Keith Windschuttle remembered
Chris Bowen’s 200 tonne carbon footprint nightmare
It has been an existential election for Chris Bowen. Not only is the Climate Change and Energy Minister largely irrelevant,…
Albo and Dutton do battle for the Port of Darwin
Leasing the Port of Darwin to a Chinese company for 99 years is easily one of the biggest national security…
Demanding a billion dollars from Elon Musk is insane
Pretend you are the European Union. Russia is on your doorstep, side-eyeing its next annexation. Islam is creeping across the…
Please be quiet
America’s political leadership is sensitive to criticism. We know this. High-ranking individuals within the Administration have told us. This has…
Angus goes to the mattresses, majority don’t like Adam
Your Correspondent in Canberra: It was quite the day in the election campaign. Adam Bandt addressed a sparse-looking crowd at…
Keith Windschuttle remembered
Yesterday evening, Keith Windschuttle died after a prolonged battle with ill health. The legacy of a creative is best expressed…
Too skewed, too gentlemanly
So here’s my quick, two key takeaways verdict on last night’s Sky News Australia leaders’ debate. First off, the questions…
Panem et Circenses: spending billions we don’t have
The 2032 Olympic Games, to be held in Brisbane, are the latest Antipodean version of half of the 2,000-year-old concept…
Here in Riverina, I’m taking the fight to the uniparty
I’ve spent my life in regional Australia. I’ve never seen the political landscape as broken as it is right now,…
Can bold energy policy turn the polls for Dutton?
The Liberals are behind Labor in polls for the May 3 election. Can they reverse this? Here is a possible…
A ludicrous proposal to solve the housing crisis
One of the recurring issues during this election campaign is the ‘housing crisis’ the government created by irresponsibly pursuing its…
Albo and Dutton debate was a complete farce
Central to our two-party liberal democracy is political debate. Our system allows for peaceful revolutions at the ballot box. It…
Debates: sound and fury
Tonight Sky News Australia will host a town hall meeting/debate between Mr Albanese and Mr Dutton with an audience supposedly…
Trump’s tariffs: a bad idea executed badly
President Trump has imposed tariffs on almost all countries, with tariffs ranging from 10 per cent up to 46 per…
In defence of the Camino de Santiago
The pilgrimage known as the Camino de Santiago for over a thousand years has drawn people from across the globe…
Liberal Candidate, Benjamin Britton, dis-endorsed
The Dutton-led Liberal party has just ousted yet another competent Liberal candidate from its ranks following statements made by the…
A book, a calculator and a hip flask
Each year I ponder whether my attendance at the budget lock-up will be my last. Can I really take another…
Faint-hearted
The election is upon us. So if you were looking for a word to describe what Mr Dutton and the…
Thriving on uncertainty
The index spiked to 139 when Russia defaulted in 1998. The 9/11 attacks on the US in 2001 boosted the…
Veneztralia
Following his election as Venezuelan President in 1999, Hugo Chávez launched a series of radical reforms known as the Bolivarian…
Voice by stealth
‘You can’t fatten a pig on market day,’ John Howard would say. As Australia’s longest-serving Liberal prime minister other than…
The carbon crisis
We have a carbon dioxide crisis in Australia. There is not enough of the gas produced locally. We import carbon…
The Carbon Inquisition
It was hidden in one line of Peter Dutton’s budget reply speech. But it is a crucial reason the Albanese…
Albanese’s squalid trickery
Why would Anthony Albanese stoop to such squalid trickery? This stemmed from the recent budget scheduled because Albanese decided that…
Meghan Markle’s new podcast is just toe-curling and unsubtle dross
At the beginning of the debut episode of Meghan Markle’s new podcast, she is keen to assert her own identity.…
Tinkering with the electric car mandate won’t help manufacturers
Presumably, some future government will have to reverse the ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles in…
What caused Birmingham’s bin strikes?
Yes, as Wes Streeting says, it is ‘unacceptable’ for rubbish to be left piling up on the streets of Birmingham…
The hidden logic behind Trump’s market meltdown
Donald Trump’s announcement of huge levies on all the US’s major trading partners has triggered a global stock market meltdown,…
307,000 Voices
Growing concerns at the impact of unregulated free speech around the world, and especially in the English-speaking West, are understandable.…
New Zealand’s cringeworthy new tourism slogan
‘Everyone must go!’ New Zealand’s new tourism declares, but so far almost everyone seems to be cringing. The prime minister…
The sacred sites fandango
The second-highest mountain in New Zealand has been granted ‘personhood’ by the NZ parliament because it is regarded as the…
Operation Resolution: cleaning up after HMNZS Manawanui
HMNZS Manawanui, formally a chirpy red and yellow MV Edda Fonn, sank on October 6 much to the shock of…
Will Trump join the strongman club?
Unsurpassable
It’s a weird connection but they say Donald Trump is devoted to his presidential predecessor Andrew Jackson who was popular…
What really scares people about Adolescence
Two books I read in my teens made me want to be a writer. One, Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch, appeared when…
Intensely engaging
The Australian National Academy of Music gala performance on Friday 21 March was dazzling with guest conductor Asher Fisch leading…
Theatre vultures will kill
Having a sportswriter father is no excuse. The young man was tall, long fair-haired with a hat. ‘What do you…
The sin of TDS
You almost have to admire the nerve, the gall, the sheer chutzpah. Here we have a book about the mental…
The Pinochet affair: the pursuit of a Chilean dictator
Calle Londres 38 is the address in Santiago of one of the notorious detention centres where the government of the…
The Da Vinci world of known unknowns
When Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘Salvator Mundi’ was sold in 2017 for $450 million it caused a sensation. Dismissed as an…
Doctor, Doctor: the genesis of a national folk hero
John Higgs begins his foray into the long-standing BBC television science fiction series Doctor Who with a personal anecdote about…
Satire and settled scores: Universality by Natasha Brown reviewed
In 2023 Natasha Brown published an article taking the reader behind the scenes of two interviews that she had given…
Tony Benn, bogeyman to some, beacon of hope and light to many
Among the most striking things about Tony Benn was his friendship with Enoch Powell. They entered the House together in…
Murder she imagined: The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami reviewed
‘In dreams begins responsibility,’ wrote W.B. Yeats. In the near-future America imagined by Laila Lalami, culpability starts there, too. Charged…
The last of the great salonnières
Lady Pamela Berry (Pam to everyone, so that is what I too shall call her) did many things in her…