"How refreshing to hear a man in power call out the bias baked into our institutions against men. Let alone the "ideological bulls**t" (his words) used to shut down proper action on male suicide.

Australia's political class has suddenly discovered that men exist, and new spokesmen are popping up everywhere. But there's one standout in the pack: Llew O'Brien, National Party MP for Wide Bay in Queensland. A former cop, O'Brien was recently named Shadow Special Envoy for Men and Boys. And unlike most of the field, he's actually on our side — telling it straight, naming exactly where men are getting a raw deal in this country, and demanding something be done about it.

In our YouTube interview, O'Brien lays bare what's actually going on inside the institutions meant to be tackling men's issues. He previously spent time on a parliamentary committee on suicide prevention, and he's scathing about how little men rate a mention in the National Suicide Prevention Strategy. "This is a national crisis. Seven men every day deciding they want to end their lives. These are big numbers," he says. "If people were taking their lives in any other demographic, there would be a huge national outcry."

What really got under his skin on that committee was the constant emphasis on women having higher rates of attempted suicide — used, he says, to justify looking away from men, while ignoring the fact that a cry for help is a very different thing from a genuine, failed attempt. "You're cherry-picking statistics, so we don't have to talk about the elephant in the room, which is the 75% of completed suicides by men."

As an ex-cop, he wants a lot more balance in the public discussion of family violence. "When you look at those numbers, and how over the past 35 years there's been something like a 70 percent decrease in the rate of domestic homicide, intimate partner homicide — it doesn't correlate with some of the rhetoric and the narrative that's being pushed at the moment," he says. "We need services to help male victims, that's for sure."

O'Brien is well aware that family breakdown and dealings with the Family Court are key triggers for male suicide. "It's a huge, huge concern," he says, pointing to the lack of services targeting men caught up in this situation. He's all for reversing Labor's changes to family law legislation, believing shared parenting should be the starting point for deciding parenting matters. And he's keen to look hard at bias within the court itself: "I think we have a lot of activist judges out there and people within the judiciary who are influenced by ideology."

He also believes in real consequences for perjury: "I think there should be consequences. Absolutely. For false complaints. You know, the argument being against that, we don't want to deter genuine victims from coming forward. I don't wear that. It's overused. It's crap, to be honest."

Contrast all this with the pronouncements from Dan Repacholi, the Albanese government's Special Envoy for Men's Health, whose main take on male suicide is that men just aren't very good at talking about their feelings. He shows his ideological colours by touring the country arm-in-arm with Ged Kearney, the Assistant Minister for Prevention of Family Violence, talking about "respect for women."

"I really worry that the institutions we normally rely on have been taken over by people who think men are bad, and that at the heart of every man there's some sort of abuser" - O'Brien

Labor treats the feminist playbook like holy writ — recite it, never question or revise it. Speaking at the Queensland Labor conference recently, Albanese sneered that One Nation dared to suggest "domestic violence is sometimes a woman's fault," lumping it in with a list of supposedly outrageous positions. The crowd erupted in mock horror, crying "shame."

O'Brien has their number. "They are an anti-male government," he told me. He's genuinely worried about the influence of this mindset on our key institutions: "I really worry that the institutions we normally rely on have been taken over by people who think men are bad, and that at the heart of every man there's some sort of abuser."

Please help me circulate my important interview with this brave, honest man willing to challenge the orthodoxies our politicians have been spouting for so many decades. That takes some doing.

But if we're ever going to break free from our current toxic, anti-male culture, we need a lot more Llew O'Briens and a lot fewer Dan Repacholis. Unfortunately, right now, the numbers aren't in our favour. Take Victoria.

Back in 2024, the state appointed Australia's first-ever Parliamentary Secretary for Men's Behaviour Change — Tim Richardson, tasked with saving young men from the "manosphere," one stern chat at a time. Fast forward to April 2026, and Victoria decided this modest little role deserved a promotion: a full, cabinet-level Minister for Men and Boys, world's first, thank you very much. Enter Paul Edbrooke, freshly sworn in.

He didn't get long to enjoy it. Three and a half months later, Premier Jacinta Allan resigned, her deputy Ben Carroll took over, and in his very first reshuffle — in the name of "smaller, more efficient government" — the Minister for Men and Boys was quietly put out of its misery. Edbrooke landed on his feet, reassigned to police. The ministry did not.

So, there you have it: Australia's first Minister for Men and Boys lasted fourteen weeks. Barely long enough to find the executive bathroom. If men's issues were ever going to get taken seriously, someone forgot to tell Victorian Labor.

However, political posturing about men's issues is suddenly everywhere – with other states now coming on board. In NSW, the Coalition has flagged a dedicated men's health portfolio ahead of the 2027 election, warning of "a generation of lost boys." South Australia has launched a Parliamentary Friends of Men's Wellbeing group, and the ACT has appointed its own Shadow Minister for Men and Men's Health. Even federally, there's bipartisan support for a national inquiry into the education of boys and young men — proof that when it comes to men's issues, nobody wants to be seen sitting this one out.

There's something in the air. Men are creeping onto the map. Even some of these appointments — clumsy and virtue-signalling as they are — are good news in disguise. However much they sneer at men's rights, it still shows the issue is making it onto the public agenda.

Look at this recent article in The Conversation, written by Blair Williams, a UNSW politics lecturer, having a go at Pauline Hanson as the "queen of the Australian men's rights movement." Hanson's identification with male grievance has been core to her politics since day one, tut-tuts the researcher, dutifully documenting three decades of advocacy for men. Williams' idea is to take her down a peg — but the result reads more like a highlight reel, one that will only endear the Senator further to her growing support base.

Yet the funniest example of men's rights hitting the public radar is found in Colin From Accounts, a hit Australian streaming comedy which is built around the rocky romance of its two leads — Colin and Ashley — and the eccentric friends and family orbiting them. The biggest laugh this third season belongs to Ashley's mother, Lynelle, who's started her own men's rights charity.

"I'm triggered, I'm triggered / Don't smile at me / It makes me feel unsafe / I'm a victim, I'm a victim," croon the backup singers at Lynelle's fundraising concert.

The writers of this very woke show go to town sneering at the whole idea of men's rights. They've named Lynelle's charity Women Against Women Against Men — WAWAM. It's meant to be a joke but like so many people who are fed up with men-haters, I'd join WAWAM tomorrow. So would the mums at Mothers of Sons — they're already fighting the feminists rigging the system against their sons.

The writers thought they were writing satire. It never occurred to them it's mainstream opinion.

We've created a meme to make the connection between WAWAM and Mothers of Sons and hope those of you on social media will post it in online conversations about the show. …

It strikes me it's probably no coincidence that WAWAM is run by a nutty, long-haired older woman. Co-creator Harriet Dyer — who also plays Ashley — has said the whole men's rights idea traces back to her own real mum, whose birthday happens to fall on International Men's Day, and who's "the tiniest bit worried about how the men are doing." That was apparently enough to send Dyer down a rabbit hole of googling men's rights activism in Australia — which probably led her straight to my front door. What a hoot.

Funny thing about being mocked: it means you still matter. Nobody satirises the irrelevant. Colin From Accounts thinks it's making fun of a fringe idea. Llew O'Brien knows better. So does every mum at Mothers of Sons. Men have arrived. They are finally on the map. It's about time."

https://bettinaarndt.substack.com/p/politicians-discover-men