Trumpian dreams
Half-a-dozen mainstream, left-wing publications have warned the Liberals about embracing Trumpian policies. You should always do the opposite of what…
Safe search off…
Sometimes I embrace delusions of owning a small apartment. As a single, young, working-class professional with no particular victim cards,…
The exorcism of Malcolm Turnbull
It’s been almost a decade since Malcolm Turnbull held power over the nation, yet his presence managed to haunt the…
Jeff Kennett suggests preference deal with One Nation
Jeff Kennett’s influence over conservative voters has diminished since the whole Deeming-Pesutto saga, nevertheless he came out over the weekend…
What can we learn from Milei’s Argentina?
Only a few years ago, the Argentinian economy was in tatters. GDP was falling by 2 per cent per year,…
The art of joy and despair
By the time I had rounded what was the final corner, unexpected anguish had peaked into tears. I had to…
I’ll have what he’s doing
Maybe, just maybe, we owe Sussan Ley a small apology. For her ‘out there’ views on numerology, if nothing else.…
Managerialist legacy parties are dying while the populists rise
Last November I wrote that, despite the electoral system in Australia and a few other significant differences with the UK,…
Give peace a chance
‘Give peace a chance’ was the theme of one of John and Yoko’s bed-ins in 1969. Apparently, they were reacting…
The great Australian shake-down
Three hundred and forty years ago, Thomas Hobbes articulated a principle so fundamental that every legitimate political arrangement since has…
There goes the neighbourhood!
After decades of relatively tight development controls and delays in approving new building developments in New South Wales, especially mid…
Angus Taylor should propose a Fairness Doctrine for Australia
The months of speculation are over. The Liberals have a new Opposition Leader, likely to take the Coalition to the…
When was Western culture stolen?
What has happened to Western Civilisation? At what point did its moral and intellectual foundations begin to erode? How did…
Make Zionism a protected attribute
By the rivers of Babylon… There we sat down Yeah, we wept When we remembered Zion. Increase of demonisation of…
Leaked immigration policy debacle a boon for Angus Taylor
Every now and then, a complete balls-up can work in one’s favour. Yesterday’s leaked Shadow Cabinet document marked ‘Shadow Cabinet-In-Confidence’…
Don’t let Australia become the Argentina of the Pacific
Having suggested before the last federal election that Australians – despairing at what the Albanese government is doing to Australia…
Digital tyranny or ‘child safety’? 😵 & the bitcoin revolution | Efrat Fenigson S3 Ep 16
When Australia’s Under 16 social media ban started locking adult political writers out of #Substack – it was just the…
Can Angus Taylor save the Liberal Party from the rise of One Nation? | James Allan S3 Ep 15
Has the Liberal Party betrayed Australia’s commitment to #FreeSpeech and freedom of political communication? Can Angus Taylor unseat Sussan Ley…
Australia’s eSafety commissioner and the digital dark ages | Alexander Hatzikalimnios S3 Ep 14
Banning children Under 16 is only the beginning of Australia’s pioneering digital censorship project. If successful, we will sit somewhere…
IR is now a lost cause
There was a time when I used to write a lot about industrial relations. There were examples of constructive changes,…
Minister Marles unfit for military service
Defence Minister Richard Marles recently announced that, following an ‘independent’ review, Defence would divest itself of assets it no longer…
Can Taylor fix the broken covenant?
We are told Angus Taylor is a reset. Borders. Lower taxes. Australians first. One can almost hear the rustle of…
Taylor to the rescue
Now that Angus Taylor is leader, conservative voters should give the Liberal party a chance to redeem itself: first, because…
The Angusean stable
Australia is not yet in full blown decline. Not yet. But the architecture of decline has been assembled with such…
100% Angus. No bull
I’ve never really thought of myself as a perfectionist. Lord knows my wife of forty years certainly wouldn’t consider me…
Revenge of the Somewheres
A recent analysis by the AFR framed One Nation’s rise primarily as a triumph of modern campaigning – a victory…
J’accuse Labor for Bondi
The growth in antisemitism in Australia since October 2023 is manifested in two ways. The first, and most obvious, is…
Mamdani’s People’s Republic of New York
Proudly displayed in the window of my local Barnes and Noble are copies of a children’s book called Zohran Walks New…
America’s future looks vulgar
The latest Super Bowl offers the most recent opportunity to reflect on the terminal state of our national culture, held…
The seismic arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor
Ever since the Restoration of Charles II in 1660, no member of the royal family has been arrested, which makes…
Why the Equality Act has to go
If the Equality Act 2010 made discrimination illegal, then why we have seen the rise of persistent and widespread discrimination…
What they don’t tell you about Christmas in New Zealand
‘I still think New Zealand the most beautiful country I have ever seen,’ Agatha Christie marvelled in 1922. Evidently she’s…
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…
The inconvenient truth about polar bears
Strange and familiar
One of the excitements of seeing Ngaire Dawn Fair in the full trilogy of The Summer of the Seventeenth Doll…
Dark and stormy
The opening gala of Melbourne Symphony Orchestra this year with the renowned pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet seems in every way congruent…
Camp indulgence
Music has the odd quality of being an abstract art as well as one that generates great gulfs and legions…
What Catherine O’Hara gave to cinema
There are actors who dominate the cinema screen, and actors who deepen it. There are stars who are ‘bankable’ and…
Double trouble: As If, by Isabel Waidner, reviewed
I think I’d be pretty hostile if I met my doppelganger – living proof of my mediocrity. My fragile ego…
Everybody needs ‘good neighbours’: fairy folklore from time immemorial
To our jaded century, ‘fairy’ carries connotations ranging from the sentimental to the sickly. It conjures childishness, foolishness, insipidity and…
The Labour party should finally grow up about Ramsay MacDonald and his conduct
The subtitle of Walter Reid’s biography of James Ramsay MacDonald refers to ‘the extraordinary rise and tragic fall’ of Labour’s…
Things still seem oddly disorientating without Seamus Heaney
Whether you went with the two big rugby goalposts, those opposing H’s of Heaney and Hughes, or with Blake Morrison’s…
Adventures in the City of Light: Rousseau’s Lost Children, by Gavin McCrea, reviewed
What biographer would pass up a time-travelling opportunity to meet their subject face to face? This novel’s protagonist, Gavin Mulvany,…
The sweeping drama of Australia’s political history
Tony Abbott’s history of Australia comes as a surprise. It has a spellbinding verve which will beguile friend and foe…
Blitz spirits: Nonesuch, by Francis Spufford, reviewed
If you read books for a living, the calling probably started with a moment of utter entrancement: a novel you…
Searching for the one and only is futile, say the sexologists
In a tiny town tucked into the desert an hour’s drive out of Nevada, a legal brothel operates. Its ‘menu’…