Old hatreds have infiltrated Australia, and we let them in
Bondi Beach mass shooting terror attack: what we know so far
Details remain unconfirmed, but what we know for certain is that Australia will never be the same after this. Bondi…
One Nation’s conservative conversion
There are rumours that One Nation is head-hunting another two Coalition members. If true, this is Reform behaviour. Nigel Farage’s…
Frosty relations
Treasurer Jim Chalmers made a song and dance about Antarctic investment earlier in December, obscuring the deteriorating situation in Australia’s…
Blood and circuses
The scary corners of the internet are going mainstream, not because they have moderated their rhetoric, but rather our government…
After Bondi, it is time to take on Islamist antisemitism
I remember it like yesterday. The airmail letter came from Bondi Beach. Over 40 years earlier, my childhood school friend…
We failed you, Anne Frank
‘How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.’ – Anne Frank…
Why are the Australian’s moderators more timid than its writers?
I have been struck by the striking contrast once again in the robust discussion that one can find in the…
Gun laws and the helpless horror of Bondi
Australia already has highly restrictive gun laws compared to the US. Yet, many places in the US are like Australia.…
The paradox of tolerance manifests at Bondi Beach
December 14 was the darkest day for Australia in my 30-year lifetime. Islamic extremism struck at the heart of the…
Breaking the obedience barrier
By the afternoon of the day following the Bondi shootings, very few members of the federal government had named the…
The threat we refuse to name
There are dangers a society can screen for and dangers it cannot. Metal detectors catch knives. Infrared cameras detect weapons.…
The tide has gone out at Bondi. Will it ever rise again?
Yesterday’s tragedy at Bondi has hit hard. As the gravity and horror sinks in, we will all feel much worse…
The struggle against terror and extremism
After the uprising of radical leftist forces and extremist Islamist groups in 1979 and their seizure of power in Iran,…
When Chanukah light meets Australian darkness
At 6:47 pm on the first night of Chanukah, Bondi Beach felt unrecognisable. For a moment, it recalled something far…
Old hatreds have infiltrated Australia, and we let them in
From Cologne: I’ve just been to the City Museum in Cologne where the collection attempts to grapple with Germany’s past…
The mysterious assailants at Bondi
Australia is a censorious and increasingly secretive nation. In such an environment, clarity matters, especially in moments of public trauma.…
A Traveller’s tales
Back in Australia after six months in England and America. London packed with tourists but overall is more depressing than…
The name’s Allan, James Allan
‘The scent and smoke and sweat of a casino are nauseating at three in the morning. Then the soul-erosion produced…
Gallows state
Iran is experiencing one of its deadliest waves of executions since the 1979 revolution. A tactic once used to instil…
Fictionomics Awards
Allow me offer you a sobering thought before you reach for the Esky. The social cost of alcohol in Australia…
Tucker Qatarlson’s Christmas carol
My dreaming of a white Christmas was rudely interrupted by a social media post containing a guide for antisemites on…
Travels in Transylvania
It’s not often that Tripadvisor suggests you stay at a hotel owned by His Majesty the King of Australia. But…
Bring on 2026!
I’m a glass-half-full kind of person. That doesn’t mean I always have half a glass of something in my hand;…
The grift that keeps on grifting
Australia’s retreat from hosting Cop31 has sparked disappointment and relief in equal measure, the relief being that the nation has…
Where is the violence against women and girls strategy?
There was a revealing moment in today’s Liaison Committee session with Keir Starmer where the Prime Minister was asked about…
Starmer’s liaison committee grilling revealed three things
Today’s liaison committee meeting was not one for the history books. It was a fairly lacklustre affair, with some of…
There are bin liners with more empathy than Keir Starmer
The liaison committee is always a laugh. It’s sort of like a year in review for the government’s litany of…
Why won’t the West defend Jews?
Bondi Beach is not occupied territory. Yet a Jewish celebration there ended in blood. It is not within a military…
What will Jacinda Ardern do next?
When I first met Jacinda Ardern in the early 2010s, the notion that the young MP with the toothy smile…
The de-Wokification of New Zealand’s education system
The conservative coalition government of New Zealand came to office promising to wind back an enormous, government-run system of ‘Woke’…
Jacinda, Jacinta
I’m not a big fan of self-serving autobiographies, particularly of recently departed political leaders. I had briefly considered dipping into…
Why the Maori party keep doing the haka in parliament
Parliamentary proceedings in New Zealand once again screeched to a halt this week after an unsanctioned performance of the haka…
The end of the climate cult
The full range of diversions
Who can say what a world of Christmases will unfold this year? Sir Keir Starmer was knighted for services to…
The sheer scope of his work
When Tom Stoppard, playwright extraordinaire, was at the early height of his fame, with Glenn Close and Jeremy Irons in…
Confused and cumbersome
Anne-Louise Sarks’ production of that dazzling dramatic opera Carmen at Melbourne’s Regent was sometimes lit like a Christmas tree, sometimes…
Pit full of snakes
What a cheering thing it is that David Szalay has won the Booker Prize for Flesh which is a masterpiece…
AI, a near miss, and a pleasing history
Books about Australia’s past can easily turn into battlefields, and many commentators expected Tony Abbott’s Australia: A History (HarperCollins, $35)…
Songs of murder, rape and desertion
A century ago, the Orkney poet George Mackay Brown was settling into his first term at Stromness Academy. His schooldays…
The evasions of smalltown Alabama: The Land of Sweet Forever, by Harper Lee, reviewed
Harper Lee’s writing career was brief, but her single novel became one of the most famous in American history. To…
Rory Stewart’s romantic view of Cumbria is wide of the mark
It’s tricky for writers to gather up pieces of old work and collect them in significant literary form. It’s risky…
Peril in Prague: The Secret of Secrets, by Dan Brown, reviewed
Robert Langdon is a symbologist, and that is the meta joke – the only joke – of Dan Brown’s series…
Cosy crime for Christmas: a choice of thrillers
Christmas is prime time for cosy crime and the excellent thriller writer Nicola Upson offers a short, pleasing contribution with…
The little imps who pretended to be poltergeists
It comes as a surprise for anyone assuming that ghosthunters are easily fooled scaredy cats to learn that there was…
The cartographer’s power to decide the fate of millions
I had searched for it for the better part of 20 years. An enormous trove of lost maps, the 800…