For Everyone Could Actually Look Like
The policy platform and the philosophical foundation held together by a way of thinking that took a workshop this week to properly name. One Nation Is The Wrong Answer To The Right Question, Part Ten.
open.substack.com
Good news my article on Tuesday about the current approach to AI regulation is now on @johnmenadue.com too johnmenadue.com/post/2026/07...
Australia's new AI rules protect data centres, not citizens
The new national framework for AI is all about infrastructure. Where are the guardrails to protect citizens?
johnmenadue.com
Proposal. Plan. Law. Three different things, one word covers all of them: "announcement." Consultation sits inside all three, it is the mechanism, not a rung of its own. Only the last one is enforceable. Want your say? See below: 👇 Your Vote. Your Future. open.substack.com/pub/suebarre...
How to tell a proposal from a plan from a law
BYV: Every government announcement sits somewhere on a ladder. Most headlines do not tell you which rung, and that is how a promise ends up being treated as if it is already binding.
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In 2024, Govt proposed 10 guardrails to protect people from AI decisions, including the right to challenge one made about you. Dec 2025, those guardrails were shelved. Last week's new AI standards cover data centres/energy/water/copyright. They don't cover you. open.substack.com/pub/suebarre...
Data centres get new rules. The people affected by AI decisions are still waiting for theirs.
BYV: The new AI standards cover energy, water and copyright. The right to challenge an automated decision is not in them.
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More gold from @suebarrett.bsky.social "Who gets to keep what they earn, who gets priced out of a home, who pays their share and who doesn’t. It’s tilting hard toward a very small number of people, regardless of what culture anyone belongs to." #AUSpol #VICpol suebarrett.substack.com/p/what-my-88...
The real divide in this country was never cultural. It's economic. And the culture wars are the distraction built to keep it that way. So what can we do about it? Plenty. New piece, link below. 👇 Every solution begins with a conversation. open.substack.com/pub/suebarre... #auspol
What My 88-Year-Old Mother and My Gen Z Sons Actually Agree On
Common ground was never about sameness. It's about noticing which floor is actually cracking, and which one never was. Part Nine: One Nation Is The Wrong Answer To The Right Question.
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A royal commission can compel testimony under oath. Lying to it is a crime. But most scrutiny happens after it reports. The Royal Commission on Antisemitism & Social Cohesion is running now, reporting by Dec 2026. So what should you be watching for? open.substack.com/pub/suebarre... #auspol
What a royal commission can and cannot force to happen
BYV: Robodebt's royal commission finished in 2023; its most significant recommendations still aren't law. With another royal commission running right now, here's what that gap teaches us to watch for.
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When Jewish Australians disagree, whose evidence counts? A royal commission into antisemitism has heard sharply conflicting testimony from within the Jewish community itself in six weeks. Your Vote. Your Future. 👇 open.substack.com/pub/suebarre... #auspol
When Jewish Australians disagree, whose evidence counts?
BYV: A Federal Court has already found a broadcaster caved to an orchestrated lobbying campaign in this exact debate. Here is what that says about the witness list a royal commission is working from.
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I nearly didn't write this one. I caught myself grieving my ageing exterior & felt ashamed for it. Vain, I thought. Turns out it isn't vanity. It's a double standard I never agreed to, & a false split between body & spirit I'm done performing. 👇 open.substack.com/pub/suebarre...
Two Standards, One Body
There Is No Such Word as Can't: Why the grief I felt over my ageing exterior had nothing to do with vanity, and everything to do with a rule I never agreed to.
open.substack.com
That's why I love your writing, Sue. I always feel something similar. I'm very much a fan of highlighting the strengths and moral ambition of human nature and hope to do some work in this area in the near future. We are very much sympatico in our motivations, I think. Keep it up.
Brilliant piece on our real culture by Sue: "So the culture Australians actually live, the one they carry into their streets, workplaces, and friendships, remains stubbornly, quietly plural and fair minded ... What has stopped being maintained is the culture at the top, in Parliament ..." #Auspol
Sue Barrett - Onward We Press@suebarrett.bsky.social · 4w agoFor a few weeks, half the country stood in pubs, backyards & Federation Square, in every colour and background imaginable, and roared as one for the Socceroos. Nobody had to stop being who they were to be part of it. So what is culture? This week's article. 👇 open.substack.com/pub/suebarre...
