Features Australia
Sounds from the silence
From Janpath Road in the centre of Delhi, the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts appears almost deserted. I’m…
Letter from London
If the crescendo of cranes towering above development blocks represents a city’s prosperity, then Manila and London are prospering. Setting…
Writers are not moral guides
Like Dorothy Parker, I have a decent number of grey hairs from my dealings with the intelligentsia. I’ve had my…
CNN sucks, Trump triumphs
‘CNN sucks…CNN sucks,’ the capacity crowd of rank-and-file Americans in Minnesota’s giant Amsoil Arena chanted. This was their down-to-earth message…
Xena madness
For sheer grotesquerie, a recent push for the feminisation of the Australian Army would be hard to beat. Former General…
Heart of darkness
Sometimes African rulers get so corrupt that Western aid donors go on strike. Take what Trump would call the shit-hole…
Pride stripped bare
Every now and again the clouds part, a shaft of light breaks through and something up ahead is illuminated. In…
Trump towers
In his 1977 book The Age of Uncertainty, the American economist John Kenneth Galbraith depicted the great leaders of history…
Theatre of the absurd
The controversial University of Melbourne dance performance, Where We Stand, is an insight into the kind of divided society we…
Nobel laureates manqués
Calls for a Nobel Peace Prize for Donald Trump reminded me that if anyone should be a Nobel Laureate, it…
Closing down sale
When an historic Melbourne church went up in flames three years ago, the actress Rachel Griffiths, who’d made her First…
Not our ABC
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation is a $1.04 billion piece of public policy and we treat it as exactly that: a…
Letter from Penge
Australia is now unwittingly linked even more closely with the dreary outer-London suburb of Penge. Not only was it the…
Planetary perspectives
Here I am, back in Ecuador. Ecuadorians boast that the 6,310-metre high Mt Chimaborazo volcano protrudes 2,073 metres higher into…
Australia, defenceless
The ability of our armed forces to defend the nation is being crippled, not through any fault of theirs, but…
Punish Pooh-bahs, not poor people
An ancient dead white bloke, Aristotle, conceived a world with natural masters and servants, writing ‘That some should rule, and…
Canadian notes
The size of the dog in the fight Can you imagine running on a party platform or manifesto with the…
Blind to their own racism
As human beings, we often act in ways that are contradictory. Little inconsistencies are fine, but when they become major…
Decline and fall
It’s official. Our decline into Third World status is accelerating. Our students languish behind those of Kazakhstan and Bulgaria in…
At uni with Mrs Potato Head
These days, whenever a local council comes up with a lunatic idea that bewilders ordinary Australians, you can be guaranteed…
To Jerusalem and back
I land at Ben-Gurion Airport just before midnight and begin the long ascent to Jerusalem. The headiness hits me immediately…
Clash of teaching civilisations
In 1942 Dr Joseph Needham was sent by the British government to China to study China’s universities and see what…
West goes south
Last November I was lucky enough to have been invited to the Sydney launch of the Ramsay Centre for Western…
White fright
In the freakish universe of identity politics, there’s no creature sadder than the self-hating white person. All it takes for…
It’s time for primaries
Political class failure undermines the standing of our governments. Every ignored voter concern, project failure and moment of spin leaves…
