In-depth analysis of the day’s news, plus stories and gossip from Australian politics.
Why I write or Hemingway’s chicken suit
Flat White lore is rich with stories of those who didn’t quite make it and those who did make it but we really wish hadn’t, and those who may make…
SpecOz TV – featuring Laurence Fox
This month’s edition of Spectator Australia TV is out now. Gideon Rozner rocks and is joined this month by a…
What’s woke this week?
Traditional circuses are out of favour in Wokeworld where three rings are clearly not enough for their intersectionality bazaar. It’s…
If it’s up to the health experts, Covid restrictions will never end
If it’s up to our health experts – doctors, scientists and researchers, administrators and bureaucrats – we will never return…
Cowardly Lions: Labor lets through the Coalition’s shameful electoral laws
Today, Labor waved the Coalition’s cowardly electoral laws described in these pages 11 days ago designed to strangle smaller parties…
The All Blacks, the All Whites – and how the demand for racism far exceeds supply
The demand for racism far exceeds supply. How else to explain New Zealand Football’s sudden concern that the nickname of…
New polling shows Australians won’t accept lockdowns once we hit jab targets
Prime Minister Scott Morrison is finally taking a stand against premiers wanting to keep wielding the lockdown weapon against Covid-19…
Police speak out on Covid regs: ‘The directions we are ordered to comply with are highly politicised’
Two weeks ago the Western Australian Police Commissioner, Chris Dawson, issued an edict. As of Monday, 9 August, any officer…
Why are we ruled by political party patsies – as well as unelected MPs?
Some time back I learned a valuable lesson. At one of our annual Summer Sounds Symposiums, bringing together individuals from…
Continuous disclosure obligations: now with less activist tail wagging the corporate dog
It was 2012 and I found myself walking into the High Court in Canberra: shiny red soles on my stilettos,…
A lockdown opponent’s wish: may I be courageous like Soviet dissidents I knew
At 58, I have for the first time become a dissident. I am in active opposition to Covid-19 related policies…
Australia, we’ve got you cowered
If you didn’t already think so, the news that police have received thousands of calls from Aussies dobbing in other…
ScoMo’s said ‘no’ – but this is why we need a ‘Freedom Day’
The great semanticist and one-time Republican senator from California, Samuel I. Hayakawa once remarked that language is thought in action.…
Just what is the Reserve Bank up to?
The conduct of monetary and fiscal policy since the pandemic began has no parallel in Australia’s economic history, certainly not compared to what happened during the more severe Spanish Flu a century ago. Back then in the…
Governments, get real. Eliminating Covid from the community with fines is fantasy
The unacceptable violence at Melbourne’s ‘freedom’ rally, the quieter Sydney and Adelaide rallies and the New South Wales/Queensland border ‘invasion’…
The Taliban take over The Age Green Guide
At a time when the world is going to hell and some perspective is desperately needed, thank God for the…
Scott Morrison and our Afghan allies: as shameful as Whitlam with South Vietnam
On August 18, 1971 then prime minister William McMahon announced the final withdrawal of Australian combat troops from Vietnam. It…
Let’s be more up-front and honest with the daily Covid numbers
According to the federal Department of Health website, yesterday there were 10,956 active cases of Covid-19 across Australia. Of these,…
The latest lessons in Covid management from Israel
Will no one rid us of our Covid-dementors? Gladys Berejiklian says restrictions could remain in place after 80 per cent full vaccination. Yet…
Imagine … no state borders to close
The premiers are tearing the federation apart. Let’s hope they succeed very soon. To see my point, just close your…
John Hewson joins the Salon des Refusés
Poor John Hewson. After being booted from The SMAge for being pale, male and stale — as stale as the…
ScoMo and premiers: if you want people to get vaccinated give them liberty
Lets talk SARS covid-19 — coroanvirus. The political responses to Covid, while varying across the nation, consist of a general…
Kabul: the harbinger of western decline or the catalyst for Trump’s return
Recently revealed from the fall of Afghanistan is that President Obama exchanged Kairullah Khaikhwa, the public face of the Taliban leadership,…
Revealed: how much debt the government has racked up for each of us
Although many people are aware that government expenditure will exceed government revenue for the foreseeable future, it can be difficult…
Freedom is the best reason to get vaccinted
There is a saying that goes like this: you can’t change the direction of the wind, but you can adjust…