Aux bien pensants
Mug the frugal, turnbull teaches shorten The standing of politicians has never been lower. They’re widely regarded as self-interested, incompetent,…
Lesson One: don’t get caught
The dismissal of the FBI’s second-in-charge, Andrew McCabe, was not by President Trump, as several Australian outlets who bothered to…
Washington diary
Washington is now the capital of a resurgent nation, rejecting the untenable proposition that she is in terminal decline, a…
Abbott’s winning agenda
‘The government which stopped the boats can’t slow the planes’, concluded Michael McLaren, the Macquarie Media Network’s rising young star.…
Aux bien pensants
Proscribe parallelism not promiscuity By proscribing sexual relations with ministerial staff and through his public moral condemnation of Nationals leader…
Autocues for the clueless
Was anyone really surprised when the factional warlords and powerbrokers in the key NSW division of the Liberal party so…
Mr President, look beyond the swamp
Not since Ronald Reagan has the reaction to a State of the Union address been so optimistic, anticipating the return…
Foundations laid in 1788
Amanda Vanstone recently chose to reveal that neither she, nor indeed, anyone she knew, would be celebrating the arrival of…
Aux bien pensants
Drive-by media’s bias against Trump The reporting of the 2016 presidential election can hardly be celebrated as the media’s finest…
Keep on tweeting, Mr President
There are two ways to judge a president or a prime minister. That which is true is based on policy,…
Republic calls based on a blatant untruth
As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly. Proverbs 26:11 This biblical proverb is,…
Give us the tools to tackle terror
The recent terrorist outrage in Melbourne, as well as the too-frequent rampages by immigrant criminal gangs in that city, will…
Bennelong to Turnbull: change or go
Unlike New England, which was very much Barnaby Joyce’s victory, the Liberal win in Bennelong may be credited to the…
Seasonal notes
Abbott and Trump are right It is one year since Tony Abbott, recalling the role of the Australian Light…
A Bennelong bombshell will leave Turnbull terminal
The Bennelong by-election is likely to lead to a change of leadership in the Liberal Party which if wisely done,…
Twilight notes
Economic, political and diplomatic decline Australia under the Howard government was riding high, a nation almost uniquely debt-free, well governed,…
Yellow Peril, White Paper
The great foreign secretary, Lord Palmerston, saw no need to spell out British foreign policy in some vast official paper.…
Has the parliament been infiltrated? The Senate must act
The Senate must decide the Dastyari question now. It’s more than about one senator. It’s about the control and influence…
Aux bien pensants
Dat’s a nice bottom With so many stories about sexual harassment, I should reveal my experience decades ago. Looking up…
Citizenship notes
It could have all been so much easier… Whatever the deal done by the Coalition and Labor, there always was…
The evil face of anarchy
A possible future Australia was on show outside Sydney’s old Eveleigh Railway Workshops on Friday night and it is not at…
Sacrificial notes
To the Sun Goddess Wong Visiting Canada, I could not fail but note the absence of any significant campaign to…
Dystopic pregnancy
The mathematical, reading and science skills of Australian school students are in serious decline with the average student now close…
Convention of Outsiders
Confidence in our political system has collapsed, as the internationally respected 2017 Edelman Trust Barometer records. Politicians usually justify our…
But what about survival of the press — and the role of the ABC?
The Australian media have always been subject to competition law. So why should there be special laws about their structure?…
