Are the states pushing the constitutional limits of their 'police powers'?
Coronavirus: time for Plan D?
I think it’s time for plan D. Plan A, as I’m sure you remember, was to “flatten the curve”. For…
Are the states pushing the constitutional limits of their ‘police powers’?
Let’s be clear. The essence of our federal system as it applies to the ordinary citizen is that we are…
Can Do can – but at Amanda Stoker’s expense
My esteemed colleague Terry Barnes, here in the ethereal pages of the Speccie Australia, this morning wrote a ‘Double Shot’ briefing piece…
When are we going to get out of this mess?
When are we going to get out of this mess? When are all of these lockdowns, mask mandates, on-again, off-again…
The fading case for vaccine passports
Last week, Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy said the current surge in NSW infections is due to the Delta variant,…
Illegal tobacco syndicates are a problem Australia and Asia doesn’t need
Recently, the joint Australia-ASEAN Taskforce on Illicit Tobacco seized over 19 million illegal cigarettes bound for our Indo-Pacific region. The…
Campbell Newman: can Can Do do it?
Let’s open with a trivia question: which Royal Military College Duntroon colleague did Campbell Newman act as best man to? The…
One continent, eight nations
The British rugby fans have their Six Nations. Well, we now have eight nations, if you count our beloved territories. …
The Lancet, China and the origins of coronavirus
Right from its first issue in 1823, the Lancet was more than just an ordinary medical journal. Its founding editor,…
The man behind Xi Jinping
At the height of the Cultural Revolution, over a billion copies of Mao’s Little Red Book were distributed across the…
Trouble for the US at the Woke-yo Olympics
Can Trumpists still believe in ‘America First’ if they root against America in the Olympics? Yes, apparently. The US team…
Can I join Marjorie Taylor Greene in Twitter jail?
Marjorie Taylor Greene held a press conference late last week. It took place inside, meaning the Jews with the space…
New Zealanders are revolting against Ardern
Thousands of tractors this recent week lined the streets of towns and cities throughout the country. In ‘The Howl of…
New Zealand's transgender debate is turning nasty
New Zealand was the first country in the world to give women the right to vote in parliamentary elections. But now,…
Will fairy dust power New Zealand?
Wishful thinking, allied to government incompetence and the ambition of our Prime Minister, is lining up trouble ahead. In one…
Kiwi Life
One of my goals over the coming months is to watch an entire rugby game for the first time in…
New Zealanders are revolting against Ardern
Thousands of tractors this recent week lined the streets of towns and cities throughout the country. In ‘The Howl of…
Flirting with the Marxists
I would vote for any party that promised either to privatise the ABC or to make it a subscription service,…
Business/Robbery, etc.
It’s a legal double-whammy, especially for the resources sector. ‘Perceived bias’ in the Australian judiciary on the one hand and,…
The moral scolds are now in charge
I am in charge of streaming in our household. Someone has to be. Let face it, there is a dizzying…
The Big Lie vs Stop the Steal
The soporific vision of genial old Joe, eating ice cream and mumbling through an autocued speech, belies what’s actually happening…
Ivermectin. It’s as Aussie as Vegemite
As more than five million Sydneysiders woke up to their fourth week under house arrest, they were greeted with the…
Why does the Pope dislike conservatives?
To pray for someone’s death is morally wrong, yet it will be difficult for many Roman Catholics to resist the…
Constitutional outrage
The Wuhan virus could never be sufficient reason to justify the evasion of much of the separation of powers and…
The Greeks
What a time of captivity, what a time of plague. The Disney musical Frozen, long delayed by the mammoth Melbourne…
Martin Clunes
Just as the lockdown imprisons the people of Sydney those in Canberra have had the chance to see that exhilaration…
Opera Australia’s production of Otello
Lockdown must be making me irritable; an article during the week really got me going. It concerns two forthcoming productions…
Ethos
A Sydney lockdown on the heels of Melbourne: what price entertainment? It seemed natural as ever to have recourse to…
The least familiar stretches of Nile prove the most interesting
It’s one of the most tantalising travel images in the world — a felucca floating along the Nile at sunset,…
Terence’s stamp: The Art of Living, by Stephen Bayley, reviewed
Rumours reach me that the libel report for Stephen Bayley’s forthcoming biography of Terence Conran was longer than the book…
Playing with fire — did QAnon start as a cynical game?
On Easter Monday 2018, Donald and Melania Trump stood on the balcony of the White House next to a giant…
As circus gets serious, is all the fun of the fair lost?
What’s so serious about a red nose? How should we analyse the ‘specific socio-historical relations’ and ‘aesthetic trends particular to…
Even psychiatrists don’t know how the drugs they prescribe work
What is it like to go mad? Not so much developing depression or having a panic attack — which is…
The great awakening: Henry Shukman becomes a child of the universe
For eight years I rented a small house in Oxford overlooking the canal. The landlord, a poet and novelist younger…
The man who made Manhattan: The Great Mistake, by Jonathan Lee, reviewed
What makes a city? The collective labour of millions packed into its history; the constant forgetting of incomers who arrive…
The young bride’s tale: China Room, by Sunjeev Sahota, reviewed
Sunjeev Sahota’s novels present an unvarnished image of British Asian lives. Ours Are the Streets chronicles a suicide bomber’s radicalisation,…
