Hypernormalisation is a word I didn't know until I read Noel Yaxley's ‘Australia - the pretending nation’. It is a word coined by a Russian academic, Alexei Yurchak 10 years ago to describe the time of uncertainty and confusion in the final years of the Soviet Union, when everyone knew the system was failing, but they maintained a “fake reality” that everything was OK.

And, as it is currently in Australia.

According to Canberra and corporate boardrooms, Australia is “a prosperous, multicultural miracle sustained by high migration”, writes Yaxley. But, he continues, Australians are facing a struggle for housing; their social fabric is strained, and there is a sense that Albanese is managing a “simulation” rather than a country.

Big Australia is the foundation of our hypernormalisation.

The gap between the official narrative and reality is now a “chasm”. Most Australians feel poorer, and they are experiencing a per capita recession. The “illusion” of prosperity is maintained by mass immigration, which hasn't provided growth. Complain, and cop the accusation of “racism”, the standard abuse word used by people who don't have a clue how to fix the problems they caused in the first place - including among other problems, the warring youth gangs inappropriate immigration has brought with it. Not to mention regular hate parades, and alien religionists dropping down to pray on busy streets, and crying ‘police brutality’ when officers enforce the Australian laws that the complainers are breaking.

In the Australian vernacular, which is disappearing with everything else, hypernormalisation is a ‘bonzer’ word to describe what's happening here. Yaxley rightly says that the only way to stop it is with Australians ceasing to “participate in the delusion” and the “fake world” Canberra lies. They can do that at the next election by removing the worst, most Left wing government ever. Even the Coalition would be better, with help from One Nation.

Hi ttbn,
An idea has been bouncing around my head today.
It's essentially an idea to improve democracy.

What would happen if we separated foreign policy from domestic policy?
- That is, if we separated foreign policy into a separate entity, to free up our political parties to focus primarily on domestic policy decisions.

I'm not necessarily saying the separate entity would make final decisions regarding foreign policy, it may just be an advisory role to engage with / inform both the public and government.

Here's the link to ttbn's article:

Noel Yaxley's ‘Australia - the pretending nation’
http://www.spectator.com.au/2026/03/australia-the-pretending-nation/

FYI, if you find yourself blocked by a paywall, you can get past it and access the full article by disabling javascript in your chosen browser.
The way to do this is different in each browser.
I primarily use Mozilla firefox as my web browser, many of you likely use Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge.

The way I do it in Mozilla Firefox is to right-click on any webpage and choose 'inspect', and a separate 'Web Developer Tools' interface pops up in the bottom half of my screen.
Then I click the three dot menu in the top right hand corner next to the 'X' button in that interface and choose the option 'Settings'.
From there I scroll down to an checkbox option 'disable javascript'.
As soon as you click that box, the webpage will reload and the full article becomes available.
It takes only a few seconds for me to turn the javascript off when I need to.

It doesn't work on all news sites but it does work more often than not.
To find out how to do it in a different browser search google for:
'How to temporarily disable javascript in 'X' using web developer tools', replacing 'X' with your own browser.