No one believes the climate change excuse
Not even Labor Premier Chris Minns believes Sydney City Council when they used ‘climate change’ as an excuse to ban…
Andrew Hastie: ‘I have a desire to lead’
While the factional sharks allegedly circle Angus Taylor, having perceived him as a threat to the future power of the…
What happened to Albanese’s crusade to save the Port of Darwin?
When Anthony Albanese’s integrity as a regional leader and caretaker of Australia’s national security was on the line during the…
Trump saves white South African farmers
Donald Trump has completed a task he began in his first Presidency – offering white South African farmers refuge in…
Beyond the sliding doors election
‘This election…is a sliding doors moment for our nation,’ declared Peter Dutton, and maybe he was right, and in ways…
Even a meme can expose a lack of values
In an age of censorship and conformity, social media memes have proven cut through on issues thought outside the bounds…
Let’s give Sussan Ley a chance
The knives have come out for Sussan Ley. She is being attacked from both the left and the right. But,…
A Trump trade deal might not protect free speech or religious freedom
Trump’s tough love tariffs have produced a massive ‘reciprocal’ trade deal with the United Kingdom. Anxious, Prime Minister Kier Starmer…
Chris Bowen vs the laws of physics
In the aftermath of the capitulation of the Liberals, it will be amusing in a macabre kind of way to…
Nietzsche, American Pie, and Pauline
I was inspired this morning to write something about the election, which, until then, I had been reluctant to do,…
Education must be freed from ‘social engineering’
‘I don’t believe in colleges and universities. I believe in libraries because most students don’t have any money. When I…
How Albanese’s Super Plan could lead to capital flight
Anthony Albanese’s decision to resurrect Division 296 – the levy that taxes super balances above $3 million on their unrealised…
The Great Liberal Split of 2025
The wets have won. Now their empire stretches over the remains of Menzies’ Child. Echoing the Great Labor Split of…
Democracy: a vanishing ideal
It is never a good idea to seek to save ‘democracy’ by destroying it. Nevertheless, this is now happening in…
Reform Oz? One Nation or bust
The success of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party is dominating conservative thinking in Australia. Some see Gerard Rennick as the…
Farage: the Reform Australia needs
The surge in popularity of the UK Reform Party should provide some thought for the future of the declining Australian…
Mock the media, and win
Why do some people seem to think it’s a good idea to take political advice for our team from those…
What the hell
Having enjoyed the brief sense of euphoria over Adam Bandt’s defeat in the seat of Melbourne – he managed to…
I didn’t read the news today, oh boy
Two media commentators on the National Public Radio (NPR) network – America’s closest equivalent to the ABC – recently spent…
We need Milei’s chainsaw
Australia’s political and economic direction is beginning to travel a well-trodden and dangerous path. A path that increasingly looks Argentinian.…
Viva il Papa? Let’s wait and see
As was the case with the lead-up to the conclaves of 2005 and 2013, the lead-up to the most recent…
Leo in the ascendant
If a pleasant and cordial personality is a reliable indication, the Roman Catholic Church can look forward to calmer days…
The Farage earthquake
It may only be of small comfort to Australians mourning the 3 May landslide to Labor, but elections two days…
The Getting of Green Wisdom
‘If the fool would persist in his folly, he would become wise,’ wrote William Blake in The Marriage of Heaven…
Gary Lineker must ‘educate’ himself on the Nazis
When I was a schoolboy, on the rare occasions I was required to line up against the wall to be…
Britain could pay a big price for Starmer’s ‘EU Reset’
The great ‘EU Reset’ of 19 May – when the first formal UK-EU summit since Brexit will take place –…
The trouble with BBC Verify
Can the BBC ever be objective and unbiased? It’s a question many of us ask ourselves, sometimes in hope, often…
Why lesbians want out of the LGBT movement
LGBT+ is an ‘inclusive’ way to represent all the different identities in the longer acronym, says the BBC. What nonsense:…
Jacinda Ardern and the empty politics of ‘kindness’
Just over two years on from stepping down as Prime Minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern is awaiting the imminent…
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…
Is Pope Leo XIV part of the ‘Trumplash’?
Dark lowering road
Bill Henson, the greatest Australian photographer, has a show at the Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery at 6pm Friday 16 May. It’s…
A need for abasement
We sometimes forget how much opera provides a captivating alternative to classic drama but this was written all over Opera…
A wonder to behold
The National Gallery has been gifted Edvard Munch’s Man with Horse and its acquisition brings to mind James Mollison, the…
A passable Antipodean
Isn’t it strange the way the popular and high art aspects of our culture keep connecting and intersecting. A friend…
The problem with Pascal’s wager
Blaise Pascal resists definition. During a short life (he died in 1662, aged 39) he invented the calculator, laid the…
Richard Ellmann: the man and his masks
Richard Ellmann’s acclaimed life of James Joyce was published in 1959, with a revised and expanded edition appearing in 1982.…
Consorting with the enemy: The Propagandist, by Cécile Desprairies, reviewed
As a young child in the mid-1960s, Cécile Desprairies listened hour after hour to her mother Lucie dreamily recalling the…
Private battles: Twelve Post-War Tales, by Graham Swift, reviewed
When Granta magazine’s list of Best of Young British Novelists first appeared in 1983 it was a cue for me…
A David Bowie devotee with the air of Adrian Mole
When one thinks of ‘odd’, one might imagine the bizarre but not the boring. Yet odd thingscan indeed be boring…
From the early 1930s we knew what Hitler’s intentions were – so why were we so ill-prepared?
MI6’s historical archive suffered disastrous weeding on grounds of space from the 1920s onwards. One of many mysteries was the…
Driven to extremes: The Rest of Our Lives, by Ben Markovits, reviewed
In a break from his tetralogy about the Essinger family, and following on from The Sidekick (a kind of Humboldt’s…
The mixed messages of today’s architecture – retro utopias or dizzy towers?
Only when history is decarbonised and decolonised will we understand how architecture should advance. For the time being, the art…