Labor True Believers, Political Analysis and Satire

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WORLD NEWS

Trump imposes new tariffs

President Donald Trump is going ahead with new double-digit tariffs on dozens of U.S. trading partners just as the clock runs out Friday on stopgap levies he imposed after a stinging defeat at the Supreme Court.
What to know:

The United States will slap taxes of 10% to 12.5% on imports from 60 trading partners accounting for 99% of U.S. imports, charging that they have inadequately enforced bans on goods produced by forced labor. The new tariffs will take effect just as temporary 10% worldwide tariffs expire Friday. Trump had turned to those temporary levies after the Supreme Court struck down his biggest and boldest tariffs in February.

WORLD NEWS

Laura Loomer meets Zelenskyy in Ukraine after her major reversal on the war

The ardent ally of President Donald Trump, with a reputation for incendiary social media commentary, sat down with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Thursday.

Why this matters:

It was a stunning reversal for a woman who had spent years criticizing U.S. support for Ukraine's defense. Loomer had minimized Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and amplified Russian propaganda to her nearly 2 million followers.

Trump gave his stamp of approval on social media. “Very good!!!” he wrote on Thursday evening. It was unclear what had prompted Loomer's trip or how she had arranged the meeting with Zelenskyy. Loomer and the White House did not respond to requests for comment on the trip. “It is really important that is in Ukraine and sees things with her own eyes as they are,” Zelenskyy’s office wrote.

POLITICS

Nearly 150,000 mail ballots rejected in California primary despite efforts to count every vote

According to state data, 1.73% of all mail ballots were rejected in the June election. It's a spike from recent elections even as the state attempts to make voting easier with the goal of boosting participation and counting every ballot

What to know:

California has become notorious for its ponderously slow vote counts that can drag on for weeks and sometimes longer, largely the result of multiple changes over the years that were intended to increase turnout but have done little to achieve that. Among the changes: Every voter receives a mail-in ballot that can arrive at an election office seven days late and still be counted, provided the envelope is postmarked by Election Day.

Yet even with that generous week-long window, the primary driver of the higher rejection numbers is late-arriving ballots, according to data compiled by the secretary of state’s office. Voting experts suspect the main problem is postmarks on ballots that came after Election Day, making them ineligible to be counted. The culprit could be U.S. Postal Service changes that might affect the timing of when postmarks are applied.

Send a message to learn more

The fight to end the US military occupation of Australia (and the entire world)

(By Dave Milner, The Shot)

For 64 years – an insignificant speck of time under a sky this large – from a stolen, sacred site of the Arrernte people called Kuyunba, the American military base Pine Gap gathers data that is used to subjugate millions of innocent, ordinary people across this world.

Read here: https://theshot.net.au/uncategorized/the-fight-to-end-the-us-military-occupation-of-australia-and-the-entire-world/

MORE TROUBLE FOR OUT OF TOUCH QUEENSLAND LNP

Queensland police take four hours to reach life-threatening domestic violence call-out

Queensland police took over four hours to reach a life-threatening domestic and family violence (DFV) call-out in May.

Statistics revealed in budget estimates found it took almost 16 days on one occasion in March to respond to an urgent DFV call-out involving injury or an imminent threat.

In May, the average call-out time for police to respond to a priority one DFV matter involving a threat to life was 42 minutes.

The data dated back to January 2024, with the average priority one response time dropping as low as six minutes, including for the latest figures in June.

Responding to the more than four-hour response incident, Acting Police Commissioner Brett Pointing said the figures provided no context.

"In normal circumstances, you respond to a code one as fast as you can," he told budget estimates.

"That is the only figure in the whole table that's high, and it's impossible to comment on it unless you are able to talk to the officers who are involved.

"From January [20]24, code one, they're all, I think very, very impressive responses, that particular event would have a particular story to it."

From January 2024 to 30 June 2026, there were almost 440,000 total call-outs for DFV assistance in Queensland.

Police union president Shane Prior said resourcing had not kept up with demand.

"Police officers in Queensland never want to see a situation where a code one domestic and family violence job, which is clearly urgent, has to wait for hours after service," he said.

"Police are bogged down, we can no longer continue and allow this to be the norm, because we're going to see more and more of this, and I fear that more people are going to die unless there are more urgent reforms."

He said police were on average spending three to six hours at a DFV job, often due to red tape.
Calls for help going unanswered for weeks

The average time to reach an urgent priority two call, defined as involving an imminent or present threat of injury, peaked this year in February at 48 minutes.

