Rowan Dean's election comment
Farewell to freedom
At face value, the 2022 federal election is a run-of-the-mill change of government election. In the post-Menzies era, the average…
The media's obsession with crucifying Scomo
Scott Morrison and his faith have been the subject of national discussion for three years, and yet journalists still don’t…
Election 2022: lessons and consequences
This year’s federal election was insane. It was chaotic. It was all over the place. And it has catastrophic consequences…
Progressive or conservative? Αsk Deves
O me miserum; mea culpa! and other Latin phrases of a similar kind. The worst federal government in many years…
The rich vote Left
The least conservative Liberal (and National) government in Australia’s history lost last weekend. There was no enthusiastic move to Labor.…
Is this (rough) democratic justice?
In December 1989, the Queensland National Party government lost power after 32 years in office. As David Barnett recounts in…
Keneally is Labor's Kryptonite
Of the many federal election strands still being forensically examined – one at least is resolved. Former Labor high-flyer, Kristina…
Climate Change: the wolf that isn’t there
The amount of carbon dioxide emitted by human activity into the Earth’s atmosphere is about the equivalent of a grain…
Biden's vow to defend Taiwan marks the end of Obama-era neutrality
Joe Biden will be flying back from his trip to Asia having made a big promise: that the US will…
Should a trans woman inherit a peerage over their older sister?
It’s House of Lords reform, Jim, but not as we know it. Matilda Simon has applied to contest the next…
Is Ukraine going to win?
The climactic battle for Ukraine is being fought in the east, on the dangerous, open terrain of the Donbas. Since…
How the West is helping Putin's propagandists
One might not think that J. R. R. Tolkien has much to do with the bitter war in Ukraine, but…
Kiwi crime capers
It looked like a scene from a Hollywood heist movie. Three expensive, late-model cars (stolen, of course) race through a…
New Zealand's Maori language obsession is baffling Kiwis
New Zealand’s borders have finally reopened after a two-year Covid shutdown. But those who travel down under are in for…
New Zealand in turmoil
Political corruption may always be endemic, but moves by our powerful, now immensely wealthy neo-tribal corporations have become so blatantly…
A Covid retrospective
Two years ago, I and a small group of multi-disciplinary New Zealand-based academics published our Covid Plan B. The plan…
The end of religious freedom in Hong Kong
If future historians wish to date the end of religious freedom in Hong Kong, they can note Wednesday, 11 May…
Failure of the Fourth Estate
How many readers have heard of the Republican-leaning polling operation, Rasmussen? Rasmussen’s results are as good as the many left-leaning…
Lose-win
Is this a good election for the government to lose? If you are a current Coalition parliamentarian, the answer would…
Don’t mention the swastika
Having experienced the warmth and openness of Victorians, the idea of the Garden State as a stomping ground for neo-Nazi…
Being Penny Wong
The march of post-modern irrationalism through our democratic institutions continues unabated. The latest example of how the extraordinary achievements of…
Back to the future?
As the polls soften in the final week of the campaign, two prospects loom before the electorate. A Coalition that…
Bad policy, bad politics
On 19 April Wimbledon decided to ban all players from Russia, the aggressor in Ukraine, and Belarus, which let Russia…
Saving the Liberal left?
There is nothing like a very long, very tedious election campaign that totally ignores the pain of the truly dispossessed…
Great Tenor, shame about the bric-a-brac
Lohengrin is early, just after Tannhäuser in the cavalcade of Wagner’s masterpieces, with a swan-drawn Arthurian hero in thrall to…
A dramatic dream of Australia
1922 is the wonder year of twentieth century literature, the so-called annus mirabilis: T.S. Eliot published The Waste Land, James…
Life from both sides now
It’s a strange thing the way we keep interpreting and re-interpreting the different aspects of our culture that have become…
Anatomy of a forgettable scandal
An evening of shorts, courtesy of Flickerfest, even at a lustrous cinema like the Kino in the Sofitel complex off…
Is Anna Wintour human?
Apparently Anna Wintour wants to be seen as human, and Amy Odell’s biography goes some way to helping her achieve…
The sad fate of Edna St Vincent Millay – America’s once celebrated poet
In June 1957, Robert Lowell attended a poetry reading by E.E. Cummings. Sitting dutifully and deferentially alongside him were Allen…
The danger of learning too much from Covid
When Ray Bradbury was asked if his dystopian vision in Fahrenheit 451 would become a reality, he replied: ‘I don’t…
The treatment of mental illness continues to be a scandal
There is much more desperation in this searching and enlightening history than there are remedies. Andrew Scull is a distinguished…
Travels in time and space: Sea of Tranquility, by Emily St. John Mandel, reviewed
It’s a bold writer who confronts a major historical moment such as a pandemic before it’s over, but Emily St.…
The history of Nazism in small objects
‘I can’t cook,’ writes the historian Karina Urbach, ‘which is probably why it took me so long to realise that…
Operation Chariot succeeded because it was unthinkable
Eighty years ago, just after midnight on 28 March 1942, the British destroyer HMS Campbeltown crept up the estuary of…
For ruthless inhumanity, the Bolsheviks were unbeatable
‘For far too long,’ Sir Antony Beevor writes, ‘we have made the mistake of talking about wars as a single…
