The Aporia · Paul Sakkal

2026-09-15 · The Sydney Morning Herald

Labor dangles copyright deal to lure AI giants – but with a catch

🔮 Copyright holders such as authors, musicians or publications could be given the right to opt out, but under the proposal, the AI giants would be free to use any other material. assertive

2026-09-17 · The Sydney Morning Herald

Labor migration plan revealed: Burke to ramp up deportations and bring in backpacker ballot

🔮 Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke will ramp up deportations, introduce a ballot system for backpackers and prioritise construction workers as he seeks to restore confidence in the migration program and salvage Labor’s long-awaited reforms. assertive

2026-09-17 · The Sydney Morning Herald

Burke says the quiet part out loud: immigration and housing are linked

🔮 “Immigration will need to be part of the solution to help provide some space for housing supply to catch up,” he said on Thursday, as Labor aims to neutralise the political issue driving voters to Pauline Hanson. assertive

2026-09-21 · The Sydney Morning Herald

An ageing Australia must find ways to pay for world reshaped by AI, climate change

🔮 Long-range forecasts by the federal government predict sweeping changes to Australia over the next 40 years driven by AI and the energy transition as the population ages and geopolitical fragmentation continues, but debt and deficit could spiral if productivity woes continue. assertive

2026-09-21 · The Sydney Morning Herald

Super wars escalate as Coalition leans in to mortgage plan

🔮 Opposition housing spokesman Andrew Bragg will use a speech on Tuesday to float a proposal, which is under consideration but not yet adopted, to use superannuation as collateral for a mortgage or to increase the size of a loan. assertive

2026-09-22 · The Sydney Morning Herald

Alex Antic, now Liberal state president, says Coalition must work with One Nation

🔮 Senator Alex Antic, the new president of the South Australian division of the Liberal Party, is predicting the Coalition and One Nation will need to co-operate at the next election to beat Labor, making him the most senior Liberal to call for active collaboration between the establishment centre-right party and a populist rival that seeks to become the dominant force on the right. assertive

2026-09-23 · The Sydney Morning Herald

No more handouts: stark warning as soaring interest bill revealed

🔮 Turmoil in global bond markets is set to cost the already-strained federal budget billions in additional interest payments, Treasurer Jim Chalmers has warned, prompting a leading economist to say the party is over when it comes to cheap money funding populist handouts across the world. assertive

2026-09-25 · The Sydney Morning Herald

OpenAI boss refuses to answer Medicare hack questions after Trump-Xi dinner

🔮 Altman remained silent and did not answer four times when asked by this masthead what he would say to Australians about the breach, whether he should apologise or why it took months for OpenAI to detect and report it to the Australian government. assertive

2026-09-27 · The Sydney Morning Herald

‘Obscurity not security’: Government accused of overreach in Medicare ‘hack’ response

🔮 Archived versions of the website show that its code directed savvy users to a digital address where they could download the statistical information it stored despite that data not being publicly available to people via its front end. assertive

2026-09-27 · The Sydney Morning Herald

Chalmers to announce $6b budget boost as interest rates set to hit 15-year-high

🔮 Treasurer Jim Chalmers will reveal a $6 billion budget boost on Monday as he faces internal pressure to curb inflation ahead of the Reserve Bank’s likely decision to raise interest rates to a 15-year-high. assertive

2026-09-27 · The Sydney Morning Herald

Australian preacher linked to notorious Sydney cleric urges followers to ‘take up arms’

🔮 The call to take up arms will renew focus on extremism 10 months after one of Australia’s worst alleged terror attacks and raise questions about why hate preachers can still call for violence against Jews and Christians from their unofficial pulpits. assertive

2026-09-28 · The Sydney Morning Herald

Larissa Waters quits as Greens leader due to illness

🔮 The party will hold a secret ballot of its MPs later this week to elect a new leader. assertive

2026-09-29 · The Sydney Morning Herald

These rate hikes will hit harder than 2023, and the PM can’t spend his way out of it

🔮 This cycle of rate hikes will hit Australians harder than the one they endured in 2023. mixed

2026-10-05 · The Sydney Morning Herald

‘Performative promises … have no place’: Liberals slam Hanson’s call to jail Andrews, Allen

🔮 Victorian Premier Ben Carroll told ABC Radio that Nicholson’s comments were “appalling”, even as he opens up a royal commission into corruption that could call Andrews and Allan as witnesses. assertive

2026-10-05 · The Sydney Morning Herald

Taylor to slash migration by two-thirds in bid to rival One Nation

🔮 Opposition Leader Angus Taylor will aim to halt One Nation’s momentum by revealing he would slash migration to about a third of the current intake – a larger-than-expected reduction the party claims would not hurt Australia’s ailing budget and economy. assertive

2026-10-06 · The Sydney Morning Herald

‘A home not a hotel’: Coalition promises largest migration cut in Australian history

🔮 Migration levels would be slashed in half during the first three years of a Coalition government, Opposition Leader Angus Taylor has announced, under a plan he says would not hit the budget bottom line. assertive

2026-10-07 · The Sydney Morning Herald

The cost of cutting foreign workers: Fares spike in Taylor’s migration gamble

🔮 Rideshare and food delivery prices could spike as Coalition leader Angus Taylor trades efficiency for a migration and economic model that shifts away from Australia’s reliance on cheaper foreign workers. assertive

