By all appearances, Channel Ten’s The Project wants to be Australia’s answer to The Daily Show – news dressed up as comedy. But increasingly, Australians aren’t laughing with them. They’re laughing at them – or not watching altogether.

Perhaps this renders it more akin to The View, a left-wing talk show which has become a global laughingstock.

With speculation mounting that The Project program may soon be axed, viewers could finally be spared of its smug detachment from mainstream Australia.

In its latest attempt at satire, The Project took aim at the idea of buying Australian-made – an idea recently championed by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in the context of Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs on foreign goods. The intent was to support local industry.

But rather than engage seriously with that message, they opted for a cheap laugh.

The segment opened with a monologue featuring Waltzing Matilda in the background, sarcastically comparing local products to their American counterparts and painting Australian staples as inferior.

At the centre of the segment was Bundaberg Brewed Drinks. They interviewed CEO John McLean, who leads the family-owned, 60-year-old Australian company that manufactures locally and exports globally.

What could have been a moment to celebrate a great Australian business was reduced to a series of patronising jabs, undermining a company that has done more for regional jobs and global brand-building than The Project could ever hope to achieve.

The interview with McLean quickly descended into open mockery: the hosts sarcastically asked if Bundaberg had any drinks popular before 1975, pulled exaggerated faces while drinking it, questioned its calorie content, and acted as though their ‘golden tongues’ tasting the product was a privilege.

McLean proudly noted that 50 per cent of Bundaberg’s products are now exported internationally – an achievement that reflects both demand for Australian quality abroad and the company’s investment in regional manufacturing and supply chains at home.

In response, a host naively suggested the company should stop exporting and keep the drinks in Australia – a simplistic remark that overlooked the benefits of trade and the scale of Bundaberg Brewed Drink’s global success and the positive impact it has on regional Australia.

The joke revealed the ignorance. Trade is not a zero-sum game. Bundaberg’s global success enables its continued reinvestment at home – supporting jobs, supply chains and the regional economy.

Let’s be clear: Bundaberg Brewed Drinks isn’t just a soft drink company. It’s a national success story. A business that supports local farmers, employs hundreds, exports globally and has just invested $150 million in a world-class facility in Queensland.

But to The Project’s desk-bound panellists, it’s all a punchline.

This isn’t just about ginger beer. It’s about aspiration. About industry. About economic self-belief. And yes, about national pride – something The Project appears to find deeply unfashionable.

This episode was not an aberration. It was symptomatic of a deeper malaise. The cultural class that dominates our media is increasingly disconnected from the values that underpin the country.

Where comedy once held power to account, today it is often used to sneer at the enterprising, the regional, and the patriotically Australian.

At a time when living standards are falling, inflation remains sticky, and trust in institutions is waning, Australians are not looking for elitists who make fun of what they love.

They’re looking for leadership, belief and faith in our county and its culture.

What they got from The Project was a skit. What they needed was a spotlight on one of Australia’s most impressive regional manufacturers.

This isn’t satire. It’s snobbery masquerading as wit.

We need to ask ourselves what kind of country we want to be. Do we stand with the people building our future from the ground up? Or do we ridicule them to win applause in an inner-city studio?

Because if The Project thought it was being clever, it should know this: the average Australian wasn’t laughing. They were cringing. And if our media class keeps punching down on those who keep the country running, the joke will ultimately be on them.