Australia doesn’t need a Ministry of Truth
Climate psychology
Climate change is the gift that keeps on giving. We are familiar with the havoc it is supposedly wreaking on…
A diesel in the shed
You can have your solar panels and your turbines on the hills; You can use the warmth of sunshine to…
Australia’s e-Safety Karen
If you were to believe Anthony Albanese, Elon Musk is the greatest threat to Australian democracy since Lucifer fell from…
On Passover, Israel, and the scourge of antisemitism
On behalf of the Australia-Israel Allies Caucus, I wish all who celebrate a happy and holy Pesach/Passover. Passover commemorates the…
Laughs, lies, and lights out
Oh, the irony! Here I was reading our local Noosa newspaper last Saturday morning and laughing when the power started…
Australia fails to protect children from gender experiments
The debate over so-called ‘gender-affirming care’ for children has reached a crucial moment. This treatment approach, which often involves the…
Only official misinformation allowed
Over the last four years, the Australian ruling classes have demonstrated an insatiable appetite for power and control over our…
Do you wish your country would become normal again?
Would it be nice if universities suddenly became passively progressive again, instead of shamelessly revolutionary? Should national holidays return to…
Broken promises, broken budgets
In December 2021, Anthony Albanese announced his ‘plan’ to reduce electricity prices by $275 per household by 2025. He said…
JK Rowling puts Wikipedia’s neutrality to the test
The JK Rowling Wikipedia article has been embroiled in a heated debate over the last month regarding its representation of…
Misdiagnosed problems and misguided solutions
In a recent piece published by the International Monetary Fund, Nobel Prize-winning economist Angus Deaton lambasted his own profession for ‘valorising efficiency…
Women’s liberation stumbles backwards
I must start this off with an admission, I am a bloke – worse – an old bloke – even…
Brown study
Like many conservatives, I am profoundly unhappy about the appointment of Ms Sam Mostyn as Governor-General of Australia. In fact,…
Our greatest philosopher
Yes, I know, starting a column by talking briefly about one of the world’s great philosophers is a bit odd.…
Time to give ‘hate speech’ the flick
Can we delete the term ‘hate speech’ from the debate over the role of the law in what people can…
Into the lion’s den
I’ve never thought of myself as a rapist. I’m certainly no Lothario – at least I wasn’t back in my…
Alas for free trade
An Israeli-owned ship crammed with 17,000 cattle and sheep from Australia upset animal-rights campaigners when in January it refused to…
Is cash still king?
I always carry a bit of cash; probably not as much as I did in the past. I’m not ‘doing…
Big bang fallout
Hands up those who think the reputation of commercial television Network Ten has been enhanced by the judgment in the…
Mullahs on missiles
As Israelis bunkered down in their bomb shelters last Saturday, even the grim prospect of approaching Iranian cruise missiles couldn’t…
Australia doesn’t need a Ministry of Truth
Two unrelated acts of stabbing violence, first the random murderous rampage of a knife-wielding man in Sydney’s Bondi Junction, followed…
Does Channel 4 think this counts as balanced?
We are now just nine months out from the latest possible general election, which means that in a year’s time…
UNRWA hasn’t earned our trust in Gaza
Before 7 October last year, observers had long suspected an uncomfortable symbiosis between UNRWA, the UN organisation tasked with organising…
Tony Blair is a post-democratic product
Why was it that when I read a big interview with Tony Blair over the weekend – the ostensible premise…
Why New Zealand is cracking down on immigration
The government of New Zealand this week tightened the country’s working visa rules in order to stem historically high numbers…
Why is New Zealand’s deputy PM rowing with Chumbawamba?
In their musical heyday, the English anarchist punk band Chumbawamba enjoyed a reputation for having an irreverent attitude towards those…
New Zealand’s imperial judiciary
If you cast your eyes across the Tasman right now, you can see the beginnings of an imperial judiciary, the…
Subversion within New Zealand
Recently querying why New Zealand governments make annual January pilgrimages to the Maori Pa at Ratana, to celebrate the birth…
Shylock and the Nazis: the truth about Shakespeare’s most infamous character
None of William Shakespeare’s characters are more controversial than Shylock. The moneylender from The Merchant of Venice may be the…
The music of their eloquence
It was a tweet by the novelist Joyce Carol Oates that warned us PBS, the American public broadcaster, had done…
Why one-man plays are all the rage
Well, it’s nice to feel on trend. The Today programme this morning carried an item on the popularity of one-man…
Somersaulting beauty of the songmaker
It’s uncanny sometimes how it works. There we were last Saturday in Hamer Hall to hear what Stephen Layton from…
To Salman Rushdie, a dream before his attempted murder ‘felt like a premonition’
Salman Rushdie has long hated and struggled against the idea that the 1989 fatwa pronounced on him after the publication…
Murder in the dark: The Eighth House, by Linda Segtnan, reviewed
It takes a Scandinavian mother to write like this: ‘Why murder a nine-year-old girl? She wasn’t raped. Rape is the…
Are we all becoming hermits now?
Long before Covid, wi-fi and Deliveroo, Badger in The Wind in the Willows showed us how to live beyond the…
John Deakin: the perfect anti-hero of the tawdry Soho scene
During the various lockdowns I found myself wondering how Iain Sinclair was coping with the restrictions. It seemed unthinkable that…
A magnificent set of dentures still leaves little to smile about
John Patrick Higgins is unhappy about the state of his mouth. His teeth resemble ‘broken biscuits’, a ‘pub piano’, ‘an…
The Dreyfus Affair continues to haunt France to this day
A short new book on Captain Alfred Dreyfus, the proudly patriotic French army officer who was falsely accused in 1894…
They felt they could achieve anything together: two brave women in war-torn Serbia
Lesbian military fiction is a popular genre, featuring titles such as Silver Wings and An Army of One, but Jack…
Being a printer was what Benjamin Franklin prided himself on most
For some readers this book will have the charm of the Antiques Roadshow. Adam Smyth, professor of English Literature and…