Digital duty of care
Nepal and the scam of climate reparations
When the Earth shakes – climate reparations fall out. That may be the eventual lesson of the Nepal flood that…
Why is Albanese so defensive about Bowen’s tropical talkfest?
The Prime Minister appeared distinctly agitated when answering questions about Bowen’s expensive and poorly attended paradise climate talkfest in Fiji.…
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…
Grievance: the insurgency with 50 years to run
Samuel Thawley’s essay in these pages this week did something Australian economic writing almost never does. It located the pain.…
Bicycle helmets and the bubble-wrapping of Australia
A couple of weekends ago, I was reminded of my recent trip to London by Bernard Salt’s article in The…
From Athens to Albo: free speech and history
In our late democratic culture, where rights come cheap and easy, one could be forgiven for thinking our freedoms work…
The wrong man answered
Andrew Tate’s apparent downfall has been satisfying to watch. It shouldn’t be reassuring. If Tate were the problem, his disappearance…
We must stand with the Jews
I write these words with pride in my family, sorrow at what is happening in our country and an urgent…
Digital duty of care
Every few years we get all worked up as a country, and Canberra gets itchy feet about how to slap…
Ben Roberts-Smith, Shah Wali Kot, honour, and the war Australians barely know
Aaron Patrick spoke at the Gallipoli Memorial Club’s inaugural Lone Pine Dinner. At the event, he signed copies of his…
Claude ate my homework
When I was at school, the closest thing we had to AI was Clippy, the little animated paperclip who would…
The Treasury has a vision. (There is medication for that.)
Helmut Schmidt, former Chancellor of West Germany once observed that people who have visions should go and see a doctor.…
Don’t raid WA’s GST – make WA Labor spend it properly
There is a simple way for Australians on the eastern seaboard to think about Western Australia’s GST deal. Forget, for…
Should I fear writing this article?
It sounds absurd that I should even ask. Yet the Albanese government’s latest move is so broad, so unnecessary and…
Strange ‘communists’ I have known
It is ‘more like romance than reality’ Dr William Bland enthusiastically told a banquet celebrating NSW self-government in 1856 (Sweetman).…
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…
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.…
Ed Miliband: The Chief Rabbi is wrong
“I don’t agree with the Chief Rabbi.” Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband responds to Ephraim Mirvis’ comments that it’s “a dark…
Good riddance, Monty Don
Farewell, then, Monty Don, the Gardener’s World presenter who didn’t seem to like gardeners very much. By gardener, I don’t…
What detectorists taught us about 1066
Laid out in the British Museum like a ruler, the Bayeux Tapestry tells its story with relentless, graphic mastery. Harold…
Why has it taken Britain so long to honour Byron?
The triumphant unveiling of Byron’s statue in Hyde Park today marks the end of 200 years of dithering about his…
How Beefeater changed Britain – and why it died
The last Beefeater restaurants are closing their doors tomorrow after Whitbread, the owner of Premier Inn and once one of…
The problem with Ed Miliband’s West Bank sanctions
Since July 2024, British policy towards Israel and the wider Middle East has increasingly substituted declaratory positioning for strategy. Ceasefires,…
Lucy Powell must acknowledge England’s Pisa success
In 2016, when international test results for school pupils were released, Ofsted chief inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw said: ‘Scotland used…
Why Britain’s West Bank sanctions are savvy politics
British PM Andy Burnham’s move to impose sanctions on West Bank settlements is politically savvy – but not because it…
A Houthi-Saudi war is the last thing the Middle East needs
On my second day as Britain’s ambassador to Yemen, just after the so-called “Arab Spring” in January 2011, I visited…
Even playgrounds are no longer safe in Ceuta after the migrant invasion
Ceuta, population 83,000, suffered what is being described as its worst night of vandalism last night since some 70,000 migrants…
ITV’s The Box has exposed Gary Lineker for who he really is
‘What have I signed up for?’ wondered contestant Jenny Ryan early in proceedings on ITV’s The Box. It’s a question that…
The broken special needs system is betraying those who need it most
Everyone agrees that England’s special educational needs (SEND) system is broken. Earlier this year, the government said so itself. It…
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 plan is for the country to fall in love with Nigel again’: Richard Tice on what’s next for Reform
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…