Clayton’s Royal Commission
Is offshore wind a defence risk?
Here are two things worth considering… Firstly, green energy projects and state government agendas envision a version of Australia essentially…
The orange waters of Secret Harbour
‘There are no safe Labor seats in this state, or in this country any more…’ declared Luke Herdegen, the freshly…
Can Victoria send Albo a melon-surrender bin?
While the fabric of Australia is tearing itself to bits, the national conversation remains preoccupied with the Prime Minister’s melon…
Do politicians have the right to block citizens on social media?
Politicians, or perhaps their shallow-minded media managers, have been going crazy with the ‘block’ button. If you call the Treasurer…
The position of the Shahbanu: beyond a royal title
Throughout Iranian history, the term Shahbanu has never been merely a ceremonial title. In the cultural understanding of Iranians, the…
Clayton’s Royal Commission
Aussies of a certain vintage will remember this classic ad from the 1980s, my favourite decade. Yes, following the success…
Repeal the red tape – switch on the future
Australia’s nuclear future is not blocked by physics, engineering, or economics. It is blocked by statute. A handful of deliberate…
The ravens have returned
With the by-election over and the countless corflutes that once blanketed the quiet streets and roadsides of Secret Harbour like…
The ownership era: a disguised unwind
The Australian housing market overall peaked in March. By the time you read this, it will have been falling for…
Who owns Australia? Don’t ask. Nobody knows.
There is something magnificently Australian about owing a trillion dollars and not being entirely sure to whom. Other nations fret…
Classy, biased bigotry, brought to you by your ABC
It was no surprise to hear that Barnaby Joyce doesn’t give a toss what you think of him. That much…
The European Commission’s ‘lazy money’
Not infrequently, Australian politicians suggest that the considerable household deposits in savings accounts, estimated to be $19.21 trillion (mainly driven…
Canberra renamed to Buenos Aires
To paraphrase Ernest Hemingway, Australia asks Argentina: How did you go broke? Argentina replies to Australia: Gradually and then suddenly.…
No shame in the democracy game
I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but Australian citizenship – the practice, not the now cheaply won legal status –…
Prayer, privilege, and power
There’s a move afoot in our Parliament that needs your attention. Several weeks ago, I was prompted to look at…
The Victorianisation of Australia
Australians’ living standards have gone backwards since the end of the pandemic in 2022. In a healthy economy, per capita…
The real secret of Secret Harbour
The real secret of Secret Harbour is that One Nation’s national vote may actually be much higher than we think…
Education departments have a plan for the bully. What about the victim?
A mother asked a fairly elementary question last week: When is enough finally enough? Her primary school-aged son, she says,…
The death of the heroic political backstory
In Blackadder the Third, Series 3, Episode 5, ‘Amy and Amiability’, Warren Clarke’s Josiah Hardwood cuts a formidable figure. The…
When did normal become ‘far-right’?
As an older member of Generation X, I was born only 25 years after the end of the second world…
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…
Hoax of an inquiry
It is now clear that the Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion, designed to investigate the horrific Bondi massacre,…
Australian notes
One of the unforeseen consequences of the war in Gaza has been a significant erosion of freedom of speech in…
The Green Dream fades
Is anyone surprised that the invitation of president for negotiations Chris Bowen – B1 to Speccie readers – to his…
Licence to kill (businesses)
Listen to Australian politicians opine on business for five minutes and you will hear the expression ‘social licence’. All too…
Fagan’s shameful ruling
In a recent case before the Supreme Court of New South Wales, State of NSW v. Farhat, Justice Fagan had…
Trump won’t lose
With only two months until the American midterm elections in early November, it’s time for an update on the big…
Keating’s monster
Jim Chalmers says the next election will be a referendum on superannuation. Splendid. Let us have it. For thirty-four years…
One Nation’s House of Cards
There was something revealing about Pauline Hanson’s unveiling of Mike Newman as the candidate for Cessnock and One Nation’s new…
Ooshienomics
Communications Minister Anika Wells was ridiculed this week for using Ooshies to explain Jim Chalmers’ changes to negative gearing and…
Secret Harbour revolt
