Flat White

In-depth analysis of the day’s news, plus stories and gossip from Australian politics.

Michaelia Cash: no credit

2 March 2018 5:51 pm

Last year I was invited to a private fundraising dinner for a backbench Liberal senator featuring then minister for employment,…

Marriage a la mode and how infidelity became everyday

2 March 2018 1:59 pm

Marriage as an institution has changed greatly since the introduction of no-fault divorce in 1975. Quite apart from the recent…

Gender politics or progress? Your choice

2 March 2018 8:06 am

At some point, gender politics is going to have to calmly take a seat and let progress actually prevail. On…

The politics is proven, but is the science?

1 March 2018 4:23 pm

Work conducted by highly respected NASA scientist Roy Spencer estimates a maximum increase of 1.54°C in global temperatures from greenhouse gases, less than half that…

The real problem with Michaelia’s Cash outburst

1 March 2018 11:07 am

Oops. Michaelia Cash committed the cardinal sin. She dropped the façade fem-folk have worked hard to concoct, that women are…

Emma Alberici scores top Marx

1 March 2018 7:47 am

If you’ve been holidaying in Greece and missed the recent fiasco surrounding Emma Alberici, the chief economics correspondent at the…

The Guardian’s begging bowl blitz

28 February 2018 7:02 pm

Ever since The Guardian set up shop locally Australians have been treated to the excitement of a media outlet that…

Silent – or stealth – invasion

28 February 2018 4:53 pm

The first jolt for readers of Clive Hamilton’s polemic new book ‘Silent Invasion – China’s Influence in Australia’ is the…

Economics in one lesson

28 February 2018 1:12 pm

Just over 70 years ago, economist Henry Hazlitt wrote an economics textbook, Economics in One Lesson, which is still regarded…

The great immigration deceit

28 February 2018 7:59 am

Shortly after Angela Merkel’s nation-shaping decision to allow over a million migrants to enter Germany in 2015, her ministerial team…

Academic doesn’t hate Israel enough shock horror fury

27 February 2018 6:01 pm

More tragi-comedy from the letters section of that perpetual yearbook of the Class of 1968 (Head Boy – Tariq Ali), The London…

Threats of Aboriginal terrorism will do irreparable harm

27 February 2018 1:14 pm

Most Australians are pretty generous. They want to do the right thing by this country’s first inhabitants, especially when it…

Recycling is rubbish

27 February 2018 7:28 am

Recycling is rubbish. Not in the sense that the stuff we recycle is rubbish – which it is, of course…

Because only the right do nasty, wicked things, hey?

26 February 2018 6:09 pm

The American Conservative’s Rod Dreher is worried about the power of twenty-first century lynch mobs: Even if you think the NRA deserves what…

How government destroyed cheap electricity in Australia

26 February 2018 2:56 pm

You know something is wrong when a country with over 33 per cent of the world’s Uranium and abundant reserves…

The radical politics of Black Panther

26 February 2018 8:20 am

Black Panther opened in Australian cinemas recently and it certainly does not disappoint. It’s the eighteenth movie of the Marvel…

Mr Trumble comes back from Washington

25 February 2018 4:57 pm

Monday morning the VIP aircraft carrying the returning PM’s entourage touched down on home soil and Australians began to wonder,…

Billy Graham: a titan of faith and freedom

25 February 2018 1:20 pm

Reflecting on his wartime leadership, Winston Churchill remarked that with the nation having the lion’s heart, he “had the luck…

Their ABC: at it again

24 February 2018 8:43 am

And here we were in the reality-based community thinking it would be hard for even the ABC to trump last…

In defence of Tasmania

23 February 2018 8:03 pm

It feels a bit odd that someone like me, a native-born Canadian who has lived in Queensland for the last…

Barnaby’s concrete-assisted trolley ride crashes to an end

23 February 2018 3:25 pm

“Perhaps the biggest scandal in Australia political history? Made only by the fact it was managed like a shopping trolley…

Does anyone in politics do any work?

23 February 2018 2:21 pm

Sigh. Another day, more sex scandals in politics to finish off an eye-rollingly unproductive week. What exactly is the brief…

Why Australian Conservatives will not split the centre-right

23 February 2018 9:32 am

Go or stay? That is the question for disenchanted Liberals pondered by The Spectator earlier this month. Nationals’ supporters may…

Riding the dragon with Bob Carr

22 February 2018 4:49 pm

The ‘little dragons’ of southeast Asia, including the Philippines, Thailand, Laos and Indonesia share the same problem Australia has with…

Joyce is still showing more leadership than Turnbull

22 February 2018 12:14 pm

Anger being hurled at Barnaby Joyce is misplaced; even now he’s showing more leadership than Turnbull could ever dream of.…