In that same month, the longest time to reach a DFV call-out was more than 11 days.

Mr Pointing again defended the work of police when questioned by the opposition.

"The circumstances of every case are different. It could be a thousand different hypothetical scenarios why police couldn't attend," he said.

FU as Trump gives Australia the Middle Finger

Trump tariffs bring more uncertainty to Australia's shores

Businesses say a new tariff on Australian exports to the United States will make it harder to compete and could reduce investment.

The Trump administration has confirmed a 12.5 per cent tariff has been imposed on Australian exports to the US, which it says is due to Australia's failure to enforce laws banning goods made by forced labour.

A temporary 10 per cent "global tariff" on the US's trading partners has now expired. That replaced the "liberation day" tariff regime, announced last year, which was scuppered earlier this year by the US Supreme Court.

Legal analysts suspect this approach, applying a fee imposed on foreign countries that engage in unreasonable trade practices, will be more enduring.

The US is Australia's largest two-way investment partner, with total investment exceeding $2 trillion.

"It's just another punch to roll with, to be honest," said swimwear retailer Tom Wilson.

The founder of Nashie told the ABC the rollercoaster of fees for exporting goods to the US made business more difficult.

"Changing prices is a really big deal," he said.

Australian businesses are worried.

Jeffrey Grosset is the owner and founder of Grosset Wines in the Clare Valley, South Australia.

He told the ABC's Isabella Kelly that the local wine industry will lose its presence in the massive US market.

"If America decides to become more isolationist, which it appears to be doing through this … then regrettably, it might hurt American consumers because they don't get to see us, but it will hurt us more. That's the reality," he said.

Trade Minister Don Farrell says Australia is disappointed in the US's decision to raise tariffs on Australia's exports.

Speaking at a press conference in Adelaide, Mr Farrell says the tariffs are "completely unjustified".

He has defended Australia's anti-modern slavery regime, which he says is taken seriously.

"We continue to maintain that these tariffs are unjustified. Australia is a country that deals with the issue of modern slavery seriously," Mr Farrell said.

"And from my point of view, the government's point of view, we will continue to argue very strongly for the removal of these tariffs."

Defence Minister Richard Marles added that the federal government is arguing "very forcefully" against US tariffs on Australian goods.

The Business Council of Australia made submissions to the process that eventually determined the tariffs. Chief executive Bran Black said today he was disappointed by the decision, which was made for "no justifiable reason".

"The United States Trade Representative's finding rests on the narrow claim that Australia lacks a US-style ban on importing goods made with forced labour, despite our already strong Modern Slavery Act, and without identifying a single company, enforcement failure, or quantified trade impact," he said in a statement.

"The Business Council supports free and open trade, and we see no basis for these new tariffs.

"This decision will make it harder for Australian businesses to compete and sell their products into the US market, hurting investment and our jobs."

ustralia is not the only affected country. Tariffs of 10 and 12.5 per cent will be on imports from 59 other economies, which represent all of the US's major trading partners.

As the economics team at Westpac wrote in a note to investors, it probably does not change things. But the injection of uncertainty could slow the US economy.

"This measure replaces the temporary 10% tariff set to expire at 12:00am. As a result, it should have little-to-no net impact on US inflation or growth," Westpac wrote.

"That said, it maintains pressure on US households and businesses at a particularly inopportune time and so is a threat to sentiment."

That's something Thomas Foods International chief sales officer Jonathan Bayes sees happening.

The company sells meat and seafood globally and sees particular impact on Australian sheep meat exports.

"It's [prior tariffs] had a significant impact on the sheep meat in particular," he says.

"We've seen demand soften a little bit."

Mr Bayes expects the tariff cost to be passed onto American consumers.

"In uncertain economic terms in the US, people are watching their spend," he says.

"Ultimately it's going to have a major impact on the consumers and that it could lead to further softening given the US is such a large partner of our sheep meat trade."

source material from the ABC

Pauline Hanson Still Doesn't Understand How Parliament Works

Pauline Hanson now aged 72 has been sitting in the Australian Senate for nearly three decades, yet more often than not she manages to remind the nation that she still appears confused about what the Senate can actually do in the context of the workings of the Australian Parliament.

This week Hanson publicly challenged Opposition Leader Angus Taylor to join forces with One Nation in the Australian Parliament to stop the return of ISIS-linked fighters and their families, boldly declaring that she could provide the numbers needed to pass sweeping new counter-terrorism legislation.

