The trouble is nobody believes Sussan Ley
Speculation rife that Andrew Hastie’s time has come
Too much listening. Not enough doing. Liberal Leader Sussan Ley was warned from the start that her softly-softly approach to…
One Nation accuses Labor of being ‘hypocrites on the world stage’
Senator Penny Wong experienced a rather embarrassing exchange with One Nation Senator Malcolm Roberts. The Foreign Minister was asked to…
The recalibration of Jacinta Allan
It does not matter how many meaningless ‘most liveable city’ awards are bestowed on Melbourne, the city has a serious…
Donald Trump says he will sue BBC for ‘$1-5 billion’
An audio file taken from Air Force One appears to feature President Donald Trump confirming his intention to sue the…
Andrew Hastie: the Liberals’ last lifeline
Andrew Hastie’s bid for the leadership isn’t just another chapter in the party’s factional saga. It is the Liberals’ Last…
Sleeping under the Southern Cross
Once upon a time, the Australian spirit was known for its courage, independence, and irreverent sense of fairness. We didn’t…
Middle class saviour fantasies
Across history, the middle classes have dreamed of saving their societies. They see themselves as the sober conscience of the…
NSW Liberals can lead on energy
The NSW energy debate has drifted further from reality with each passing year. Politicians chase targets, oppositions trade slogans, and…
We are not Robespierre’s children
The three momentous mistakes we currently make are not to bend all our efforts to fix economic growth and therefore…
The trouble is nobody believes Sussan Ley
Sussan Ley’s decline has hit terminal velocity in the latest Redbridge poll. Almost immediately, the left gleefully painted a picture…
Is the Coalition up for the Net Zero fight?
In November 2009, the Liberal Party, led by Malcolm Turnbull, resolved to support the then-Rudd government’s emissions trading scheme, that…
The Australian Right needs a touch of Disraelian style and glamour
Some of my clever political friends have recently started to refer to me, wryly, as the secret and powerful Disraeli…
Now they are policing facial expressions
It certainly has not been a few good weeks for the BBC! In addition to dishonestly conveying the thrust of…
Coal: What should the Liberals do?
In 1897, in response to a newspaper report that he had died, American writer Mark Twain said, ‘The report of…
The Dismissal, 50 years on
As the years roll by, the question: ‘Where were you on the day of The Dismissal?’ becomes less frequent every…
We have forgotten the terror of mob rule
In Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend, Robert Neville is the last man alive. A mysterious plague has transformed humanity into…
Climate stupidity peaks
When keffiyeh-clad Greta Thunberg has given up banging on about climate change, you know that the jig is up. She’s…
The myths of ‘international law’
Over the last two years of the conflict in Gaza, the phrase ‘international humanitarian law’ has been heard almost daily…
Big Teal vs Big Denier
There is a certain kind of politics that does better in Bellevue Hill than it does in Goulburn. It is…
Last piece on an empty chessboard
It takes a certain kind of genius to hold power for a decade and still look bored by it. The…
Business/Robbery, etc
Join the dots. They show the significant threat to Australia’s economic prosperity (and strategic security) that has resulted already from…
Deathbed banditry
American politician Julius Caesar (J.C.) Watts once said, ‘Death and taxes may be inevitable, but they shouldn’t be related.’ He…
Come back, John Kerr
Recently I delivered the Neville Bonner Oration at the 26th National Conference of Australians for a Constitutional Monarchy (ACM). My…
‘Blood and honour’ or ‘Mud on Donna’?
Last Saturday, 67 neo-Nazis – members of the Nationalist Socialist Network (NSN), the activist branch of their ‘White Australia’ party…
Stop saying ‘Our BBC’
One of the most grating and nauseating verbal constructions of our times – ‘Our NHS’ – has with grim inevitability…
Sunday shows round-up: Mahmood’s migration ‘moral mission’
Tomorrow Shabana Mahmood, the Home Secretary, is set to announce changes to Britain’s asylum system, designed to discourage those who…
Chile flirts with a rightward turn
A border ‘ditch’ may prove to be the thing that brings the right back to power in Chile. Although the…
Why Israel fears Turkey’s involvement in Gaza
As the Gaza ceasefire struggles into its second month, a significant difference between the position of Israel and that of…
What will Jacinda Ardern do next?
When I first met Jacinda Ardern in the early 2010s, the notion that the young MP with the toothy smile…
The de-Wokification of New Zealand’s education system
The conservative coalition government of New Zealand came to office promising to wind back an enormous, government-run system of ‘Woke’…
Jacinda, Jacinta
I’m not a big fan of self-serving autobiographies, particularly of recently departed political leaders. I had briefly considered dipping into…
Why the Maori party keep doing the haka in parliament
Parliamentary proceedings in New Zealand once again screeched to a halt this week after an unsanctioned performance of the haka…
Philosophy’s greatest pessimist wasn’t so miserable after all
Equal to any quirk
Richo is dead. The supreme fixer of the Labor party is gone. That wise and moderate man Brian Johns who…
David Bowie was no starman
No one has a bad word to say about David Bowie, but it’s about time they did. The pop star’s…
The brilliance of her technique
It’s strange the way comedy lives. A legion of the young continue to listen to Pete and Dud or watch…
Florence and the Machine is back
It may be coincidence or clever record company marketing, but the two current reigning queens of the British pop music…
What do Oscar Wilde, Gwen John and Evelyn Waugh have in common?
Religious conversions do not, for the most part, make for good anecdotes. An exception can be found in Patricia Lockwood’s…
Escape from investment banking to the open road – a biking odyssey
A beguiling cinema advert back in the 1970s showed a young man with a series of doors closing around him…
A satirical portrait of village life: Love Divine, by Ysenda Maxtone Graham, reviewed
Love Divine, the debut novella by Ysenda Maxtone Graham, is set in the leafy, fictional parish of Lamley Green and…
The inspiration for David Lynch’s mysterious, disquieting world
‘He was the true Willy Wonka of film-making – I feel like I won the golden ticket getting the chance…
What hope is there for Syria today?
Rime Allaf takes the long view of Syria’s descent into hell. Her story begins with President Hafez al Assad, the…
From the wilds of Kyrgyzstan to the Victorian nursery – a choice of art books
One day, according to a venerable anecdote, an earl pushed his way into Hans Holbein’s London workshop demanding that his…
Laughing at Putin is a powerful form of protest
Penal Colony No. 2. A girl in a green coat. Red splashes of fireworks against the night sky. She arrives…
Philosophy’s greatest pessimist wasn’t so miserable after all
According to the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), people prefer reading books about great thinkers rather than by the thinkers…