The established wisdom at the beginning of the 2025 election year was that Labor would likely scrape back into minority government with the help of the smaller parties. Even a Trump-lite Dutton government was an outside, but real, chance. But after seeing the real and unchecked Trump in action, we decided we didn't want any of that madness here, and the Coalition - more specifically, the Liberal Party - after a decade of negativity and culture warring, got their unambiguous comeuppance. While Teals-style candidates mostly held the line, the Greens took a severe beating as voters retreated into the imagined security of Albo's one-party state. If the Trump effect caused tremors in our domestic politics, globally it set off an earthquake. In trade relations, sanctions reduced established relationships with the US - even with long-time allies - to the crudely transactional. In case we had any doubts that the US-led post-1945 rules-based-system was over, 2025 dispelled them. The moral claims of that order, always dubious, were finally - even proudly - cremated in the ruins of Gaza and Ukraine. Forget international law: might has reasserted its traditional place in the ordering of nations.