Leadership vacuum
Education destroyed by self-serving educrats
Such is the parlous and substandard state of Australia’s education system, if those in charge managed a major corporation like…
Vaccination rates fall… ‘Quick, let’s vaccinate more people!’
There’s a recent report running around calling for the government to spend lots of money because vaccination rates are not high enough,…
CIS 2023 Nanny State Awards
The Centre for Independent Studies had intended to follow the rules for US presidential polls and ban any candidate from…
We are in the fight for our life
It is difficult for the non-Jewish observer and commentator to fully understand how the trauma of the Holocaust and 2,000…
Don’t get comfy
With Christmas dawning upon us and CPI down from 5.6 to 4.9 per cent, it is without a doubt time…
The enduring relevance of natural law
It is impossible to understate the malaise that has engulfed Australia in 2023. Indeed, it has been a tumultuous year…
Adding workplace rules won’t make Australians richer
According to the federal government, the Closing Loopholes legislation is a commitment ‘to getting wages moving and strengthening enterprise bargaining’.…
Could Japan’s experience with post-war propaganda help Australia?
Australia is caught in a history war that pits marginalised minorities against oppressive majorities. When politicians and commentators on both…
The hypocrisy of the pro-Palestine mob
Something that seems to have escaped the attention of the left, so eager are they to condemn a war by…
Queer Theory in the public schools is anti-science mumbo-jumbo
I have been reading through some training aid documents from ClickView titled Understanding Gender with various subtitles Talking about Gender and…
Activists have severely damaged the arts in Australia
Some of our finest cultural institutions have been hijacked by political activists. Captive audiences have been subjected to political activism while artists…
Unravelling UNRWA
UNRWA, which describes itself as a United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, has…
The Dutch Trump’s big win
London’s EU-friendly Financial Times, aka the Brussels Pravda, is the daily compulsory reading for Eurocrats and preens itself with its…
Swapping terrorists for hostages does not work
Western democracies continue to ignore the problem of big numbers of migrants who bring their inherited hatreds and conflicts to…
Don’t cry for Milei, Argentina
With much wailing and gnashing of teeth from its ‘useless political caste,’ as he calls them, Javier Milei will be…
Roll out the red carpet for jihad
It is a hotly contested space to identify the very worst decision of the current Australian Labor government, but the…
New Zealand’s Yoni-come-latelies
When it comes to the excruciating war Hamas declared on Israel on 7 October, protesters in New Zealand have largely…
Leadership vacuum
Having closely observed nine Australian prime ministers over the past three decades, there are patterns of behaviour that recur from…
Usurping the dollar
As Venezuela’s economy crumpled heading into 2017, the US thought President Nicolás Maduro was vulnerable in elections for governorships that…
Gaza visas are worse than foolhardy
‘We will decide who comes to this country, and the circumstances in which they come in,’ declared John Howard in…
Jenrick’s resignation is a turning point for the Tory party
When he found out that a career-minded MP called Rishi Sunak had come out in favour of leaving the EU,…
Why Robert Jenrick was wrong to resign
Robert Jenrick resigned as immigration minister this evening over the government’s plan to amend the Rwanda scheme. Here is the…
What Jenrick’s resignation means for Sunak’s premiership
Rishi Sunak used his appearance before the 1922 committee this evening to tell MPs – once again – that the…
Why I resigned as immigration minister
This evening, Robert Jenrick resigned as immigration minister after disagreeing with the government’s plans to amend the Rwanda scheme. Here…
Did Maori MPs mean to insult King Charles?
The co-leaders of New Zealand’s Māori party, Te Pāti Māori, have defended their actions at the swearing-in ceremony at parliament…
Kiwi life
Given the UK’s Rishi Sunak sacking Suella Braverman for saying what many others would feel – that the police were…
New Zealand’s coalition goes to war with Jacinda Ardern’s legacy
New Zealand finally has a government again. It’s been 40 days since Labour was defeated in the country’s election, but the…
The worst Noel? Why Kiwis are turning against wealthy foreigners
Wealthy foreigners are flocking to New Zealand, but not all Kiwis are happy about their arrival: not least locals who…
Every kind of spectacular effect
It’s starting to turn into the season to be jolly (or whatever variant you can manage) with the Melbourne Symphony…
What fiction can teach us about terrorism
The first decade of this century, following Al Qaeda’s attack on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon in September 2001,…
Why Paul Lynch’s Prophet Song is one of the strangest books of all time
The 2024 Booker winner, Paul Lynch’s Prophet Song, is a vastly admirable book, but there is something deeply odd about…
The point of perdition
What will history make of the superior crime stories we seem to be churning out? The late Peter Corris’ Cliff…
Mother’s always angry: Jungle House, by Julianne Pachino, reviewed
Jungle House is not the sultry tropical tale you might expect either from its title or from its vivid, palm-strewn…
Fast and furious: America Fantastica, by Tim O’Brien, reviewed
It’s been said again and again but rarely so plainly illustrated: American life is now too berserk for fiction to…
In the dark early 1960s, at least we had the Beatles
‘These things start on my birthday – like the Warsaw Uprising – and spoil my day,’ wrote the understandably self-pitying…
The hubris of the great airship designers
Tribal rivalries have existed from humanity’s beginning and have fuelled the creation of every prestigious monument ever built. By the…
A strong whiff of goodbyes: The Pole and Other Stories, by J.M. Coetzee, reviewed
New books by, articles about or Sasquatch-like sightings of J.M. Coetzee routinely send me back to that infamous YouTube clip…
Religion provides the rhythm
Music is an art of time: songs play to a rhythm, giving shape to the seconds as they pass, charging…
Sex and the Famous Five
Generations of readers of Enid Blyton’s Famous Five series have enjoyed the books without having to contemplate the erotic properties…
The splendour and squalor of Venice
Hard by the Rialto, in a densely packed and depressingly tacky quarter of Venice, the church of San Giovanni Cristosomo…