Whyalla wipeout
The Chalmers diet
Sydney’s working class look hungry. By that I mean, they are getting noticeably thinner. My advice to the political class…
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…
Reza Shah II and Australia’s shadow government
The online meeting between Reza Shah II and Australia’s shadow government can be viewed as part of the growing dialogue…
Fauda and the shadow of October 7
Israel’s TV show Fauda has not disappointed with its long-awaited fifth season. Building on its longstanding international following, Fauda’s viewership…
Mass migration overcrowds cities as regions left behind
Imagine an entire Lufthansa fleet of 27 Boeing-747s, at maximum capacity, picking up migrants from South and Southeast Asia, among…
Free speech and the fine print
Watching Konrad Benjamin from Punter’s Politics and Sam Bamford from 2 Worlds Collide take pot shots at each other, I’m…
Methinks they doth protest too much
With apologies to Shakespeare and Hamlet’s mother, Gertrude, for the reference in the title, the recent ranting by both Labor…
Israel’s war in Gaza
Before any serious discussion of the war in Gaza can begin, one fundamental distinction must be made: civilian deaths, however…
Novak Djokovic and the night his body said ‘enough’
There are defeats in tennis that live in statistics, and then there are defeats that live in memory. Novak Djokovic’s…
The load-bearing wall: Vale Dr Dale
In residential construction, a load-bearing wall is the one nobody thinks about until it is gone. It carries the weight…
Memo to Liberal Party
Liberal leadership hopeful Andrew Hastie sent an email to supporters over the weekend, doubling-down in his unnecessary public spat with…
Remembering September 11: still reeling 25 years on
It’s 25 years since that fateful day when a whole new reality crashed in on our world and set civilisation…
Veterans deserve better
In the May Budget, the Labor government, through Veterans’ Affairs Minister Matt Keogh, announced a $5,000-a-year cap on veterans’ allied-health…
We have not forgotten
It is my view that the Liberal Party and News24 are making a serious mistake by persistently conflating the Ben…
Please never explain
You may have heard I’ve been working as a barista, driving a school bus, and driving a truck in regional…
AOC and the parasocial nature of politics
Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who often goes by AOC, recently took to the internet to share that she would be freezing…
Restoring choice for stay-at-home parents
There is little to no defence from those in the modern Liberal Party of Malcolm Fraser. Even rarer is any…
Vale Jim Frecklington – an Australian craftsman for the ages
Australia has lost one of its most extraordinary and most artistic craftsmen. Jim Frecklington, royal coachmaker, horseman, artist, and patriot,…
PLEASE EXPLAIN! Why politicians are getting salty over satirical cartoons… | S3 Ep 19
This week… Jacqui Lambie’s rant over One Nation’s Andrew Hastie ‘traitor’ cartoon. Who dragged Albanese’s mother into the political conversation…
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…
Aussies teed off
When it comes to sinking the career of Anthony Albanese, the scandalous ‘Golfgate’ should be a hole-in-one for the opposition.…
A phalanx of unelected commissioners
I am often in the car around 5 p.m., having helped with the school/kinder pickup. It’s a great joy hanging…
Barnaby’s bread and circuses
I am borderline innumerate. Angus enjoys reminding our children of this, perhaps because his own identity is so bound up…
Chairman Kim’s codswallop
Many, if not most, Australians would have been embarrassed, even angered, by the fatuous welcome to ‘Naarm’ provided to the…
View from the Chairman’s Lounge
Somewhere behind a door through which few Australians will ever pass, inside the Qantas Chairman’s Lounge, a member of parliament…
Whose super is it? Albo’s?
