Fanning the flames
The drone wars
There’s an urban legend going back many years about an early drone delivery system. Following successful tests in America and…
Tim Pallas leaves a state-crushing debt behind him
When Victorians remember Tim Pallas, they will recall the extraordinary mismanagement of the Treasury under Labor Party rule and the…
Operation Resolution: cleaning up after HMNZS Manawanui
HMNZS Manawanui, formally a chirpy red and yellow MV Edda Fonn, sank on October 6 much to the shock of…
Pesutto must go
It seems impossible for Liberal Leader John Pesutto to remain in power, and yet that is what he has pledged…
Christmas clean-up list!
As a child, I remember my parents lamenting how quickly the years seemed to fly by, insisting that each year…
2024: A year of missed opportunities for energy and the environment
As we approach the end of 2024, Australians have little reason to feel optimistic. Living standards have fallen, the currency…
Competition is essential to education
As night follows day, whenever the Year 12 ATAR results are released critics argue it must be replaced. Instead of…
The Pub Test: The real state of the Australian economy
Labor’s machine is out in force this Christmas in a vain attempt to recover the electoral ground that is collapsing…
Happy Birthday, Menzies
It is the anniversary of the birthday of Sir Robert Gordon Menzies, Australia’s most important Prime Minister. The Australia he…
Broke and broken: Victoria’s dire outlook set to get worse
Victoria finishes the year much as it started it. Badly. Very badly. With the state election still two years away…
A very Arabian Christmas: stolen cars, flying princesses, and the Russian Mafia
Part 2 of A very Arabian Christmas continues to do for Speccie Christmas articles what Die Hard did for Christmas…
The misinformation behind the MAD bill
The government’s MAD (misinformation and disinformation) bill has been killed – withdrawn from the Senate in what might have been…
Post Assad: Kurdish autonomy needed in the New Syria
Terror in the Middle East continues where the ouster of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, along with the two non-Arab entities…
The misdeeds of AHPRA: high time to reform or repeal
Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) was established on July 01, 2010, as part of the National Registration and Accreditation…
AHPRA and the Medical Board’s reign of terror
Australia’s medical regulator AHPRA and the Medical Board have become not just failed watchdogs, but an active threat to public…
Nuclear cannot match coal as a competitive electricity supply
The debate between the Coalition and the Labor Party has long had an ethereal dimension. They are in furious contention,…
Spectator TV Australia | Friday 6 December, 2024
The Week in 60 Minutes Australia: Ep41 | Spectator TV - Wednesday 4 December, 2024
The Hon. John Ruddick MLC & Brianna McKee -Thursday 5 December, 2024
The greatest gift of all
According to lore, Santa’s elves live to be hundreds of years old. In theory, Santa should have no problem communicating…
The adventurous economist
Many Speccie readers will have preconceived ideas about economists. Unexciting, narrow-minded and pedantic perhaps spring to mind. There is a…
Our worst ever government
Memory can be a fickle friend. Vital details, once secure in the mind, tend to disappear down the memory hole…
Sun sets on age of endarkenment
Dare we hope that the world is coming out of Rod Dreher’s age of ‘endarkenment’? We may be experiencing a…
When nature calls
Well, merde, as the French would say, or sh-t, if you’re English. Elevating a bit of toilet humor – enshittification…
Giorgia Meloni’s lessons on values
It has been just on two years now since Giorgia Meloni was swept into office as Italy’s first female prime…
Cop this!
You could have knocked me over with a feather when I learned I had been appointed to organise the Australian…
I’m dreaming of a wet Christmas
The snow is snowing, the wind is blowing, admittedly not in Sydney, but Seoul has been blanketed by the heaviest…
What my GB News incest row critics fail to understand
The overwhelming response to my defence of incest on GB News has been one of disgust: I’ve been called a pervert thousands…
Lucy Letby and the killer nurse I worked with
Most of those commenting on the guilt or innocence of Lucy Letby – the nurse who is serving 15 whole-life…
The EU can detect weakness in its dealings with Keir Starmer
Labour’s election promise to respect Brexit and at the same time reset our relations with the EU was easy to…
How to save the parish church
Parish churches are in trouble: about fifty churches close every year, according to a report from Civitas. The review, published…
Operation Resolution: cleaning up after HMNZS Manawanui
HMNZS Manawanui, formally a chirpy red and yellow MV Edda Fonn, sank on October 6 much to the shock of…
Why is this New Zealand airport clamping down on hugs?
‘Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world,’ Hugh Grant famously offered in the heartwarming opening scene of Love,…
How New Zealand managed to sink a tenth of its naval fleet
New Zealand just lost one tenth of its naval defence fleet. The HMNZS Manawanui – the jewel in the nation’s small military…
How does New Zealand solve a problem like China?
New Zealand’s most important trading partner is also the nation’s biggest security headache, according to a new risk-assessment report produced…
Macron is the author of his own despair
Take it easy on a long, hot summer
It’s a strange time, the summer holidays in Australia. Some people have riveting memories of Boxing Day tests, of Australian…
The most immodest thing
So they’re having another go at removing the varnish and the accumulated dark oiliness and other accretions from that most…
Drunk in a midnight choir
Biography can create the most heightened sense of drama. Just at the moment SBS On Demand is showing a streamer…
Such grandeur in the mind
There’s always something breathtaking about the prices great art can fetch but the sale of Leonardo’s ‘Salvator Mundi’ at Christie’s…
The good, the bad, & the just plain wrong
With much of the world’s attention focused on the US political scene during 2024, a book that offers some useful…
Spot the Nobel Laureate in Literature
How many can you spot? For answers, click here
When will Ronald Reagan get the recognition he deserves?
The talented military historian Max Boot has published a well-researched life of Ronald Reagan that is fundamentally wrong. First the…
Thomas Kyd may have delighted Elizabethan audiences, but he still wasn’t a patch on Shakespeare
The biggest blockbuster hit of the Elizabethan theatre was not by William Shakespeare or Christopher Marlowe or Ben Jonson. In…
The rotten core of Credit Suisse
The tale of Credit Suisse ought to be Buddenbrooks on steroids. A staid Swiss lender enters marriage with a racy…
Why does James Baldwin matter so much now?
James Baldwin matters. To veteran Baldwin admirers, his renewed prominence comes as a surprise after decades of indifference. This year,…
Modern-day ghosts: Haunted Tales, by Adam Macqueen, reviewed
I don’t approve of ghosts, from the sublime (I generally just mouth the words ‘Holy Ghost’ in church, as I…
Nostalgia for the bustling high street is misplaced
Every Christmas the proportion of money we spend online escalates. This year probably more than a third of all our…