The PR Blog

By Ernest ‘Ember’ McTail, Special Correspondent. Serious News Division of Ratty News

The world watches. There he stands. Albanese. Our Prime Minister. Abandoned at the G7 -  flapping about like he just wandered into a Bachelor & Spinsters Ball with directions from a stylist, not a stock route. Would he have worn his fried eggs shirt? His tutu?  Who knows. Who cares. 

They say Australia was "invited" -  like a kangaroo asked to a lion’s tea party. Let me be clear: Australia wasn’t invited. Australia was summoned.

Because when the global game gets ugly, they all remember the big empty island with the secret bases, the uranium, the missiles, and the mates who say “no worries” even as the air raid sirens wail.

Well I’ve got news for you: Worry, Albo. Worry plenty wong. You can’t wear a Wallabies jersey and a Chinese silk robe at the same time. This game is about to get ugly. 

Albo was invited to the ball and got snubbed. Holding his corsage and his date was a no show. And my whiskers are twitching. 

But this article is not about World War 3 or about G7. It is about a hat. The Akubra. And what it stands for...... 

It began, as such stories often do, in silence and snow.

Kananaskis, Alberta -  a remote and breathtaking stretch of mountain wilderness -  first entered global consciousness in 2002. Then, in the wake of 9/11, the world’s most powerful leaders gathered not in a grand capital or gleaming conference hall, but in a secluded Canadian resort, miles from anywhere and accessible only by a handful of roads.

It was a strange choice, at least on the surface. The G8 -  the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, and Japan and Russia -  had never before met in such isolation. But in a world freshly rattled by terrorism, where the ground still shook from the collapse of towers in New York and the bombs of Afghanistan, Kananaskis offered what the moment demanded: control.

Control over the space, the narrative, the risks. The G8 met beneath the mountains not only to keep people out .... but, in some subtle and unspoken way, to keep people in. In a world slipping toward something more dangerous, it was a fortress disguised as a retreat.

Fast-forward twenty-three years, and the G7 has returned to Kananaskis, minus Russia. ( membership was suspended in 2014 following the annexation of Crimea, which is when the group reverted to being called the G7. )

Only this time, the stakes are even higher. The atmosphere is not one of aftermath but anticipation -  of something coming. Something imminent.

The guest list has changed too.

As Australia faces economic collapse, and leaders like Donald Trump and Javier Milei take bold steps to revive growth and self-reliance, it’s worth asking: what actually lifts a nation out of poverty?

Vietnam might seem like an unlikely teacher -  a war-torn, socialist country that once held the dubious title of “poorest in the world.” But its story is one of the most extraordinary economic turnarounds in modern history.

And it confirms something a Scottish philosopher wrote almost 250 years ago.

In 1776, the same year the United States declared independence, Adam Smith published The Wealth of Nations. He argued that prosperity doesn't come from kings, bureaucracies, or foreign aid. It comes from free people engaging in voluntary exchange, supported by basic justice and low taxes. He called this the work of the “invisible hand” -  the idea that markets, left mostly to themselves, would generate wealth far more efficiently than governments ever could.

His formula was simple and timeless:

“Little else is required to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice.”

It sounds almost too simple. But Vietnam, of all places, proved him right.