Why is India holding back?
India, like Australia, America, and Japan, is a full member of the ‘Quad’ – the new political group formed to…
Xi Jinping seeks to control Australia’s future
The current tragedy unfolding in Ukraine is a lesson to the West; history does repeat itself and we should take the lessons…
Free things are not a ‘nappy’ thought, councillor
Buoyed by thoughts that Labor might actually be getting its act together, one of Sydney’s Inner West councils has come…
‘That’s the way these things work…’ Bob Carr and China
One of the most ironic and poignant moments of the Beijing Olympics was when an Uyghur lit the flame. It…
Look who’s cashed-up and running for blue-ribbon seats
From Woolhahra, Point Piper, and beyond the multi-billionaires are queuing to support an Independent. But who are they really supporting?…
Inside Canberra they’re riding the Greens Machine
It was Labor’s Shadow Defence Minister, Kimberley Kitching, who spilled the beans by forcefully declaring that Labor should not do…
Milligan’s Island
Just sit right back and hear a tale A tale of a fateful trip That started from this tropic port…
If a cabinet minister can pay his legals why not ABC journalists?
In the national capital the most-used greeting is usually not “How are you?” but “What have you heard?” Canberra is…
Their ABC and ‘allegations’, rather than ‘facts’
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it…
Their ABC: a closed society
Think closed secret societies and what do you come up with – the Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta, even more closed and secretive…
Banks’ blunder
One-term MP Julia Banks has written a book based on what she broadly terms the horrors of working in Parliament…
Fighting for democracy, one tea at a time
The Milk Tea Alliance — originally some pro-democracy social media geekery in Hong Kong and Taiwan — is racing through South…
The People’s Princess and the poobahs of public broadcasting
Goodbye England’s rose May you ever grow in our hearts You were the grace that placed itself where lives were torn…
“He’s a turd. He’s easy to loathe…”
“[He has] fallen into the classic trap of the egomaniac…This childish business of putting his leadership on the line every…
Mr Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang
A kiss on the hand may be quite continental/And Mr Wang’s my new best friend… Well, it certainly looked like…
Time to put Andrew Hastie in the frontline
It’s becoming increasingly clear that Defence Minister Linda Reynolds may be unable to continue in her role, with her problems…
No one is conscripted to work in politics, but we must prevent casualties
Your correspondent, having toiled in discrete (and discreet) roles through 30 years in the national capital, federal public servant, Gallery…
It’s the right of Craig Kelly’s electorate to choose their MP, not the media
Tanya Plibersek underlined her leadership credential by buttonholing backbencher Craig Kelly in the Press Gallery corridors today, making sure journalists…
War is a continuation of politics by other means – trade too
War is a continuation of politics by other means. The German strategist Carl von Clausewitz, who wrote the book on…
Why we want foreign students with a commitment to Australia
Last summer, BC — Before Covid — a friend and I strolled around Canberra’s university precinct, called ‘The China Quarter’…
China strife? Blame Canberra’s acronym alphabet soup
A World War I slogan in the Kaiser’s Germany proclaimed ‘When the bayonet goes in, it should hit steel, not…
China is deliberately singling out Australia to intimidate the region
Yesterday’s ugly, viciously confrontational Chinese tweet insulting Australia has been instructive to onlookers. Flat White asked a seasoned Asian diplomat…
Young and free – but who’s Gert?
The Premier of New South Wales has suggested that one word of our national anthem should now be changed to…
They’re different in Queensland
As the child of migrant parents, growing up in Brisbane, I learned fast that Mexicans were not, as I had…
Their ABC and ‘secret lovers’
This morning Their ABC ran early news bulletins that used the phrase ‘secret lover’ referencing the Premier of New South…
