Flat White

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

Same old inconvenient drivel

17 July 2017 7:30 am

Al Gore’s new film, An Inconvenient Sequel – Truth to Power, opens in Australia on August 10. What a pity.…

Game of Greens

16 July 2017 7:24 pm

“Woeful news my lord Richard, of Ser Scott of the Greenwald, well, it turns out he’s not one of us,…

Protection? What a load of bollards

16 July 2017 6:13 pm

“Melbourne’s concrete bollards could slide 30 metres in a crash, warn experts.” I wasn’t in the least surprised when I…

Yassmin Abdel-Magied and Marx’s detritus

15 July 2017 1:59 pm

Yassmin Abdel-Magied recently published a piece in The Guardian Australia lambasting her critics as being merely ‘afraid of a young…

Flogging a dead horse republic

14 July 2017 5:46 pm

Surely the Australian Republican Movement and Labor realise that they’re flogging a horse that was pronounced dead almost 20 years ago by the…

The Clementine-shaped difference between “speaking out” and hate

14 July 2017 11:52 am

The one-woman woe wagon has arrived to deliver a request on this fine Friday. Clementine Ford would like our sympathy in return for all the love, tenderness, respect and heartfelt compassion…

Blind to gender – and the facts

14 July 2017 7:40 am

What more evidence do we need that ‘the patriarchy’ is a myth, than the recent findings of the government’s very…

Vaping, Big Public Health and the new McCarthyism

13 July 2017 5:54 pm

One of the more emotive arguments thrown up against e-cigarettes and vaping is that multinational tobacco companies, including Philip Morris…

Building Indigenous competitive advantage

13 July 2017 4:06 pm

The ABC’s recent Alice Springs Q&A highlighted many key features of the Indigenous disadvantage debate — both positive and negative.  While issues…

Has Yassmin Abdel-Magied missed the hatred spewing from the Left?

13 July 2017 12:55 pm

Sometimes I wonder if the Left are actually living, breathing and experiencing the same planet. In today’s Guardian Australia, someone…

Price of electricity is rising, not sure about temperatures

13 July 2017 7:51 am

Because the masses believe that global atmospheric temperatures are rising unnaturally – the Hazelwood coal-fired power station was decommissioned, and…

Who’s a true conservative?

12 July 2017 7:27 pm

The Prime Minister’s potty, semantic quibbling in London has taken up with characteristic zeal by Peter Van Onselen. His column…

A car emissions tax: proof that the government have lost their spark

12 July 2017 4:58 pm

Tax: a politician’s addiction – always eager to take your money and never satisfied. Now, our politically correct federal government…

Vive le caliphate

12 July 2017 2:50 pm

Dystopian scenarios – scary, end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it films and fiction – are on the rise. Michel Houellebecq’s novel Submission is about what goes…

Why we’ll all pay for South Australia’s bank heist

12 July 2017 12:36 pm

The South Australia state parliament is in recess for a fortnight. It’s time for Premier Jay Weatherill and his bullish…

The crucial left/right divide

12 July 2017 10:29 am

Forget all the recent talk about labels and who gets to wear the tag of ‘centrist’ or ‘liberal’ or ‘conservative’…

No conservatives, thanks; we’re liberals

11 July 2017 6:34 pm

Last night I went to sleep on the right. I must have tossed and turned a lot because when I…

The renewables creation story

11 July 2017 6:23 pm

To recap: the nation’s embrace of renewables has caused widespread blackouts, businesses to close, the indigent to seek shelter in…

Won’t somebody please think of Menzies’ child?

11 July 2017 5:02 pm

I’m going to bury my lead here, but it’s for the good of the story. Earlier today Australian Taxpayers Association…

Turnbull’s just Dizzy

11 July 2017 3:34 pm

Well, Malcolm Turnbull did it on Monday in London.  He took Tony Abbott’s bait and weighed into the moderate v…

How many of Malcolm’s centrists will be on the booths come polling day?

11 July 2017 12:26 pm

I’m no Crosby-Textor, but if Malcolm Turnbull was wondering what the recipe for electoral success is, it certainly isn’t telling…

The gloating season

11 July 2017 7:30 am

This is Labor’s gloating season. The time when the latest Newspoll tells us the Coalition’s primary vote has slipped from…

Gore blimey! Al’s that for a stack?

10 July 2017 8:27 pm

Want to have some innocent merriment at the expense of the man who put the cash into climate catastrophe, Al…

The other side of rights

10 July 2017 3:44 pm

There’s something quite disconcerting about modern society’s preoccupation with rights movements and the Trudeauan, technocratic snobbery that seems to come…

Why should the rich have free public schools?

10 July 2017 12:30 pm

We all know the school stereotype. Government schools are full of disadvantaged students and struggling for money, while overfunded wealthy…