When public broadcasters pick sides
No, Tony Abbott is not a Populist
There is an article in The Saturday Paper floating the idea that Tony Abbott is a Populist (according to an…
Migration? That’s not Albanese’s problem
Mass migration is the most influential voting topic in Australia. This makes progressively-minded politicians uncomfortable, as it is a judgment…
A New Zealand republic in Jacinda Ardern’s lifetime?
New Zealand’s former Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, believes the nation will become a republic within her lifetime. We have heard…
The Meloni-Trump saga is wild
Amidst the extremely serious geopolitics of Europe and the Middle East – where politicians are navigating active war fronts –…
The global climate confidence game
‘He that can make the philosopher’s stone, will certainly be rich.’ – Ben Jonson, The Alchemist Victor Lustig understood a profound…
When public broadcasters pick sides
A publicly funded broadcaster has a special responsibility in a democratic society. Australians do not expect SBS or the ABC…
One Nation voters are not who you think they are
One Nation voters are not what you may think they are. After the May Budget, more than 300 of them…
Cory Bernardi: Poor Angus…
Poor Angus Taylor. I imagine he took over the leadership of the Liberal Party with high hopes three months ago,…
Legacy shopping at the Dollar Store
Every government arrives in office convinced that history is waiting patiently for its grand performance. The Albanese government was no…
Consumer-first energy future?
Our three energy regulatory agencies and the Productivity Commission, the government’s independent economic adviser, have all issued reports and recommendations…
Yes, the Nationals can survive
Each party has major, consequential decisions to make in Australian politics these days. One of the more interesting is not…
Are we ‘Building a Better Future?’
Has the government actually met the promises it made with the Prime Minister’s speech opening the May 2025 election? Were…
The future is out of fashion
I recently watched a clip of Warren Buffett where he recalled a joke about the comedian W.C. Fields. After inheriting…
The correct Uniculturalism is superior to Multiculturalism
Etymonline (you guessed it, it’s a blend word combining etymology with online, a portmanteau) tells us that the blend word…
Gina’s space odyssey
At News Corp’s Bush Summit in Townsville this week, Australia’s richest woman proposed offering Elon Musk’s SpaceX sparsely populated Queensland…
Australia’s political grief
Australia’s establishment, whether it be politicians or journalists, calls the present insurgency a convulsion. It has the diagnosis backwards: the…
Beyond Multiculturalism
Senator Pauline Hanson recently argued at the National Press Club that while Australia is a multiracial country, it cannot and…
The Unfashionables
I was only 14 years old when Tony Abbott ran a 2013 federal election campaign largely centred on what was,…
Burning money in the name of ‘diversity’
Almost a quarter of a century ago, Microsoft launched the Xbox – a video game system that would eventually evolve…
Pauline Hanson came, saw, and conquered Canberra
The National Press Club this week attempted to show its liberal democratic credentials by giving the One Nation leader a…
Australia’s eSafety Commissioner loses again – A victory for free speech | Celine Baumgarten S3 Ep 18
Celine Baumgarten (Celine Against the Machine) has celebrated her SECOND victory against the eSafety Commissioner. This wasn’t only a personal…
Did Donald Trump conquer the world with witty insults? | Joel Gilbert S3 Ep 17
Did Donald Trump conquer the world with witty insults? I’m joined by Joel Gilbert to discuss the genius of humour…
Digital tyranny or ‘child safety’? 😵 & the bitcoin revolution | Efrat Fenigson S3 Ep 16
When Australia’s Under 16 social media ban started locking adult political writers out of #Substack – it was just the…
Jim Chalmers is one of the most useless treasurers ever
Jim Chalmers will go down as one of the worst treasurers that Australia has ever had, up there with Jim…
Canberra’s obscene compassion machine
The alleged abduction and murder of five-year-old Kumanjayi Little Baby from an Alice Springs town camp should have shattered one…
The madness of Mabo
In the mining industry (and probably every other sector), Aboriginal heritage is no longer about the protection of Aboriginal heritage.…
Please explain, Pauline
One of the small pleasures of Australian politics over recent years has been Pauline Hanson’s Please Explain videos. Usually they…
Business/Robbery, etc
Deliberate, deceptive and disastrous. And although it is among the most damaging of all the appalling injuries the Albanese Labor…
Water versus massive waste
There’s one man in Australia who can say with overwhelming scientific authority that Donald Trump is right – the theory…
MAFS arms and legs race
I hadn’t planned to write about this, but life has a strange way of forcing your hand. After a particularly…
One Big Government Nation
In her address to the National Press Club this week, Senator Pauline Hanson took aim at the financial disaster that…
Who wants to govern Britain?
