Politics & Power Quote by Rex Hunt

Rex Hunt is doing what good entertainers often do best: taking a wonky policy fight and translating it into a pub-table moral drama where you can immediately tell who’s going to cop the blame. The opening line is blunt, almost resigned. Of course they’ll blame each other. That “because” drops you into the middle of an argument already running hot, suggesting this isn’t theory; it’s a pattern Australians have watched play out whenever scarce resources - water, fishing stocks, land use - get carved up between states, industries, and Canberra.

His real target isn’t “sharing” as a technical exercise. It’s the politics of accountability. “Canberra has to really get right” frames the federal government as referee, not player, which is a loaded expectation in a federation: when the umpire also writes the rules, every whistle sounds suspect. The subtext is distrust of process, not just outcome. If people feel the split is unfair or opaque, the fight doesn’t end when the allocation is announced; it metastasizes into permanent grievance.

Then he lands the punch: short-tenure politicians face “no consequences.” Hunt’s populist edge isn’t anti-government so much as anti-impunity. He’s pointing to a structural problem where decision-makers can rotate out before the ecological, economic, or community costs arrive, leaving locals to live with the hangover. Coming from an entertainer with a public persona built around Australia’s outdoors and everyday expertise, it’s also a credibility play: he’s positioning lived experience against careerist churn. The line works because it treats policy as time-delayed reality, and asks who’s still around when the bill comes due.