In-depth analysis of the day’s news, plus stories and gossip from Australian politics.
Apologies to journalists, but some of us are just clueless
Imprisoned Saudi writer Raif bin Muhammad Badawi was on my mind this week, as he often is when questions of free speech…
The Great Barrier Reef extortion racket
The Australian Institute of Marine Science has just revealed that Great Barrier Reef coral coverage has recovered to be as good as,…
Is the Kids Helpline helpful – or just a sign of our malaise?
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Curtin…
Bezos’s bell-end: a postscript
When he was back on the ground after his – ahem – epic space flight of all of ten minutes, Amazon founder Jeff…
Covidanity: Australia’s new state religion
A key to understanding our current predicament is the extent to which Covid has come to resemble a religion. Covidanity,…
It’s not woke versus woke if lesbians want to exclude the transgendered
The street I grew up on was the border of a public housing estate. On my side of the street…
The Oldest Culture: Engineering
The fourth in a series of articles examining Dark Emu-style claims. These days we hear a lot about what a…
We have no choice? Really, Mr Premier?
The Premier of Victoria said a few interesting things when he plunged the state into its fifth lockdown. He was…
The amazing return of Captain Australia
Eighty-one years ago, comic book writer Joe Simon created Captain America, an agile and resilient superhero who represented the American…
And the winner is… us
Finally, the 2020 Olympics are finally about to kick off. So why does it already feel so underwhelming? After…
Covid pen-pushers write our future
How many public service jobs and third party government contracts have been created specifically to hold up the Covid bureaucracy? Forget about…
A simple question each for Annastacia Palaszczuk and Scott Morrison on the games
Q: Premier, what public services will be cut or what taxes will be raised to allow Queensland to host the…
An official health warning: suspect everyone
The New South Wales Chief Health Officer told us yesterday that “whilst it is human nature to engage in conversation…
We have become Pavlov’s dogs – or Mark McGowan’s and Dan Andrews’, anyway
Just mention lockdown and a certain type of Australian starts salivating — Victorians and Western Australians. That’s one of the…
Can you spot the Victorian opposition?
There are less than 500 days until the next Victorian state election. With Victorians well into our fifth never-ending lockdown,…
We can’t eradicate coronavirus. Let’s not eradicate our national spirit trying
I feel incredibly lucky to be living in our beautiful country. Thanks to our swift response to Covid-19, we have…
Is this the most outrageous Covid scaremongering yet?
Have you noticed the latest scare tactic pushed in the Victorian press conferences? After 16 months of waiting for the…
If this is a global pandemic, why aren’t we loosening our chains like the rest of the world?
Sydneysiders, as a Victorian I know how red with anger you all are when your Premier gets up day after…
The last thing we need is a bill of rights
Over a century ago the great American jurist James Bradley Thayer warned against handing social policy decision-making over to the…
Big Public Health’s tobacco tactics haven’t worked with smoking. Why should they work with obesity?
I’m not one for personal criticism, even dumb, socialist, hypocritical, anti-everything Greens. But if I were, I would put public…
New polling: the emperor has no clothes
It’s official — or as official as it can be. The emperor — the Prime Minister, actually — has no…
It doesn’t matter what any government says: you are essential
One of the foundational concepts upon which western civilisation is built is the Judeo-Christian insistence that every human being is…
Australian schools need a tough love reboot
Pupils, we can do this the easy way, or the hard way. You choose. If Australia can’t improve our international K-12…
The only two figures you need to know in Newspoll today
One fascinating figure is missing from today’s Newspoll – the margin of error. As a quick glance at the table…
The Oldest Culture: Science
The third in a series of articles examining Dark Emu-style claims. These days we hear a lot about what a…