Strategic geography creates opportunity. It does not create industry. Northern Australia now faces a simple test: can the Northern Territory turn its position at the edge of the Indo-Pacific into real industrial capability? The Northern …
The Strategist on: "North of 26° south"
Australia’s plan for sustaining its armoured fighting vehicles (AFVs) far from their basing is the equivalent of Ukraine sending its tanks to Paris for repair and overhaul. This is illogical and unacceptable. As part of …
Commentators often inaccurately describe the frameworks governing US military presence in Australia. Debate frequently centres on sovereignty, with claims that deeper US access or infrastructure investment risks eroding Australian control. That framing overlooks the structured …
Governments say they want diversified critical minerals supply chains. Yet many regulatory systems still require a decade or more to move new mines from discovery to production. Getting a processing plant going is similarly protracted. …
The 2025 senate inquiry into university governance laid out the scale of the problem. Vice-chancellor remuneration has quadrupled in real terms since 1985. Casual and sessional staff now make up 49 percent of the university …
Australia’s fuel crisis has triggered a familiar response: emergency coordination, reactive policy adjustments and renewed political attention. But the important question is why Australia still responds this way at all. This week, Prime Minister Anthony …
Critical minerals supply chains are shaped as much by geography as policy or finance. Yet much of Australia’s national debate still centres on regulatory frameworks and capital markets rather than the physical places where processing …
The pressures facing regional universities are commonly attributed to the Covid-19 pandemic and the collapse of international student markets. But the financial and structural fragility now visible across northern Australia’s university sector began well before …
Australia can deploy forces to northern Australia quickly. But sustaining them at scale still depends on a handful of freight corridors, limited fuel depth and commercial logistics networks that Defence hasn’t clearly incorporated into an …
Australia’s defence strategy now points north, but the nation still lacks the systems required to fight and sustain operations there. Strategic documents have identified northern Australia as the decisive geography for deterrence and denial, yet …
While fuel shortages attract attention, disruptions to shipments in fertilisers or chemicals are just as damaging to our national economy. Australia needs a broader resilience strategy that minimises the vulnerabilities of complex supply chains. Global …
When the vice-chancellor of Charles Darwin University (CDU) resigned following vocational-training accreditation failures, the public response centred on leadership accountability. That focus is understandable, and governance failures require accountability. But the issues exposed at CDU …