The Fluidic Air

 


He had begun to swarm, a condition he had avoided for much of his life for the simple fact that it was so frightening. 

But here it was. And here we were. '

"We've always been so lucky," he thought, and shortly afterwards won $133 at the local club where they had stopped for lunch, Renmark in South Australia, if he had got that right. The exact same number as a house where he had grown up on the then remote northern beaches, surrounded by towering gums and swooping kookaburras and koalas hanging undisturbed in the giant trees. 

They tried four different EV chargers before finally finding one that worked. 

The people so busily destroying the country were in hiding, or retreat. Everything they had said to get into power had proved to be a lie.

At the cost of billions, they were creating an energy crisis which would propel the country to that edge between civilisation and chaos. Just turn off the lights and see what happens. Three days to riots and pillaging. 

That vacant gap between cognition and reality, between the species inside the species, hidden, very well hidden, in the underbrush, was just another sign of the End Times, as so many of the prophets had called it, The End of Days. 

Although days were not about to end, obviously, be it on this planet or another. 

Swarming; like a beech forest that released a billion seeds in the hope that one would take root, the human who released billions of sperm in the hope that some might form into humans. 

The miracle of life. And they were caught hiding in the febrile, frenetic, fertile atmosphere. Different. Able to be harvested, as the theoreticians and cosmologists knew perfectly well. The game was up.

In that fluidic air, where communication, instant communication, the power of the word, became the overriding force.

NEWS

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is navigating a difficult stretch of his second term, with polling showing his personal approval at some of its lowest points since taking office and more than half of voters saying they no longer trust him. The damage stems largely from the May budget’s changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions, which broke earlier promises and have left many Australians feeling the government is not delivering on cost-of-living or housing relief even as house-price growth has slowed. One Nation’s surge under Pauline Hanson has compounded the pressure, turning the political landscape into a three-way contest and forcing Labor onto the defensive on immigration and cultural issues. 

smh.com.au

This week the government announced a significant tightening of temporary migration, targeting backpackers, international students bringing family members, and visa overstayers in an effort to bring net overseas migration down toward 225,000. The move is widely seen as a response to One Nation’s hardline messaging and public frustration over housing shortages, yet it has drawn sharp criticism from farmers and tourism operators who warn of labour shortages and higher food prices, as well as from the Greens who accuse Labor of a “race to the bottom.” Albanese has also been drawn into an ugly personal exchange after Hanson criticised his late mother’s use of public housing; he condemned the remarks as “nastiness” while critics argue the spat only elevates Hanson. 

theguardian.com

Domestic controversies have added to the sense of a government under siege. An ABC investigation into a $6 million grant that benefited Albanese’s local golf club prompted the Prime Minister to tell the public broadcaster it “should do better,” while opposition parties and some independents have accused Labor of pork-barrelling. The government also abandoned new plastic-packaging laws intended to cut waste, triggering what one report called an “unprecedented scale and breadth of outrage” from environmental groups. Climate advocates were further angered when the new environmental protection agency approved a coal project. 

theguardian.com

On the international stage Albanese is preparing to fly to New York to promote Australia’s digital-safety agenda—including the world-first under-16 social-media ban and a forthcoming “digital duty of care” requiring platforms to let users opt out of algorithms—as part of a pitch for a UN Security Council seat. The same agenda has already drawn a rebuke from the Trump administration, which has labelled aspects of it “extortion.” As he leaves, Albanese must balance these global ambitions against a domestic picture of eroding trust, a resurgent far-right competitor, and persistent economic discontent that will shape the long run-up to the next election. 

afr.com

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