The comparison is brutal. The Nightly reported on 11 June 2026 that One Nation claimed to have raised nearly $2 million in 24 hours for an anti-Labor campaign. That same day, ABC News reported that Fraser Coast Hospice in Queensland had avoided voluntary administration after last-minute corporate donations helped keep its palliative care service open (Curtis & Page, 2026; Nunes-Malek, 2026).
Set alongside one another, these reports raise a question about social priorities. Political conflict can mobilise substantial resources at speed, while a service helping people through the end of life must appeal for the means to continue.
People are free to support whatever politics they choose. My own priority would be palliative care, where resources support the sick, the dying and their families with practical help and dignity. Campaign donations purchase political capacity. Care donations sustain something whose value does not depend on winning an argument.
Politics turns anger into revenue. Care still has to beg. That is a miserable set of priorities.
References
Curtis, K. & Page, J. (2026). Labor v One Nation escalates into war of words over donations. The Nightly, 11 June, updated 12 June.
Nunes-Malek, O. (2026). Queensland hospice’s end-of-life service kept alive after ‘generous’ donations. ABC News, 11 June.
One reply on “political theatre”
The point is not simply that a donation could help someone in need. It is that attention and resources circulate more readily around a political confrontation than around the quieter work of caring for people.
A symbolic economy that makes conflict compelling and care financially precarious has its priorities spectacularly out of balance.
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