The Kamala campaign
A symphony in (at least) six parts
Aussie life
Everyone has a Dan Andrews statue opinion. After two years of Covid lockdowns, rings of steel, #IluvDan hashtags and daily…
Ausslie life
To paraphrase Sarah Palin, once the convention cheer squad has disappeared and the Styrofoam columns have been removed all you…
Aussie life
Off the beach of Ipanema where the tall and tanned girls go, they’ve found Brazilian sharks with cocaine in their…
Aussie life
I’ve just watched Senator Fatima Payman’s performative ‘I quit but not really, I’m moving to the crossbenches’ media conference. It…
The right to f*#kng protest!
Lucky, I speak fluent CFMEU… The construction union’s boss, John Setka, has had a lot to say in the media…
Aussie life
As the Q&A host was telling me, the conservatives have a ‘problem with women’. Or with more election campaign zing,…
Aussie life
From a nation that gave us riot police, rude waiters, baguettes and non-negotiable submarine contracts we have a new word,…
Aussie life
Memory is tricky. Wandering the Paris end of Collins street sipping espresso, waving to paroled Extinction Rebellion protesters, and thinking…
Tay-tay & the theory of relativity
Let’s do the Turnbull-Morrison time warp
Aussie life
Wellbeing is complicated. Like junk food and cigarettes, we need professionals to explain it to us, maybe with an expensive…
Aussie life
A new Arts policy has been released to help raise the creative standard just as a balding redhead called Ed…
Aussie life
Apparently, Melbourne will soon overtake Sydney as Australia’s largest city. I’m not saying this is a good or bad thing,…
Aussie life
New US Ambassador Caroline Kennedy had them at her first media conference interjection: when the white, stale male journalist (the…
#Auspol: rinse and repeat
Here’s my free election analysis that won’t get me on a panel show where people shout about their feelings or…
Get ready for ‘campaign confusion’
Things are different since the great election overreach of 2019. You can sense the change. We need to get with…
Summer’s worst political commentators…
So how is your summer going? Trousers off, melting ice cream on the car seat, screaming children in the back,…
Australian notes
The unbearable lightness of lying Ever since French President Emmanuel Macron told a credulous Australian media that he doesn’t think,…
Childhood experiments
Somebody once sang that the children are our future at a baseball match in New York but they never said anything about them being the collateral damage…
‘Strong Female Lead’ is weak on the truth
A documentary about Julia Gillard peddles fake news
Ben Eltham vs Craig Kelly: it’s never ok to dox
Yesterday on Twitter, Guardian Australian Arts writer Ben Eltham, possibly bored from writing about culture in a country that doesn’t…
Why I write or Hemingway’s chicken suit
Flat White lore is rich with stories of those who didn’t quite make it and those who did make it but we really wish hadn’t, and those who may make…
The Taliban take over The Age Green Guide
At a time when the world is going to hell and some perspective is desperately needed, thank God for the…
Aussie Life
The voiceover says new ABC series Ms Represented is all about Australian women in politics but really it’s all about…
Good Jon bad
Here’s an old writers trick that doesn’t involve moving to Tunisia and becoming a dope fiend. If you don’t want to say…