There is just one small problem.

She can't, which left many wondering can Pauline Hanson count.

The Australian Parliament is not governed by the Senate. It never has been. It never will be.

Governments are formed in the House of Representatives, where Anthony Albanese's Labor Government currently commands a comfortable majority of 94 seats. The Coalition holds just 41 seats and One Nation has only 2. Together they are nowhere near the 76 votes required to pass legislation through the lower house.

In other words, even if Angus Taylor woke up tomorrow and decided Pauline Hanson was the greatest political strategist since Robert Menzies, the pair still wouldn't have the numbers to pass anything on their own.

The Senate's role is fundamentally different. It is a house of review. Senators scrutinise legislation, propose amendments, and occasionally delay or reject bills. What they do not do is form governments or independently create national policy.

This is where Hanson's latest grand announcement runs into reality and again her stupidity is on public display .

A bill must pass both houses of Parliament before it becomes law. Winning a vote in the Senate means absolutely nothing if the legislation cannot pass the House of Representatives. Likewise, the Senate cannot simply invent laws and force the government to implement them.

The mathematics are equally unkind to Hanson's claim.

In the Senate, the Coalition holds 27 seats and One Nation holds 4. Together that equals 31 votes. A majority requires 39. Even if Hanson and Taylor marched into the chamber arm-in-arm singing patriotic songs, they would still be eight votes short.

To block legislation they would need substantial support from other crossbench senators. To pass legislation they would need support in both chambers. To form government they would need to win an election.

There is also the awkward fact that Angus Taylor has repeatedly ruled out any formal arrangement with One Nation. Coalition figures have publicly rejected Hanson's overtures and have made it clear that their national security policies are not being written in consultation with One Nation.

Yet Hanson continues to speak as though she is sitting on a parliamentary kingmaker's throne, capable of delivering legislation whenever she chooses.

The reality is considerably less dramatic.

One Nation currently possesses influence, not control. It can participate in debates, negotiate amendments and vote on legislation like every other party represented in Parliament. What it cannot do is dictate the legislative agenda of a government that holds a commanding majority in the House of Representatives.

For someone who has spent so many years occupying a Senate seat, Hanson seems remarkably determined to confuse the role of the upper house with that of the government itself.

Perhaps it is simply political theatre. Perhaps it is a misunderstanding of parliamentary arithmetic. Or perhaps, after all these years, Hanson still believes the Senate is where governments are made.

It isn't.

The Australian Constitution settled that question more than 120 years ago.

The numbers haven't changed.

Only the headlines have.

Pauline Hanson would do well to improve her attendance in the Senate Chamber and stop making a fool of herself

National Herald

Australian businesses, govt slam Trump’s ‘ludicrous’ new tariff hit

Business groups have joined the federal government’s condemnation of increased tariffs from the US, slamming the Trump administration’s justification that Australia’s modern slavery measures are too weak.

The US has confirmed a 12.5 per cent tariff will come into force on Australian exports from Friday afternoon (AEST), replacing the existing 10 per cent baseline levy that expires at the same time.

Tariffs are being imposed on 60 economies in total, with the Trump administration claiming the move is in response to their failure to effectively enforce a prohibition on the importation of goods produced with forced labour.

“The Albanese government believes that this imposition of higher tariffs on Australia is completely unjustified and we will continue to lobby the United States trade representative to remove all tariffs on Australian goods,” Trade Minister Don Farrell said.

“We believe that amongst all of the countries in the world, Australia does take the issue of modern slavery seriously and will continue to to do that.”

The response comes after a US trade representative defended the administration’s latest levies.

“President Trump recognises that decades of moral suasion have not eradicated forced labour from global supply chains,” the representative said in a statement.

“The United States has had a forced-labour import ban for nearly a century, and rigorously enforces it; it’s well past time for our trading partners to do the same.”

Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive Andrew McKellar said the decision was “ludicrous” and the US had again cast aside its free-trade agreement obligations with Australia.

“What makes it even more unjustified is the fact the US is imposing these tariffs on the basis of forced labour or modern slavery,” he said.

“Australia has some of the highest protections and enforcement against modern slavery anywhere in the world.”

The National Farmers’ Federation said it was deeply disappointed in Washington’s decision.

