flat white

Eden-Monaro: how dare #Cobargo residents think for themselves?

It’s been a week since the Eden-Monaro by-election. The outcome has been overshadowed by the mounting coronavirus crisis, but one…

12 Jul 2020

We need industrial relations reform for post coronavirus recovery

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has announced there will be an overhaul of Australia’s industrial relations laws. He wants business groups…

12 Jul 2020

There is no greater taboo than perceived insensitivity to Aboriginal Australia, so why the constant cries of racism?

“Burn the f…ing place down!” screams the angry young Aboriginal woman on the TV screen (in a red dress and…

10 Jul 2020

Do we want to follow St Jacinda and price our industry out of existence?

Rio Tinto’s announced closure of its aluminium smelter in New Zealand due to uncompetitive power prices this week is a…

10 Jul 2020

We are killing more people because of lockdown than we are saving

While it’s tempting, and even invigorating, to experience a shiver of schadenfreude at the resurgence of COVID-19 in Victoria on…

10 Jul 2020

The woke: disregarding goodness in the absence of perfection

There was a time when our celebrities didn’t feel like they had to join the madding crowds and rush to…

9 Jul 2020

Mr Andrews, tear down this wall

A few things immediately sprang to my mind this morning as I awoke to my city surrounded by rings of…

9 Jul 2020

The latest in woke censorship: it’s only cancel culture when the cancellers say so

Meanjin online has published a piece by Eileen Chong, “Representations”, explaining why she demanded a short story written by Stuart…

9 Jul 2020

Pro-lifers, it’s time for civil disobedience

The Supreme Court has ruled in June Medical Services, LLC vs Russo that the dismemberment and removal of unborn human lives was more…

11 Jul 2020

Will the BBC become a victim of its own bias?

The BBC is losing me. It’s a sudden estrangement and an unwelcome one but I can’t seem to shake it…

11 Jul 2020

President Trump grants clemency to Roger Stone

Well, he finally did it. After months of anticipation, President Donald Trump has signed ‘an Executive Grant of Clemency commuting…

11 Jul 2020

'Rishinomics' could cost the Tories the next election

A truism is emerging that the Tories’ massive public spending has left Labour politically with nowhere to go. This quasi-social-democrat…

11 Jul 2020

Birthday/Reflections etc.

Australia is on course to self-destruct One of the many benefits in having a big bash to celebrate turning 90…

11 Jul 2020

Mistaken identity politics

Way back in those halcyon days of Martin Luther King the charge of racism related to someone’s failing to be…

11 Jul 2020

Morrison’s defence

In his panoramic survey of war through the ages, the eminent historian Azar Gat discerned two significant trends. To casual…

11 Jul 2020

Welcome to Wuhanistan

Australians found out this week that if they are foolhardy enough to travel to China they could be arbitrarily detained.…

11 Jul 2020

Emperor Xi & Pax Sinica

War preparations, a government-imposed recession or depression, shock reporting about an allegedly resurgent Wuhan virus, borders  closed, talk that overseas…

11 Jul 2020

The cancellation of Mr Heydon

In chambers last week the Dyson Heydon affair occupied many hours of debate. The allegations were shocking but the Chief…

4 Jul 2020

Meagre gruel

Think back to 2013 when the Coalition came into office. Having won that election, and two more, under three different…

4 Jul 2020

Friends in creed

The Chinese Communist Party has abolished the freedoms and semi-autonomous status promised to Hong Kong in the ‘one country two…

4 Jul 2020

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Jessie Traill: A biography

She could have been one of our great-aunts. She was from that remarkable generation of educated, unmarried women who chose…

11 Jul 2020

Wendy Bowman, 2019 by David Darcy Darling Portrait Prize 2020

She is not a theoretical or idealogical environmentalist. Wendy Bowman became an activist when her crops were ruined by polluted…

4 Jul 2020

Keith Urban using a Maton guitar, recording Gimme Shelter in Olympic Studios, London

We are critical of ourselves for not designing or manufacturing things any more. Well, there is a contrary example in…

27 Jun 2020

Laughing Child by John Brack

In a futile attempt at participating in the current cultural revolution, I tried to suffer ‘harm and offence’ from an…

20 Jun 2020

Aussie life

Like so many of us in these troubled times, I am worried about the family statues. The topple-mob cannot be…

11 Jul 2020

The forgotten victims of communism

I just read a piece by Scott McConnell in the American Conservative, a magazine we co-founded 18 years ago. He…

11 Jul 2020

Will Zooming replace real-life socialising?

‘Are you seriously telling me you would rather meet up on Zoom than in reality?’ I asked a friend as…

11 Jul 2020

Aidan O’Brien’s Derby victory was an act of grand larceny

It wasn’t so much a Derby victory this year as an act of grand larceny. Aidan O’Brien isn’t just a…

11 Jul 2020

The Sixties vibe: Utopia Avenue, by David Mitchell, reviewed

There aren’t many authors as generous to their readers as David Mitchell. Ever since Ghostwritten in 1999, he’s specialised in…

11 Jul 2020

How far can we trust the men in lab coats?

A month ago the Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine each retracted a major study on Covid-19 drug…

11 Jul 2020

Saying yes slowly is what’s hampering progress today

One of my long-held beliefs is that evolutionary biology should be taught extensively in schools. There may be some objections…

11 Jul 2020

The famous cities of the ancient world were surprisingly small and fragile

Greg Woolf didn’t know his book would come out during an urban crisis. Thanks to coronavirus, Venice’s population, for example,…

11 Jul 2020

Spotting the mountweazels: The Liar’s Dictionary, by Eley Williams, reviewed

There is a particular sub-genre of books which are witty and erudite, comic and serious and often of a bibliophilic…

11 Jul 2020

Children’s books provide the perfect escape from coronovirus

The lockdown we have been enduring has at times felt drawn from the pages of a children’s book. The eerie…

11 Jul 2020

It was Bevin, not Bevan, who was the real national treasure

On a family holiday almost 40 years ago I visited Winsford, the village on the edge of Exmoor where Ernest…

4 Jul 2020

Monuments to the second world war are looking increasingly dodgy

Most monuments are literally set in stone — or cast in bronze to better survive the weather. Being enduring, they…

4 Jul 2020