Forrest Gump at thirty
Reflections on a favourite from Hollywood’s Box of Chocolates
Why the NSW Liberals must give the Modern Slavery Act effect
In June 2018, then-Premier Gladys Berejiklian told parliament there was “an undeniable moral imperative to take action in relation to all forms of…
The true Tony Abbott
Earlier this week, the book Abbott: The Defining Speeches, which I edited with the former prime minister’s speechwriter Paul Ritchie,…
Boris Johnson’s forgotten people?
With an ascendant, centre-right leader triumphing over an avowedly socialist opponent in an epoch-making general election, just as Robert Menzies…
Tim Fischer: a statesman of courage and character
Last week Australia lost one of its great characters in public life with the death of our tenth deputy prime…
Restoring the roots
Witnessing the metamorphosis of his own party in the early 1970s, Kim Beazley Senior famously quipped: “When I joined the…
Enid Lyons: the speech of the nightingale
In one of his many colourful metaphors, Prime Minister Billy Hughes once described Australia’s first female Federal parliamentarian as “like…
Morrison and Ming
Returning to hallowed ground of Liberal folklore, Prime Minister Scott Morrison last week chose Albury as the place to reinvoke…
Edmund Burke down under
Accepting the Edmund Burke Award in November 2016, John Howard paid homage to the eighteenth century Anglo-Irish statesman, remarking that…
Launching ‘Howard: The Art of Persuasion’
Speech by the Editor, David Furse-Roberts. Tonight’s occasion and this book is all about honouring a great Australian and a…
Campion College shows we need more champions for the liberal arts
Launching the iPad 2 in March 2011, the Apple co-founder and former CEO, Steve Jobs, reflected that “It is in…
George, Abbott and Howard were both Liberals too
The contest for the philosophical soul of the Liberal Party seems as old as the hills when one recalls the…
Australian free trade must trump protectionism
With the Trump administration pledging to impose tariffs on aluminium and steel imports to the United States, the spectre of…
Billy Graham: a titan of faith and freedom
Reflecting on his wartime leadership, Winston Churchill remarked that with the nation having the lion’s heart, he “had the luck…
Lucy Gichuhi will be a boon to the party of Menzies
In a 1943 wartime broadcast on social security, Robert Menzies told the country that “there are amazing possibilities in every…
Slavery no more: Wilberforce and the settlement of Australia
On the meandering banks of Sydney’s Hawkesbury River, there lies a small, historic town featuring a sandstone church, a cemetery…
John Gorton: a rugged Australian idealist
Following the death of Sir John Gorton on 19 May 2002, Christopher Zinn wrote in the Guardian that “Gorton left…
2017: a year to acknowledge the leaven of faith in Australian politics
With Australian politics becoming somewhat top-heavy with careerist party-hacks and apparatchiks who view power for its own sake as the…
Howard’s end? The enduring legacy of ‘Lazarus’
With the entrance to The Lodge turning into something of a revolving door since prime minister-elect Rudd bestrode the victory…
The conception of modern Israel: remembering the centenary of the Balfour Declaration
Great moments in history are sometimes defined by a piece of paper, in this case, a letter penned from one…
Celebrating a preserving revolution: remembering the Reformation 500 years on
When the Victorian Whig historian, Lord Macaulay, touched on the Glorious Revolution of 1688 in his magisterial five-volume tome, The…
Remembering the Forgotten People
Three-quarters of a century ago, with the Second World War raging in the jungles and high seas of the Pacific,…