“Rather than moving back towards the free and fair trading arrangements that have served both our countries well for two decades, the United States has chosen to further increase barriers to trade, despite Australia’s longstanding record of high standards and responsible trade,” chief executive Michael Guerin said.

Farrell confirmed exemptions would remain on some of the largest exports to the US, including beef, gold and copper.

“We will continue to have a high volume of trade into the United States, but we’re always looking for new markets,” he said.

The trade minister pointed to the government’s diversification of Australia’s trade relationships, having struck new deals with the UAE, the European Union and India.

Australian trade reached a record figure of $1.32 trillion in 2025, he added.

Earlier in July, the federal government announced it would strengthen anti-slavery laws with harsher penalties.

Under new changes, companies with an annual revenue of more than $100 million will be subject to a new criminal offence in addition to a new civil penalty that will be added to the existing Modern Slavery Act, which was last updated in 2018.

An estimated 50 million people across the world are enslaved, according to the Global Slavery Index, with the figure including people who are trafficked and subject to forced labour.

Despite the US framing the increased tariffs as a human rights issue, political observers are viewing this as a workaround to sweeping global tariff imposition that American courts will not consider a presidential overstep.

Friday’s update came a day after US President Donald Trump announced new 50 per cent tariffs on a variety of Canadian products that will take effect on August 19.

In response, Canadian PM Mark Carney said Canada would do whatever it took to defend itself in a trade war with the US, including possible retaliatory measures.

“We are intensifying our trade negotiations with the United States and will not hesitate to defend our interests if ‌we have to,” Carney said, describing the new US measures as unwarranted.

“Everything’s on the table if there’s no agreement.”

– AAP

NT minister claims Earth’s magnetic poles could flip if territory doesn’t use more groundwater

( Donna Lu and The Guardian)

Business minister Robyn Cahill wants to make NT ‘datacentre capital of the globe’, but Environment Centre says scientific claim is ‘completely cooked

A Northern Territory minister has been criticised for scientifically inaccurate claims that groundwater in the Northern Territory needs to be used to prevent the Earth’s magnetic poles from flipping.

The NT minister for trade and business, Robyn Cahill, made the claim while speaking in Darwin last week about the government’s push to make the territory “the datacentre capital of the globe”.

“For datacentres, the water supply is already in existence. It’s mainly subterranean,” she said. “The water supply that Darwin has is extraordinary.”

“There’s scientific evidence to suggest that we have so much water underground in the Northern Territory that it actually impacts the axis of the Earth when we have a really bad wet season, so we need to use some of it otherwise we might find ourselves flipping the poles again.”

The Environment Centre NT’s executive director, Kirsty Howey, described Cahill’s claim as “completely cooked”.

“The minister appears to believe that the Northern Territory’s wet season can alter Earth’s axis, which has no scientific basis,” Howey said. “It’s frightening that the people in charge of regulating dangerous industries like fracking and datacentres seem to lack even a high-school understanding of water science.”

Dr Dylan Irvine, a groundwater hydrology expert at Charles Darwin University, told ABC Darwin: “We’re not at risk of the poles flipping … I’m not concerned about the Earth tipping or flipping of poles.”

The Earth’s most recent major geomagnetic reversal – in which the positions of magnetic north and magnetic south flip – is known as the Brunhes-Matuyama reversal, and occurred an estimated 780,000 years ago. The flip is not instant: scientific analysis suggests reversals take 7,000 years on average to occur.

A recent temporary flip of the poles, classified as an “excursion” rather than a full geomagnetic reversal – occurred 42,000 years ago and lasted for about 1,000 years.

“This is driven by processes that happen in the deep Earth … that happen in the Earth’s core … not so much groundwater systems,” Irvine said.

Experts have warned, however, about the impact massive datacentre projects will have on already strained water resources, particularly in hotter climates where centres require more energy or water to keep cool.

The ECNT is calling for a public ban on fracking and datacentres so their impacts on the NT’s climate and water supplies can be properly considered.

“We don’t want to see our precious aquifers drained for AI while we get nothing in return,” Howey said. “We don’t want to be the datacentre capital of the globe – we want safe drinking water and a livable future for our kids.”

According to the NT government, as many as a dozen datacentre developers are interested in the region.

“We will be the place all the hyperscalers come to have their datacentres here,” Cahill said last week.

On Wednesday the NT chief minister, Lia Finocchiaro, announced the government had granted Beetaloo Digital – a subsidiary of gas company Beetaloo Energy – an exclusive commitment over 185 hectares of land near Darwin, for “a massive project involving an integrated AI datacentre and on-site gas-fired power generation”.

