Can we have that $444 million back?
In 2018, the Coalition government gifted $444 million of other people’s money to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation. The money…
Ideas, my dear girl, ideas
Excuse me for so poorly paraphrasing Harold Macmillan, but fair dinkum. It feels like our political overlords are speaking in…
Quotas for - uh - merit?
It’s back. The discussion of gender quotas in parliament is back in a conversation being led by those who would…
Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned
I am big on truth in political advertising which is why I think that so called planning departments should be…
The ‘leave me alone’ coalition
I have never really liked the whole left-right political construct. A framework of who sat to the left or the…
Elections: a trough of public money
When the major parties come together to tinker with electoral systems, there is one thing guaranteed; the citizens will get…
Freedom of speech? Tell ’em they’re dreaming
Last week, the High Court released the details of its judgment in the case of Ruddick v. Commonwealth of Australia. (Disclosure…
Speak loudly and wave around wet lettuce: Morrisonian national insecurity
The expression, ‘speak softly and carry a big stick’, is attributed to former American President Theodore Roosevelt. Imperfect as his…
Simpleton central
George Orwell once observed: ‘Some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them.’ What would Orwell say about Australian…
The Liberal Party’s mission to end liberalism
Come the next election, I will be voting the Liberal Party last. My reasoning is very simple. If I am…
November 11, 2021: the day the great war against the private sector was won
Without the slightest hint of irony, the Australian Bureau of Statistics yesterday released the latest Employment and Earnings, Public Sector…
Je suis ScoMo
Je suis ScoMo. Friends, Australians, countrymen, lend me your ears. I come not to bury the Prime Minister. This time. …
What else might our governments lock us down for?
According to our politicians and poohbahs of public health, Australians will all be subject to some form of house arrest…
We are stamping on our children’s future with our attempts to stamp out Covid
It used to be an intergenerational compact, an unwritten commandment, that we will give to our children better than we…
Our budget has caught a bad case of coronavirus
There has been much written and spoken about the Morrison Government’s legislated “tax cuts” and Labor’s decision to not oppose…
The SpecOz: afflicting the comfortable, comforting the afflicted. Or something similar
I appear to have hurt the feelings of a very powerful union. About three weeks ago, I wrote a piece…
Political cowardice has a price
The cowardice of our political overlords has a price, and usually that price is not paid by these decision-makers but…
Who really benefits from health care?
It’s not obvious who sets health care policy in Australia and it’s not obvious for whose benefit it even is.…
Is this Australia’s William Jennings Bryan moment?
William Jennings Bryan? Never heard of him? Take a look at Wikipedia: William Jennings Bryan (March 19, 1860 – July…
The Australian public dis-service: part II
On Monday, I wrote in these august pages about the lack of economic reform in Australia being a function of both poor quality…
The Australian public dis-service
Former US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld once quipped: “You go to war with the army you have, not the army…
Applying the wrong industrial remedies
On industrial policy our governments are lazy
Our monetary mandarins must be reading the SpecOz
In March of this year, I wrote in this august publication: For the economic benefit of the nation, let’s end this…
Throw another bundle of banknotes on the barbie
If I may plagiarise Anthony Albanese — who plagiarised Michael Douglas in The American President — “In Australia, we have…
Oh my Josh, it’s the Oprah budget
Pop culture obsessives will never forget the famous episode of the Oprah Winfrey Show where the queen of America gave…
