There’s been a lot of chatter online lately about unions pushing for five weeks of annual leave instead of the current four. The predictable response has been a mix of enthusiasm from workers and pearl-clutching from certain quarters about how this will “destroy the economy” or make Australia “uncompetitive.”

What strikes me most about this whole discussion is how we’ve been conditioned to think that four weeks is somehow generous, when it hasn’t budged in over fifty years. Think about that for a moment. Half a century. In that time, worker productivity has skyrocketed thanks to technology (hello, DevOps automation and everything else we’ve built), yet our mandated time off has remained frozen in the 1970s. Something doesn’t add up.

There’s something deeply unsettling about watching people pack up and leave Australia because they can’t afford a home here. Not because they don’t like the country, not because of job opportunities elsewhere, but simply because the basic human need for shelter has become financially unattainable. I’ve been following a discussion online recently about people considering leaving Australia after moving here with such hope and optimism, and it’s struck a chord with me in ways I didn’t expect.

There’s been quite a bit of chatter online lately about Anthropic’s decision not to renew their partnership with certain government agencies, and honestly, it’s given me a lot to think about during my morning brew this week.

The thing that strikes me most is how quick we are to either completely lionise or utterly condemn companies when they make these kinds of decisions. I’ve been reading through various discussions, and it’s fascinating how polarised people are. Some are celebrating Anthropic as heroes standing up to power, while others are pointing out their existing contracts with companies like Palantir and saying it’s all performative nonsense.