The unimaginable tragedy of the Sydney stabbing attack
Bondi Junction, in Sydney’s affluent eastern suburbs, is well known to many British backpackers and tourists. Close to the city’s…
The concerning appointment of Australia’s new governor-general
While the King and the Princess of Wales both battle cancer, the business of monarchy goes on. In the realms…
Is corporate Australia ashamed of Easter?
This week, Holy Week for Christians, I went to a Westfield shopping mall in Melbourne. Being the week before Easter,…
Hobson’s leadership choice for Vic Libs
Over the weekend, the Melbourne media were full of fevered speculation that a challenge to struggling Victorian Liberal and Coalition…
The great shame of Australia Day
Captain James Cook has fallen. Not on the shore of Hawaii’s Kealakekua Bay on Valentine’s Day 1779, but in the…
How Australia became obsessed with land acknowledgments
If you attend almost any public meeting or event in Australia these days, you’ll be greeted – some would say…
Why is Australia burying helicopters that Ukraine wants?
What do you do if you have dozens of combat helicopters you don’t want? If you’re the Australian government, you…
Australia sees sense on its plan to ditch the monarchy
Australia’s government has been determined to ‘do a Barbados’ and ditch the British monarchy for an Australian republic with an…
Life’s too short to battle public health puritans – I’m over it
When I’m not compiling the Morning Double Shot email, or talking on the radio, my professional role is as a…
Aussie republicans are fawning over Denmark’s new queen
According to opinion polls, more Australians want to ditch the country’s ties with the British monarchy than retain it. The…
Why is Australia turning its back on Israel?
In the days after the 7 October attack on Israel, Australia vowed to stand with Israel. It appears to have…
Your handy guide to unreliable activist journalists – published by them
We owe a debt of thanks to hundreds of journalists, and the media union house committees in the ABC and…
The crushing defeat of Australia’s divisive Voice referendum
Australia’s Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, urged his fellow Australians to take ‘the opportunity to make history’ today. And they did,…
Australia’s Voice referendum is tearing the country apart
Almost 250 years after European settlement, many of Australia’s Aborigines still face appalling socio-economic disadvantages compared to fellow Australians: lower…
Winston Peters is no Kiwi Messiah
Our New Zealand regular contributor, Amy Brooke, usually talks sense, and her article in this week’s magazine, about identity and…
Sydney’s cocaine wars are spiralling out of control
The illicit moment of surreal euphoria from snorting a line of cocaine comes at a heavy price of misery and…
John Howard is right about British colonialism in Australia
Almost sixteen years after he lost office and his own parliamentary seat, former Australian Liberal prime minister John Howard is…
Daniel Andrews and ‘trust’ live on different planets
I don’t give the proverbial rat’s arse about the Commonwealth Games. It is a second-rate sportsfest, whose only value is…
Australia’s Commonwealth games disgrace
In world sport, the Commonwealth games are a bit of a sideshow. In swimming and athletics, at least, they are…
Prime Ministers queer the pitch with politics
It may not have been the best play but it wasn't Bodyline
Ben Roberts-Smith and the murky debate over accountability in war
Today in Sydney, Australia’s most decorated soldier, former Special Air Services corporal Ben Roberts-Smith VC, was found by a civil…
Trudeau’s ‘coronation gift’ is just lip service to the monarchy
Cynically dressed up as a coronation-related gift to the Canadian nation, just days after the coronation, the country’s leader Justin Trudeau has…
Vaping: the public health pooh-bahs have won, for now
In his draconian crackdown on vaping, announced on Tuesday, Labor Health Minister Mark Butler characterised his new policy as addressing…
RIP Barry Humphries
It was not just Barry Humphries who died on Saturday. It was that towering skewerer of pomposity and humbug, and gate-crasher of Royal boxes,…
Dear Peter … now that you’ve found your Voice
Peter Dutton and I were good friends once, and worked together closely in the Howard and Rudd years. Sorry to…
