Pedagogues for Palestine
Sussan Ley announces her intention to retire from politics
Sussan Ley emerged to the scaffold of the press gallery with a smile. A strained smile. When I came to…
34-17 Angus Taylor ousts Sussan Ley in landslide
It wasn’t even close. No one will be surprised to learn that loyalty demanded is weak compared to loyalty earned. After months of…
Angus Taylor quits shadow cabinet to challenge Sussan Ley
Angus Taylor presumably has the numbers… He has come out, not long ago, to announce he has tendered his resignation…
To the Moon! (Farewell Mars…)
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk announced a celestial shift. His company will prioritise constructing a base on the Moon, achievable within…
The secret to Farrer…
One Nation has started campaigning for the by-election to replace the Member for Farrer, former Liberal leader Sussan Ley. This…
Who is Angus Taylor, and can he defeat Albanese…
Angus Taylor has become Leader of the Liberal Party after deposing Sussan Ley. The leadership spill came after months of…
Words are not saving lives in Iran
In recent days, Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel, met with Steve Witkoff, the United States special envoy, for…
How does the fall of the regime in Iran benefit Australia?
The Islamic Republic of Iran has long constituted a source of geopolitical tension and strategic concern for many nations, Australia…
Can Angus Taylor free Australia of the green energy nightmare
The renewable energy bubble is popping globally – though not in countries run by green socialist governments, including the UK,…
Liberals dodge near-death experience by electing Angus Taylor
After missing by a whisker being shot in the head, Donald Trump’s instinctive battle cry was to ‘Fight! Fight! Fight!’…
Is weaponised interdependence today’s ‘nuclear deterrence’?
After the end of the Soviet era, Western nations and multinationals built an interdependent global economy on top of US-centred…
AI, Engels, Friedman – and a peace treaty with history
Every so often, history resolves an argument without consulting the people who were arguing. Positions that once looked irreconcilable are…
The brutal life of baby Samuel
Soon after winning the Queensland State election on 26 October 2024, the new Liberal National Premier, David Crisafulli, unexpectedly moved…
Genocide is not what it used to be
Ongoing claims of genocide perpetrated by Israel have reached the point where it is, in modern terms, normative. That is,…
The Covid fad that just won’t die
Fidget-spinners, Pokémon GO, the skateboard, and Covid testing for major sports events – what is the odd one out? Covid…
Barnaby Joyce passes the pub test
From the Press Gallery: The first regular sitting of the House of Representatives for 2026 commenced last week so I…
Falling fertility
Last year, it was revealed that Australia’s fertility rate had sunk to 1.48 children per woman, the lowest figure in…
The backlash against Billie Eilish
Since the great Catherine O’Hara’s premature passing, I have been compulsively watching clips of her playing the faded actress Moira…
Seeking social cohesion
Tadpoles darted through the shady shallows of the Thomson River, as I stooped to fill my bottle with the pristine…
Cometh the moment, cometh the Taylor?
In rough and ready terms there are two theories about what is happening with Australia’s Liberal party. One is the…
Electric cell
The invention of the pneumatic tyre sparked an insatiable demand for rubber, turning the Congo’s rainforest – rich in this…
Ignoring radical Islam won’t make it disappear
Radical Islam, in both its Shia and Sunni forms, has become one of the most persistent drivers of global instability.…
Bangladesh teeters
I have just visited my ancestral birthplace of Bangladesh, where an election is due this month. What is unfolding carries…
Pedagogues for Palestine
‘From Gadigal to Gaza, globalise the intifada,’ howled Australian of the Year 2021 Grace Tame. There is no need for…
Terror tunnels and snipers: Life on the frontline in Gaza’s suspended reality
The first thing that struck me as I crossed into central Gaza yesterday was how ordinary the landscape looked. Grassy…
Is Norway about to take a step closer to joining the EU?
This weekend in Oslo politicians and activists from Norway’s conservative party, Høyre, will meet to confirm their new leader, Ine Eriksen…
Why isn’t Reform welcome on university campuses?
It’s been a while, but student censors are on the march once more. This time, they have Reform UK firmly…
What Louis Theroux’s Netflix show won’t tell you about the ‘Manosphere’
There once was a time when you couldn’t move for some progressive voice complaining in superior tones about the latest…
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…
The de-Wokification of New Zealand’s education system
The conservative coalition government of New Zealand came to office promising to wind back an enormous, government-run system of ‘Woke’…
Jacinda, Jacinta
I’m not a big fan of self-serving autobiographies, particularly of recently departed political leaders. I had briefly considered dipping into…
The inconvenient truth about polar bears
Dark and stormy
The opening gala of Melbourne Symphony Orchestra this year with the renowned pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet seems in every way congruent…
Camp indulgence
Music has the odd quality of being an abstract art as well as one that generates great gulfs and legions…
What Catherine O’Hara gave to cinema
There are actors who dominate the cinema screen, and actors who deepen it. There are stars who are ‘bankable’ and…
Dazzled and satiated
It’s a tumultuous decade or so since The Night Manager burst onto our television screens and a while longer since…
Searching for the one and only is futile, say the sexologists
In a tiny town tucked into the desert an hour’s drive out of Nevada, a legal brothel operates. Its ‘menu’…
The lost world of the pinball machine
‘Pinball games, with their flashing lights and unforgettable names, are the one thread that runs together my otherwise fragmentary life.’…
The citizens of nowhere adrift in the West
We all know that an Englishman’s home is his castle, or at least it was. Looking back, it is easy…
No good deed goes unpunished: A Better Life, by Lionel Shriver, reviewed
Lionel Shriver is a first-rate storyteller. And yet… A Better Life is a satire on the immigration problem that particularly…
The two faces of modern Japan
Japanophiles, look away now. A country renowned for inspiring fascination, warm feelings and not a little envy in its rapidly…
Why Leonard Cohen felt empowered to pronounce benedictions
If it is true that a serious artist is one with the capacity to go on reinventing who they are…
Growing up with thieves, murderers and heroin addicts
‘You can’t pick your parents, but they get to pick your life,’ Jonathan Tepper points out at the beginning of…
Rupert Murdoch’s warped vision of family
When Rupert Murdoch divorced his fourth wife, Jerry Hall, in August 2022 he made her sign an agreement that she…