As the country prepares for its seventh prime minister in a decade, some are asking: is Britain ungovernable? I’d like…
What I saw at the Montréal shooting
We were running late to check out of our hotel because my two young girls had demanded to use the…
Britain has become the weak man of Europe on border control
Britain and France have rewritten the ‘one in, one out’ migrant deal nearly a year after it came into effect.…
Why the heatwave hysteria won’t change how I run my school
Having been raised on a diet of 1950s war films, I have always admired the virtue of resilience. I was…
The unique charisma of Pope Francis
The anniversary of Pope Leo XIV’s election last month generated lots of thoughtful but inconclusive analysis from mainstream Catholic commentators…
Here’s to ten years of Brexit Derangement Syndrome
I didn’t fully realise how much Brexit Derangement Syndrome – the reaction to being on the losing side in the…
The real threat to democracy after Brexit
Ten years after the Brexit referendum, its long-term impact on our politics is evident. Not so evident is why this…
How do we stop Britain’s decline?
This has been an abysmal decade for Britain. Even if you are sanguine about the economic impact of Brexit, which…
The 42 reasons why Keir Starmer failed
Before David Cameron got the job of prime minister, he was asked why he wanted it. ‘Because I’d be good…
Watch: Andy Burnham sworn in
Andy Burnham sworn in as new Labour MP for Makerfield Follow live updates and analysis: https://t.co/SkfgqT7YpV pic.twitter.com/bwrKGBjWHg — BBC Politics…
Burnham’s Makerfield win doesn’t guarantee his success as PM
Thursday’s by-elections gave new hope to both the Conservatives and Labour. Both parties have been in the doldrums in the…
The last days of Starmer: A view from inside the No.10 bunker
It’s true that collapses come slowly and then fast. Ours started before we got into power with the belief that…
A New Zealand republic in Jacinda Ardern’s lifetime?
New Zealand’s former Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, believes the nation will become a republic within her lifetime. We have heard…
The row over English becoming an official language of New Zealand
Parliamentarians in New Zealand have been limbering up for an oddly unedifying debate over what ought to be the most…
What they don’t tell you about Christmas in New Zealand
‘I still think New Zealand the most beautiful country I have ever seen,’ Agatha Christie marvelled in 1922. Evidently she’s…
What will Jacinda Ardern do next?
When I first met Jacinda Ardern in the early 2010s, the notion that the young MP with the toothy smile…
Will the Iran deal destroy J.D. Vance?
Striped caps and striking shoes
June 11 saw the death of the Yorkshire-born English painter David Hockney who was arguably the most celebrated painter of…
A man of music
The other day saw the opening of the Peter Corrigan Collection at RMIT which comprises his personal collection of architectural…
Such stuff as dreams are made on
When Ken Branagh took the stage of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre at Stratford for the first time in thirty years…
Elegance and intrigue
Anyone who knows the Sixties can easily be reminded of the beauty and the authority of Sidney Poitier. The MTC…
The clear and present danger of exploring the Gulag
On 21 February 2022, 35-year-old Charlie Walker flew into Yakutsk in the Russian Far East, ready to ski hundreds of…
A trove of avian lore and history
I finished reading The Book of Birds by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris, and leaned out of my attic window…
A grandmother’s twisted mind: The Passage of Roses, by Tie Ning, reviewed
At first glance, Tie Ning’s The Passage of Roses appears to be yet another Chinese novel set during the Cultural…
There will be blood – the vital work of field transfusion units
Most conventional second world war military histories focus on weapons, materiel and even the manpower needed for a decisive victory…
No fairytale: The Children, by Melissa Albert, reviewed
Who would be a child made famous by a book? A.A. Milne’s son, immortalised as the teddy-trailing Christopher Robin in…
Alien fever shows no signs of abating
These two books are about aliens – intelligent beings who may or may not have visited our planet. Jonathan Caplan…
Vigilante justice: Pure Men, by Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, reviewed
Like the Booker, the Prix Goncourt’s laureates now tend to veer between diamonds and duds. One of the strongest recent…
French letters – Albert Camus’s great epistolary love affair
The extraordinary correspondence between Albert Camus and the love of his life Maria Casarès must rank among the most passionate…