Australia’s Largest Christian News Site

Given Albanese’s warm welcome of Bill Gates to Australia, it would appear the Australian Prime Minister is less concerned about election interference by foreign elites than the political leanings of those elites.

“We have foreign interference laws in this country and Australian elections are a matter for Australians,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese warned this week, when asked about potential interference from Elon Musk in the upcoming federal election.

The comments by Australia’s leader were first reported in The Age and have since been repeated by major outlets nationwide, prompting a flurry of online reactions.

Leftwing humour site The Chaser indulged a familiar bogeyman in its satirical headline, “Albo warns Elon Musk not to intervene in Australian elections, ‘that’s Rupert’s job!’”

While the joke didn’t quite land given the unlikelihood of Albo defending Rupert Murdoch (and given that Murdoch is Australian-born), the Aussie Prime Minister certainly has rolled out the red carpet for foreign elites whose politics he happens to like.

Australia Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has publicly warned Elon Musk not to get involved in the upcoming Federal Election.

“We have foreign interference laws in this country and Australian elections are a matter for Australians,”

The photo attached to this X post is… pic.twitter.com/dZvuXkW5Fr

— Rukshan Fernando (@therealrukshan) January 14, 2025

Albo’s Warm Welcome of Bill Gates

Two years ago almost to the day, Mr Albanese hosted leftwing billionaire Bill Gates at Kirribilli House to discuss climate change, renewable energy, international development and vaccines.

In its write-up of the rendezvous, The Sydney Morning Herald described the time as one of “mutual admiration,” making no secret of Albo’s fawning praise, who declared that Bill Gates — and presumably his financial largesse — are “very welcome here”.

Later that year, during a trip to California, Mr Albanese carved time out of his busy schedule to meet with billionaire and BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, who sits on the board of progressive influence cartels the World Economic Forum and the Council on Foreign Relations.

Of that meeting, the Australian leader remarked that it was “great to catch up with Mr Fink” and that he welcomed “Blackrock’s significant investment in Australia”.

And don’t forget the “celebrity endorsement” Albo received from basketballer Shaquille O’Neal while campaigning for the highly politicised Indigenous Voice to Parliament.

Speaking of foreign election interference, Anthony Albanese is yet to express any concerns about the influence of George Soros, whom The Australian has warned “has established a transnational network that pressures governments to adopt high immigration targets and porous border policies”.

The outlet added that “his [Soros’] Open Society Foundations target individuals who criticise ­Islamism and seek to influence the outcome of national elections by undermining Right-leaning politicians.”

“The Australian arm of the Soros network is GetUp!” the paper reported, following a Wikileaks data dump in 2016.

What’s Wrong With Elon Musk?

Why, at such a late hour, is Mr Albanese now concerned about election interference from Elon Musk?

It would appear the Australian leader is less concerned about the fact that foreign elites insert themselves into Australian elections than the political leanings of those elites.

As is so often seen with modern political leaders, the side matters more than the principle, and the end, by and large, justifies the means.

What’s fascinating about Elon Musk’s ongoing spat with Anthony Albanese is that Musk has not picked sides between Australia’s two big political parties. In fact, he has tended to criticise policies broadly supported by both the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton — including the role and influence of the Australian eSafety Commissioner, the now-scrapped Misinformation Bill, and restrictions on social media use for under 16s.

Musk’s crimes, it would appear, are his stateside support for Donald Trump, who must be demonised at every turn, along with Musk’s decision to be overt about his political passions instead of surreptitious, as other billionaires tend to be.

But the most unforgivable sin on the part of Elon Musk is his advocacy for free speech.

As the legacy media’s spell is broken, and platforms like X help Australians peer behind the political curtain, governments like Albanese’s feel uniquely embarrassed and defensive.

But here’s my advice for the Wizard of Aus: Fearing free speech is hardly a good look in an election year.

___

Republished with thanks to Mercator. Images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.