A recent cartoon in the Australian captures the confidence trick Labor politicians are playing on the workers they pretend to…
We’re still woke, folks
Firstly, let me remind readers we have some big elections looming in the Anglosphere. Everyone will know about the US…
The road to hell is paved with political intentions
Standing beside Georgia Tree, Labor’s candidate for the safe Labor seat of Secret Harbour recently, West Australian premier Roger Cook…
Whyalla wipeout
On Monday night, Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen conceded that green hydrogen had proved slower and more expensive…
Hastie & Pickering
It’s fascinating to compare the current imbroglio between two potential political leaders: Warren Pickering, of whom nobody had ever heard…
If 9/11 happened today
Twenty-five years on, if the 9/11 terrorist attack by al-Qaeda happened today, the response in Australia and countries such as…
The Plibersek paradox
It’s surely impossible to imagine Tanya Plibersek – Plibbers to most of us – ever being the prime minister of…
Mark Carney will regret tying Canada to the EU
Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney says he welcomes the EU’s ‘ambition’ for Canada to become an associate member. He should…
Rebranding net zero is daft
Would renaming the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero really make it easier for the government to persuade the…
Ed Sheeran has done nothing wrong
So now we know what happens if you refuse to prostrate yourself before the Gaza cult. If you politely decline…
The Scottish Parliament fills me with knuckle-chewing horror
Watching the proceedings of the Scottish Parliament, a thought often occurs: if these people won elections, imagine the runners up.…
Why would Canada want to hitch itself to the EU?
“Canada has what the world wants,” Mark Carney likes to tell people. But what does Canada want? The European Union,…
Why green zealots want to drop ‘net zero’
First, the good news. The Commons select committee on energy security and net zero has called on the government to…
Watch: Sadiq Khan addresses Zack Polanski in Urdu
Zack Polanski was left red-faced at City Hall this morning after Sadiq Khan answered a question from the Green leader…
Does Andrew Griffith have what it takes?
Appointments to the shadow cabinet recall Ernest Shackleton’s job advert to cross the Antarctic. ‘Men wanted for hazardous journey, small…
The Bank holding interest rates will be of little relief for John Healey
The Bank of England has just voted six-three to hold interest rates at 3.75 per cent, a decision that makes…
The Houthis are complicating Trump’s already failing war
To lose one Middle East sea lane vital for the global economy may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose…
Is Charles Spencer right about King Charles?
As soon as news broke that copies of Charles Spencer’s memoir about the late Princess of Wales, Swan Song: Diana, My…
Who’s afraid of AI?
It’s not often that we get a ringside seat to the Birth of a Narrative. Usually, those overseeing the parturition…
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
A gorgeous evocation of the natural world
The world of artistic expression runs in a thousand ways. The Melbourne Symphony’s Spring Gala – paralleling the Opera’s Wagner…
A man of great suavity
They were both films that stay in the mind from a lifetime ago. Peter Pan is J.M. Barrie’s contribution to…
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…
Art conquers all: The Disappearers by Marlon James, reviewed
Gothic fiction is full of Jekylls and Hydes. For every castle, there is a dungeon; for every locked door, a…
Pain passed down: a portrait of Russia and the war that dare not speak its name
Long before Asne Seierstad arrived at the bookseller’s house in Kabul, she studied in Moscow. ‘I tried to be one…
Rebecca reimagined: The Housekeeper by Rose Tremain, reviewed
Mrs Danvers is one of those rare characters who has transcended her original setting to enter the wider culture. She…
Too much and much too long: The Rouse by China Miéville, reviewed
China Miéville’s new novel is 1,264 pages long. Following his breakthrough ‘New Weird’ masterpiece Perdido Street Station (2000), Miéville was…
Worried about masculinity: from turrets and gargoyles to the state of men
In 2023, the author Jon Ronson woke one Sunday in upstate New York, where he lives, to a string of…
Curiouser and curiouser: The Strangers by Naomi Alderman, reviewed
This aptly titled novel might be Naomi Alderman’s strangest book yet – a work of fiction about a writer called…
Mind the gaps: a far-from comprehensive life of Hannah Arendt
In 1975 – the year of her own death – Hannah Arendt published a heartfelt memorial essay about W.H. Auden…
In with the new: Julie Christie, Mary Quant, Up the Junction – the decade that changed Britain
This glorious historical monument slows, expands and luxuriously stretches to encompass one of the defining moments of change in our…