Leading article Australia
A heavyweight duel
In the lead-up to the main event, as excitement reaches fever pitch, the contenders go through the usual pre-bout rituals.…
Seventy ain’t old
Age, clearly, has not withered the Rolling Stones. With the average age of the remaining four members of the ‘greatest…
Abbott’s Asia accolades
Abbott-watchers amateur and professional are still having trouble coming to grips with the Prime Minister’s foreign policy. The latest intellectual…
A royal welcome
Australia prides itself on being a young country. For generations after independence in 1901, we still saw ourselves as essentially…
Joe’s Thatcherite message
The greatest accolade that can be granted to a public figure is not a knighthood, an OA or any such…
Our Watergate?
When we say the drama surrounding Arthur Sinodinos’s dealings at Australian Water Holdings brings back memories of Watergate, we do…
The Bolt crucible
Yes to free speech, no to racism. It should be a pretty simple formula but, of course, the devil is…
Consumer vs taxpayer
Remember Kim Carr’s dire warning: ‘The government has effectively signed the death warrant on Australia’s last fresh-fruit cannery, ensuring the…
Is Tony Abbott a dry?
At six minutes past eight on the evening of Monday 3 March, the camera panned unexpectedly off the face of…
Politics is not a blood sport
Mocking, abusing or vilifying Labor leaders is morally repugnant. Mocking, abusing or vilifying Liberal leaders is cool. Such is the…
Breaking windows
Smash! Don’t say we didn’t warn you. As one energy-reliant manufacturer after another shuts up shop; as our energy prices…
Creative destruction
In Labor’s telling, the decision by Japanese Toyota executives to pull the plug on their Australian operation is Tony Abbott’s…
The trouble with Aunty
The image of the benign, slightly fuddy-duddy old eccentric has been wrong for some time. But in recent weeks, the…
Rogues gallery
There seem to be an awful lot of rogues out there. When it became clear that corruption allegations against former…
Broken society
The deaths of NSW teenagers Thomas Kelly and Daniel Christie were beyond tragic. The senseless, random nature of the violence…
Very, very effective
The border protection debate is roaring again, and we’re happy to join the fun. One place to start is to…
Climate change jokers
They call it the silly season, when not much is happening in politics, so far-fetched yarns and preposterous anecdotes get…
Abbott’s Christmas renewal
It’s been only three months since Tony Abbott’s decisive victory on 7 September, and already the critics are baying for…
Say it ain’t so, Joe
Under which particular pillow does Joe Hockey hope to find a lazy trillion dollars lurking? That’s the estimated investment Australian…
Stop attacking Aunty
This magazine rarely misses an opportunity to criticise the ABC. So readers may be surprised to find us defending Aunty…
A delicate diplomatic dance
‘Few international problems in the postwar period have proved as difficult for Australia as the development of a friendly and…
Professor Strange-palm
Dinosaurs, disgruntled employees, Chinese spies, Titanic enterprises, JFK rip-offs, unpaid taxes, smacking Senate bottoms, strange circular self-generating taxation schemes and…
Slaying the beast
They stabbed it with their steely knives, but they just can’t kill the beast,’ sang the Eagles in ‘Hotel California’.…
Labor’s penance
And so the sins of the forefathers shall be visited upon the sons, or so it must feel like to…
Grim reading
Left-wing dogma is destroying the literary skills of an entire generation. Such is the depressing conclusion of a recent report…