The project would be “powered by up to 2GW of on-site power generation fuelled by Beetaloo gas”, according to a government statement.

For comparison, 2GW is equivalent to the annual electricity consumption of approximately 2m households.

It comes after the announcement of another hyperscale centre, Energy North’s Project Ares, a 1GW project proposed for Murranji station in the NT’s Barkly region.

Cahill was contacted for comment.

𝐍𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐇𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐥𝐝 𝐄𝐕 𝐔𝐩𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐞
By Rory Bathgate for LiveScience.com

New sodium metal battery design charges in just 4 minutes and retains its capacity for years
Chinese researchers say they have overcome one of the trickiest problems of battery chemistry by developing a special gel.

Paper craft of rechargeable batteries gradually charge to full on green background front view.

Researchers in China have announced a radical sodium metal battery (SMB) design that can fully charge in just four minutes and will retain its capacity for years of use.

SMBs are a form of ultrafast-charging, stable batteries that scientists say could one day be a cheap alternative to today's lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries, which rely on geographically concentrated metals and easily catch fire. SMBs also differ from sodium-ion (Na-ion) batteries in that they use a metallic sodium anode rather than a graphite or hard carbon anode.

However, SMBs remain largely theoretical because they are prone to a type of degradation known as dendrite formation. This is when the sodium ions passing through the electrode deposit onto the highly reactive, pure-metal sodium anode in spiky, stalagmite-like structures. Over time, this forms a bridge between the cathode and the anode, short-circuiting the battery.

Dendrite formation is especially common in sodium batteries because sodium is a highly reactive metal. When charge runs through a Li-ion, Na-ion, or sodium metal battery, the anode always reacts with the electrolyte to form an oxide layer known as the SEI. This is typically 10 to 50 nanometers thick — about as wide as a small virus — but generally harmless. But with sodium, the SEI often cracks, forming bumps that attract sodium ions, which pile into dendrites.

Now, researchers say they have solved this issue by using a tough, quasi-solid gel electrolyte — dubbed Sn-FB QSE — which strengthens the battery against punctures and provides a semisolid internal structure that prevents dendrites from forming. They outlined their findings in a study published May 21 in the journal Nano-Micro Letters.

To confirm the longevity of this approach, the scientists charged and discharged the battery for over 6,000 hours without dendrites short-circuiting the battery. They also noted that when they charged the battery from zero to 100% capacity in just four minutes, it retained electrical charge, measured in milliampere-hours per gram (mAh g–1), of 80.1. This is the equivalent of around half that retained in Li-ion batteries.

When charged at a slightly slower rate of zero to 100% in 20 minutes, the battery retained 90% of its charge capacity over 2,000 cycles — matching the theoretical limits for Li-ion batteries, the scientists said in the study. This slower speed lowered the cost and improved the safety.

This is notable because the scientists achieved this in the new battery while still charging it quicker than Li-ion batteries can be charged. This is relevant because charging speed remains a sticking point for battery deployment in electric vehicles (EVs). The fastest charging EV today is the BYD Denza, which the Chinese automaker says can go from 10-70% in just five minutes. But this requires highly specialised, 1MW proprietary chargers.

Most EVs charge much slower — Tesla representatives say its Model 3 can recharge from 10-70% in approximately 15 minutes using Tesla’s own 250kW flash chargers, but representatives from the EV routing platform Zapmap say the same vehicle will take 90 minutes to charge to 80% on 50kW chargers.

Indeed, most batteries used for modern technologies, such as smartphones and EVs, are Li-ion. However, Li-ion batteries are expensive to produce because they contain the hard-to-obtain metals lithium and cobalt, and they are prone to catching fire.

Increasingly, battery manufacturers are looking to bring Na-ion batteries to commercial scale because they are cheaper and safer. However, they are heavier and larger than Li-on batteries.

SMBs are the focus of intense research because they theoretically combine the best of both types of batteries. Because SMBs use a sodium anode, rather Na-ion batteries that use graphite or hard carbon anode, they are lighter and cheaper to produce and therefore much more comparable to Li-ion in terms of size and weight. They are also safer because they operate using sodium ions, which are bulky and cannot flow to breaches in a battery wall fast enough to cause thermal runaway. This is the self-sustaining chain reaction that causes batteries to ignite when damaged.