2026-10-08 · The Sydney Morning Herald

Taylor and Abbott say Bondi shooting drove the politics on migration

🔮 A top labour economist told this masthead on Wednesday that cutting the growing number of temporary migrants could help turn around Australia’s productivity malaise by encouraging firms to innovate instead of relying on cheap labour. assertive

2026-10-12 · The Sydney Morning Herald

Labor MPs want to find a way to keep ATO credit card payments

🔮 Several Labor MPs, including ministers, said it would be much better if the government soon came to some sort of agreement with the ATO to allow credit card payments beyond next July so that business owners were not left in limbo for months. assertive

2026-10-13 · The Sydney Morning Herald

Albanese meeting more frequently with Taylor as One Nation nips at Labor’s heels

🔮 Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition Leader Angus Taylor are moving closer to a deal that would pave the way for the largest artificial intelligence firms to set up in Australia as Anthropic reasserts its warning that Australia’s copyright laws are blocking investment. assertive

2026-10-14 · The Sydney Morning Herald

Trust tax overhaul set to raise $40b as businesses warn of accounting turmoil

🔮 Business groups are warning years of expensive turmoil will be unleashed by the federal government’s plans for a minimum tax on discretionary trusts as Treasurer Jim Chalmers warns that without reform, the nation’s tax revenue will be eaten away, leaving working Australians exposed to even higher taxes. assertive

2026-10-16 · The Sydney Morning Herald

In a funk: How economic pain is straining the PM and treasurer’s relationship

🔮 Jim Chalmers knows the government is under the pump and he says Labor must up its game to battle inflation, the unintended consequences of its May budget and keep voters’ trust through a painful period of interest rate rises. assertive

2026-10-18 · The Sydney Morning Herald

Spender and Chalmers’ reform adviser back GST change to offset tax cuts

🔮 But with smarter spending decisions and a tax system that raises sufficient revenue to care for our ageing population, both current and future generations can be better off,” Sathanapally said, adding that lower-income families would be left about $8000 a year better off under the proposed changes. assertive

2026-10-19 · The Sydney Morning Herald

‘Enough is enough’: Lambie slams Hanson’s latest crass cartoon attack

🔮 Liberal MP Garth Hamilton said the “nasty party” behaviour is what would inevitably cost conservatives at election time and hand Albanese his third term. assertive

2026-10-19 · The Sydney Morning Herald

‘Unshackle the economy’: Labor MP pushes Chalmers on growth, speculates on PM retirement

🔮 He also called for the prime minister to ensure rank-and-file members could vote on the party’s next leader if he resigned from the top job next year or after the election, due by 2028, making him the first MP to openly speculate about Labor’s future after Albanese’s dominant reign ends. assertive

2026-10-20 · The Sydney Morning Herald

Why Australia’s political class can no longer look the other way

🔮 A person’s political bent will determine which of these factors they emphasise. assertive

2026-10-21 · The Sydney Morning Herald

Helen Haines loses second leg after attack outside office

🔮 “We had been hoping that her right leg would be saved, but as of this afternoon or this morning, the surgeons had to also remove her right leg,” Phil Haines said. assertive

2026-10-21 · The Sydney Morning Herald

Caution needed on linking Helen Haines attack to PM’s grievances

🔮 Prime Minister Anthony Albanese would be wise to recall that lesson as he navigates the fallout from the attack on Helen Haines. assertive

2026-10-25 · The Sydney Morning Herald

AFP chief reveals scale of threats to MPs

🔮 Politicians return to Canberra on Monday, when most of the day will be spent on tributes for the widely respected MP. assertive

2026-10-25 · The Sydney Morning Herald

What would you cut? Chalmers challenges critics of government spending

🔮 The budget recorded a deficit of $22.2 billion which is expected to grow to $31.5 billion this financial year. assertive

2026-10-25 · The Sydney Morning Herald

MPs urged to sign civility pledge that only Haines had backed in return to parliament

🔮 Federal MPs will be urged to sign a civility pledge that MP Helen Haines alone had backed before she was attacked, though One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has hit out at critics who say her party’s cartoons are contributing to the febrile environment. assertive

2026-10-25 · The Sydney Morning Herald

What would you cut? Chalmers challenges critics of government spending

🔮 The budget recorded a deficit of $22.2 billion which is expected to grow to $31.5 billion this financial year. assertive

2026-10-27 · The Sydney Morning Herald

Albanese confirms bolstered security for MPs after Haines attack

🔮 Politicians will receive a security boost after the attack on independent MP Helen Haines, which the prime minister has described as a turning point. assertive

2026-10-28 · The Sydney Morning Herald

Cracks emerge in reunited Coalition over trade deal and AI

🔮 Hawke argued that Canavan had no right to dictate the Liberal position and said voters could see the economic damage caused by the Trump administration’s stance on tariffs and trade. “If we don’t have our own identity on key economic issues, then the Nationals will dominate us and that will be at our expense electorally,” Hawke told his colleagues, according to sources in the room. assertive

2026-10-29 · The Sydney Morning Herald

‘This really is Albo’s cabinet’: How the PM’s razor gang hindered the treasurer’s saving plans

🔮 High-level government sources said that in the run-up to the May budget and years past, Chalmers had often advocated for the lowest-cost option when proposals came to the cabinet’s expenditure review subcommittee. assertive

Forward-looking sentences extracted from their articles, oldest first. Nothing here checks whether any of it turned out to be right.

👤 Paul Sakkal

About this journalist

What they cover

Leaning

More from this journalist

What they said would happen