Not long ago, while I was waiting on a ferry moored at Circular Quay before an evening cruise across Sydney…
Dolly, Kylie & Albo
Just when you thought it was safe to view melons simply as grocery items, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese himself has,…
Brown study
In the last week, Melongate has proceeded along its sordid way. But it has now taken on a new significance.…
The safest thing for children is to keep social media dangerous
Everyone agrees that social media should be more heavily regulated to protect young people. Everyone is wrong. It should be…
This is the Golden Age of the long-form interview
How will our time be remembered? The age of anger? The age of grievance? The age of victimhood, or of…
James Rebanks and the trouble with sheep farming
Next time you’re in the British uplands, perhaps in one of our national parks, Dartmoor, say, or the Lake District,…
John Healey has failed the defence spending test
Sir Keir Starmer’s premiership was already in crisis on 11 June this year when John Healey submitted his resignation as…
Inside Badenoch’s economic unit
Kemi Badenoch’s reshuffle promised a revitalised economic team. Now Mr S can reveal how it is being staffed. A missive…
Burnham’s ‘clear diagnosis’ of Britain’s problems doesn’t add up
Andy Burnham said this week that he has made a ‘clear diagnosis of what has gone wrong’ in Britain since…
Lindsay Clancy and the inversion of feminism
In January 2023, Lindsay Clancy strangled her three children in her basement and then tried to kill herself. On August…
The oil field at the heart of Milei’s Falklands threat
If Andy Burnham were looking for a quick popularity boost, he might decide to order the deployment of a flotilla…
Jolyon Maugham and the rise and fall of the celebrity lawyer
They say that politics is showbiz for ugly people – but with the rise of the radiantly beauteous Keminator (and,…
How much longer will Cambridge stand by Simon Woolley?
The principal of Homerton College, Cambridge, has insisted he was telling the “truth” when he said that Jason Arday was…
Victory lies ahead for Germany’s AfD
A state election in an eastern German territory with only 1.8 million eligible voters could prove pivotal for Europe’s largest…
Can AI really spot heart disease in less than two seconds?
September is here, and the mists and mellow fruitfulness have arrived as promptly as John Keats could have wished. His…
Why you shouldn’t shrug at New Zealand’s greyhound racing ban
Greyhound racing ended in New Zealand on August 1. Those who neither own a greyhound nor care for the sport…
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…
The trouble with communism began with Plato
The sexiest kind of rock star
It’s strange and sad what the world throws at us. We are assailed by musicals – a production of Reg…
This silly and drivelling piece of tosh
Every so often something comes along that is so bad it fills the soul with wonder and dismay. It seems…
This devastating portrait of Americana
It’s more than 75 years since Lee J. Cobb opened in Elia Kazan’s production of Death of a Salesman and…
An aggravated splendour
Rod Liddle, who died on 2 August, was a journalist of genius and you could only feel a bit wonder-struck…
Few writers have covered their tracks as successfully as Anita Brookner
Anita Brookner, at 80, knew that, were any biographer to delve too deeply into her private affairs, her literature would…
The horror that emerges from the columns of Domesday Book
The opening of the British Museum’s The Bayeux Tapestry exhibition is not far off now. In early July, a bright…
Why we should never be afraid to ask questions
Lani Watson’s wonderful book is a study of the nature of questions: different types of questioning, where questions come from,…
Language lessons: Taipei Story, by Rebecca Kuang, reviewed
Rebecca Kuang was quietly writing cult classics for years before she hit the best-seller lists with Babel, a Victorian fantasy…
The trouble with communism began with Plato
Immediately after the Berlin Wall came down and the Soviet Union collapsed, during the brief ‘end of history’ period, there…
Surviving the Dresden firestorm: Slaughterhouse-Five revisited
I was in my teens and a bathtub when I first read Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five. Published in 1969, the novel…
From ballrooms to billets – the fate of our country houses and their owners in wartime
Ever since Brideshead Revisited, both the book and two television series, there has been a fascination with what some of…
Sad girl story: Sophie, Standing There, by Meg Mason, reviewed
Sophie Pattison, 37, is not in a good place: heartbroken, childless, mid-divorce from ‘arsehole’ Paul, with her self-esteem and bank…