Once again @suebarrett.bsky.social absolutely nails the problem we are facing in her latest Substack: "The Culture We Keep Forgetting We Already Have" Part 8 of "One Nation is the wrong answer to the right question" series. #AUSpol #VICpol #VoicesOfChisholm suebarrett.substack.com/p/the-cultur...
Thank you Sue Barrett, wonderful to read, this should be on the front page of all the newspapers instead of the rantings from divisive culture warriors like Tony Abbott.
Sue Barrett - Onward We Press@suebarrett.bsky.social · 4w agoFor a few weeks, half the country stood in pubs, backyards & Federation Square, in every colour and background imaginable, and roared as one for the Socceroos. Nobody had to stop being who they were to be part of it. So what is culture? This week's article. 👇 open.substack.com/pub/suebarre...
For a few weeks, half the country stood in pubs, backyards & Federation Square, in every colour and background imaginable, and roared as one for the Socceroos. Nobody had to stop being who they were to be part of it. So what is culture? This week's article. 👇 open.substack.com/pub/suebarre...
The Culture We Keep Forgetting We Already Have
One Nation is the wrong answer to the right question. Part 8: The wake-up call we didn't choose, but needed: sometimes it takes the wrong answer to make us finally find the correct one.
open.substack.com
A gambling ad complaint doesn't go straight to the regulator. You complain to the broadcaster first, deadlines vary: 30 days commercial TV/radio, 30 days SBS, 90 days ABC. Only then does ACMA step in. An SBS breach finding turned on a single line in one ad. #auspol open.substack.com/pub/suebarre...
How to make a regulator actually enforce the rules
BYV: A single complaint about one advertisement produced a formal finding against a national broadcaster. Here is how that process actually works, and how to use it yourself.
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The AUS Govt promised the strongest gambling reform in history. The World Cup tested what enforcement actually looks like. We apply the 5 Questions. Your Vote. Your Future. You know what to do. 👇 open.substack.com/pub/suebarre...
The government promised the strongest gambling reform in history. The World Cup tested what enforcement actually looks like.
BYV: A regulator found a broadcaster broke the gambling ad rules weeks before hosting the biggest audience event of the year. Here is what that says about the promise made last week.
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How to choose good leaders. Amen "The most immediate test of this framework is Community Strong Australia’s launch. Its draft constitution builds no leader until ten MPs join, and members keep a free vote on everything except supply and confidence." #Auspol suebarrett.substack.com/p/the-good-l...
The Good Leaders Didn't Leave. We Stopped Choosing Them. Here’s Why – and How We Fix It.
One Nation is the wrong answer to the right question. Part 7: The difference between a leader, a despot, a puppet, a manager & an ideologue - and why only one of the five is worth following anywhere.
suebarrett.substack.com
Leader. Despot. Puppet. Manager. Ideologue. Only 1 is worth following. Egalitarian societies built mechanisms to keep the wrong people out of power. We let ours lapse. Stop asking whether someone's inspiring. Start asking if their system holds up & who it serves. 👇 open.substack.com/pub/suebarre...
The Good Leaders Didn't Leave. We Stopped Choosing Them. Here’s Why – and How We Fix It.
One Nation is the wrong answer to the right question. Part 7: The difference between a leader, a despot, a puppet, a manager & an ideologue - and why only one of the five is worth following anywhere.
open.substack.com
Invaluable information in this fab article👏
Sue Barrett - Onward We Press@suebarrett.bsky.social · last mo.Most people don't know they can make a submission to a parliamentary committee, request gov docs or track exactly how their MP voted. These tools are free to every citizen. This week a committee recommended exactly what ordinary people told it to. Friday's piece 👇 open.substack.com/pub/suebarre...
Most people don't know they can make a submission to a parliamentary committee, request gov docs or track exactly how their MP voted. These tools are free to every citizen. This week a committee recommended exactly what ordinary people told it to. Friday's piece 👇 open.substack.com/pub/suebarre...
How to hold power to account between elections
BYV: An election is the tool everyone talks about. It is also the one you use least often. Here are the accountability tools that exist between elections, who they belong to, and how to pick them up.
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Yay the slightly shorter version of my article about Community Strong Australia was published in Pearls and Irritations johnmenadue.com/post/2026/06...
A party of independents is not a contradiction
The launch of Community Strong Australia was a strategic move to position independents so they can offer a positive alternative to the two-party system.
johnmenadue.com