If the issues of dendrite formation and stability at lower temperatures can be resolved, replicated and scaled, SMBs could reshape the economics of battery deployment over the next decade, the scientists said.

SMBs could be excellent choices for EVs in public transport or within commuter cars, the scientists belive, because although they have lower ranges than Na-ion and Li-ion vehicles do, they charge faster. However, they won't be available for some time, either in vehicles or smaller devices like consumer electronics.

That's because devices like smartphones are subject to harsh temperature changes that affect the internal chemistry of batteries that rely on gel electrolytes. The research must first be replicated before manufacturers feel comfortable using pure sodium metal in place of well-understood graphite configurations.

Article Sources
Zhang, Y., Pan, L., Leong, C. W., Qi, X., Huang, X., Cai, X., Cao, M., Gao, M., Zhang, H., Sha, D., Zhou, Y., & Sun, Z. (2026). Dual interlocked mediators enable Single-Ion-Conducting Quasi-Solid-State electrolytes for Ultrafast-Charging Long-Life sodium metal batteries. Nano-Micro Letters, 18(1).

AGAIN PAULINE HANSON DEMONSTRATES HER LACK OF EDUCATION DESPITE BEING IN THE AUSTRALIAN PARLIAMENT FOR DECADES AND DECADES

Pauline’s Magical Parliament: The Coalition of Arithmetic Refusal

There are many mysteries in Australian politics. How did Barnaby Joyce survive so many political near-death experiences? Why does every minor party believe it is one media cycle away from governing the nation? And why do some people think the Senate is where governments are formed?

This week’s entry into the Hall of Parliamentary Fantasy comes courtesy of Pauline Hanson, who has challenged the Coalition to join forces with One Nation to stop ISIS-linked fighters returning to Australia, boldly offering Angus Taylor "the numbers" to pass sweeping new laws.

"The numbers."

Those two little words have caused constitutional scholars, parliamentary clerks and Year 9 civics students across the country to simultaneously spit out their coffee.

One Nation currently possesses roughly the same chance of forming government as a snowball has of surviving a Queensland summer. Yet social media immediately erupted with supporters declaring: "Do it Pauline!", "Form a coalition!", "Take on the government!", and "Save Australia!"

Apparently nobody involved paused to ask the obvious question: a coalition of what, exactly?

The Coalition does not have the numbers to govern.

One Nation does not have the numbers to govern.

Putting two groups together who do not have the numbers still does not magically create the numbers.

This is not politics. It is kindergarten mathematics.

If three children have two apples and another child has one apple, they have three apples. If three political parties don't have enough votes to control parliament, combining them does not suddenly produce a majority through the power of positive thinking.

Yet somewhere in Australia, a Facebook commentator named "TrueBluePatriot1776" is convinced Pauline Hanson is only one strongly worded media release away from marching into Parliament House and personally dismissing the government.

The confusion appears to stem from a widespread belief that the Senate is where governments are made and unmade. It is not.

The Senate reviews legislation.

Governments are formed in the House of Representatives.

This is taught in schools, although judging by some comment sections it may have been taught during a mass bunking-off event.

The fantasy becomes even more entertaining when supporters talk about "stopping the government" as though Pauline Hanson possesses some secret constitutional button hidden under her desk labelled EMERGENCY ALBANESE DEACTIVATION SWITCH.

Press once: government defeated.

Press twice: immediate election.

Press three times: Nigel Farage appears through a portal.

Sadly for enthusiasts of constitutional fan fiction, Australia's parliamentary system does not work this way.

Meanwhile, hundreds of accounts with names like "PatriotKoala88", "AussieFreedomLion", and "DefinitelyNotABot2026" have flooded social media with identical comments praising the plan as a masterstroke.

Within minutes they have all agreed that Hanson has outsmarted Labor, the Liberals, ASIO, the Constitution, parliamentary arithmetic and possibly Isaac Newton.

What a remarkable coincidence.

The National Herald can exclusively reveal that mathematics remains undefeated.

The government still commands the House.

Legislation still requires parliamentary support.

The Senate still does not choose governments.

And adding small numbers together does not automatically create a majority, regardless of how many Facebook comments insist otherwise.

In related news, One Nation is expected to announce next week that it has formed a strategic alliance with three YouTube channels, a bloke at the pub, and an angry commenter from Rockhampton to secure government by Christmas.

This another example of Pauline Hanson unplugged and mouthing off without minders to keep her quiet.

Parliamentary clerks are said to be trembling.