On Passover, Israel, and the scourge of antisemitism
On behalf of the Australia-Israel Allies Caucus, I wish all who celebrate a happy and holy Pesach/Passover. Passover commemorates the…
Laughs, lies, and lights out
Oh, the irony! Here I was reading our local Noosa newspaper last Saturday morning and laughing when the power started…
Australia fails to protect children from gender experiments
The debate over so-called ‘gender-affirming care’ for children has reached a crucial moment. This treatment approach, which often involves the…
Only official misinformation allowed
Over the last four years, the Australian ruling classes have demonstrated an insatiable appetite for power and control over our…
Do you wish your country would become normal again?
Would it be nice if universities suddenly became passively progressive again, instead of shamelessly revolutionary? Should national holidays return to…
Broken promises, broken budgets
In December 2021, Anthony Albanese announced his ‘plan’ to reduce electricity prices by $275 per household by 2025. He said…
JK Rowling puts Wikipedia’s neutrality to the test
The JK Rowling Wikipedia article has been embroiled in a heated debate over the last month regarding its representation of…
Misdiagnosed problems and misguided solutions
In a recent piece published by the International Monetary Fund, Nobel Prize-winning economist Angus Deaton lambasted his own profession for ‘valorising efficiency…
Women’s liberation stumbles backwards
I must start this off with an admission, I am a bloke – worse – an old bloke – even…
Mental health and restraint: the unsolved conundrum
When is it appropriate to schedule someone into compulsory care when he or she is out of touch with reality?…
Outsourcing politics, killing democracy, fomenting revolution
Robert Jenrick, in the London Daily Telegraph, fears that the inevitable Starmer government in the United Kingdom will enact a ‘second…
The assault on the Mexican embassy in Quito, Ecuador
There is no doubt that the Ecuadorian assault on the Mexican Embassy in the capital Quito appears to be an…
Brown study
Like many conservatives, I am profoundly unhappy about the appointment of Ms Sam Mostyn as Governor-General of Australia. In fact,…
Our greatest philosopher
Yes, I know, starting a column by talking briefly about one of the world’s great philosophers is a bit odd.…
Time to give ‘hate speech’ the flick
Can we delete the term ‘hate speech’ from the debate over the role of the law in what people can…
Into the lion’s den
I’ve never thought of myself as a rapist. I’m certainly no Lothario – at least I wasn’t back in my…
Alas for free trade
An Israeli-owned ship crammed with 17,000 cattle and sheep from Australia upset animal-rights campaigners when in January it refused to…
Is cash still king?
I always carry a bit of cash; probably not as much as I did in the past. I’m not ‘doing…
Big bang fallout
Hands up those who think the reputation of commercial television Network Ten has been enhanced by the judgment in the…
Mullahs on missiles
As Israelis bunkered down in their bomb shelters last Saturday, even the grim prospect of approaching Iranian cruise missiles couldn’t…
Why won’t the Scottish Greens accept the Cass report?
There are many words to describe Patrick Harvie but ‘clinician’ certainly isn’t one of them. Yet his trademark arrogance was…
Is there any way back for the Met Police?
‘You are quite openly Jewish, this is a pro-Palestinian march, I’m not accusing you of anything but I’m worried about…
After TikTok, there’s another app we should ban
The American House of Representatives has passed a bill ordering Bytedance, a Chinese company, to divest from TikTok or stop…
The underrated charm of minor-league hockey
I live outside Pittsburgh, home to fans who bleed the black and gold of the Steelers, Penguins and Pirates (OK,…
Why New Zealand is cracking down on immigration
The government of New Zealand this week tightened the country’s working visa rules in order to stem historically high numbers…
Why is New Zealand’s deputy PM rowing with Chumbawamba?
In their musical heyday, the English anarchist punk band Chumbawamba enjoyed a reputation for having an irreverent attitude towards those…
New Zealand’s imperial judiciary
If you cast your eyes across the Tasman right now, you can see the beginnings of an imperial judiciary, the…
Subversion within New Zealand
Recently querying why New Zealand governments make annual January pilgrimages to the Maori Pa at Ratana, to celebrate the birth…
The music of their eloquence
It was a tweet by the novelist Joyce Carol Oates that warned us PBS, the American public broadcaster, had done…
Why one-man plays are all the rage
Well, it’s nice to feel on trend. The Today programme this morning carried an item on the popularity of one-man…
Somersaulting beauty of the songmaker
It’s uncanny sometimes how it works. There we were last Saturday in Hamer Hall to hear what Stephen Layton from…
A lithe brilliance
It figures that Australians should write great plays about sport because we are exceptionally – some people would say excessively…
Kiwi life
Softly, softly, catchee monkey – the alphabet community’s grab for our children Somewhat naively, a New Zealand commentator thinks there’s…
Language
The University of Chicago has what it calls a ‘Parrhesia Program for Public Discourse’ – aimed at teaching students to…
Manchester City are surely unstoppable
Well it was fun while it lasted, the closest three-way race for the Premier League in history, a title challenge…
Lefties don’t know anything about farming
The artists and hippies are re-wilding their land, which is to say doing nothing at all to it and watching…
To Salman Rushdie, a dream before his attempted murder ‘felt like a premonition’
Salman Rushdie has long hated and struggled against the idea that the 1989 fatwa pronounced on him after the publication…
Murder in the dark: The Eighth House, by Linda Segtnan, reviewed
It takes a Scandinavian mother to write like this: ‘Why murder a nine-year-old girl? She wasn’t raped. Rape is the…
Are we all becoming hermits now?
Long before Covid, wi-fi and Deliveroo, Badger in The Wind in the Willows showed us how to live beyond the…
John Deakin: the perfect anti-hero of the tawdry Soho scene
During the various lockdowns I found myself wondering how Iain Sinclair was coping with the restrictions. It seemed unthinkable that…
A magnificent set of dentures still leaves little to smile about
John Patrick Higgins is unhappy about the state of his mouth. His teeth resemble ‘broken biscuits’, a ‘pub piano’, ‘an…
The Dreyfus Affair continues to haunt France to this day
A short new book on Captain Alfred Dreyfus, the proudly patriotic French army officer who was falsely accused in 1894…
They felt they could achieve anything together: two brave women in war-torn Serbia
Lesbian military fiction is a popular genre, featuring titles such as Silver Wings and An Army of One, but Jack…
Being a printer was what Benjamin Franklin prided himself on most
For some readers this book will have the charm of the Antiques Roadshow. Adam Smyth, professor of English Literature and…