Human rights, civil liberties
The national curriculum doesn’t just threaten our children. It’s a threat to the future of our nation
Australia’s educational performance has been in decline since the 1970s, but this is no accident. It is by design, curriculum…
Good. Gooder?
For decades, Australian men have been caricatured as foolish idiots in advertising. Men are presented as stupid, useless or otherwise…
Cannes goes off the planet
Seemingly infected by Thunbergism, the 2021 Cannes Film Festival, set to run from July 6 – 17, has re-imagined itself…
WA Police’s abuse of Covid app data destroys the rule of law
John Locke, seen by many as the father of our Western Liberal culture, once said “the end of law is…
Victoria: the failed punk rock state
I’m not saying Johnny Rotten is a prophet, but he kind of is. The manic-eyed lead singer of the Sex…
Dark Emu: the turkeys fight back
Well, Peter Sutton and Keryn Walshe certainly threw the Tasmanian devil among the scrub turkeys supporting Bruce Pascoe, with the…
What are we to make of the Julie Bishop Barbie?
In a week where various state premiers are competing to steal your takeaway coffee cups in a ‘war against plastic’,…
Coal isn’t just an energy issue, but also vital to defence
Australia’s ability to produce unlimited electricity has almost been lost thanks to myopic politicians captured by climate zeitgeist. Our nation’s…
Revealed: How the UK-Australia deal was struck
The UK’s first bespoke trade deal agreed since leaving the EU was finalised with Australia over two dinners. One took…
What Meghan Markle can learn from Enid Blyton
The year is 2070 and English Heritage are unveiling their latest Blue Plaque: ‘The Duchess of Sussex, children’s author, lived…
Are PCR tests the best way to track Covid?
Throughout the pandemic doubts have been expressed about the reliability of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests which have been…
Television, not social media, is fracturing our society
All it took for the Twitter mob to descend on me was a retweet from Michael Gove. Message after message…
A great badness is abroad
I was recently contacted by a highly intelligent woman whose granddaughter came home from school very upset about things she…
Kiwi Life
Of the various little stories about the rather wonderful Joni Mitchell in her early years, my favourite concerns Leonard Cohen.…
Kiwi Language
A friend of mine recently sent me a notice from a big law firm announcing the introduction of ‘Gender Affirmation…
While we were sleeping, New Zealand has lost a democracy
Jacinda Ardern believes New Zealand will become a republic. It’s all right, though, because she’s not in a hurry. But…
Fables of the Dark Emu
With the power of the ABC’s propaganda unit behind it, Dark Emu, by the self-proclaimed Aboriginal historian Bruce Pascoe sold…
Digital revolt & anarchy in the air
Comedian Kitty Flanagan suffered a discombobulating start to her new national tour in Noosa recently, during a riff on how…
Don’t cheer for NSW
The Berejiklian government in New South Wales is rightly patted on the back for its mature approach to the management…
Pravda rides again
In the West today we can see that a once free press is voluntarily becoming unfree. Or such is the…
The Last Emperor
As Australians now know, hell hath no fury like a dictator scorned. They have learned the hard way that Canberra’s…
Black Parents Matter
You are probably familiar with the concept of parenthood. It denotes a certain set of responsibilities in relation to a…
Abbott’s leadership
We do, indeed, live in strange times. Not so long ago, the thought that I would be nodding in agreement…
Covid’s warped vaccines
Samuel Langley, the inventor of a catastrophically incompetent ‘flying’ machine is a striking example of governments picking losers. When his…
Andrea Riseborough
National Treasure is a remarkable piece of TV drama, and it looks for a long, bewildering moment like a masterpiece.…
Divine Vinyl Survives
Two weeks ago, a fire broke out at the Universal Studios in Hollywood, 13 years to the day after another…
Dylan
Bob Dylan turned 80 the other week. Does that seem to consign not just the vanished twentieth century but the…
Festival music in Townsville
For those music lovers who can travel, the prospect of a festival in Townsville in mid-winter is an alluring one.…
Pure, white and native: the birch as a symbol of Russian nationalism
The image of the birch tree in popular Russian culture is as manifold as the trees themselves, but we could…
A hymn to the hummingbird — one of the most astonishing organisms on Earth
Along with coral reefs and their fish, tropical butterflies and birds of paradise, hummingbirds must be among the most beautiful…
O father, where art thou? Fox Fires, by Wyl Menmuir, reviewed
Wyl Menmuir’s first novel, The Many, was a surprise inclusion on the 2016 Booker Prize longlist. It drew praise for…
Secret treaties and games of cat and mouse: a choice of recent crime fiction
Almost any promising writer of spy fiction can expect at some point to be called the ‘next Le Carré’, an…
Snakes alive! Playing cricket in Latin America
Cricket in Latin America sounds like an oxymoron. Yet in almost every country in the region willow was hitting leather…
A divided city: the Big Three fall out in post-war Berlin
When did the Cold War start? Not when the second world war ended. There were many differences between the Soviet…
The great betrayal of Ethel Rosenberg
Ethel Rosenberg was an exceptional woman. Born with a painful curvature of the spine to a poor family of Jewish…
Billy Wilder — the making of a great film director
Before Billy Wilder became the celebrated director of films such as Sunset Boulevard, Some Like It Hot and The Apartment…
