View from the Chairman’s Lounge
Silence of the Lambie
Remember when Jacqui Lambie fantasised about throwing Elon Musk in jail? I had forgotten until Damian Coory pointed it out…
Kevin Rudd might be … right(?!)
Carrying on the great political tradition of ‘never buggering off’, former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is back – sort of…
The Chalmers diet
Sydney’s working class look hungry. By that I mean, they are getting noticeably thinner. My advice to the political class…
Nepal and the scam of climate reparations
When the Earth shakes – climate reparations fall out. That may be the eventual lesson of the Nepal flood that…
In government and out of control
One of our leaders gathered the Best and the Brightest together in Parliament House for the Australia 2020 Summit where…
Reza Shah II and Australia’s shadow government
The online meeting between Reza Shah II and Australia’s shadow government can be viewed as part of the growing dialogue…
Fauda and the shadow of October 7
Israel’s TV show Fauda has not disappointed with its long-awaited fifth season. Building on its longstanding international following, Fauda’s viewership…
Mass migration overcrowds cities as regions left behind
Imagine an entire Lufthansa fleet of 27 Boeing-747s, at maximum capacity, picking up migrants from South and Southeast Asia, among…
Free speech and the fine print
Watching Konrad Benjamin from Punter’s Politics and Sam Bamford from 2 Worlds Collide take pot shots at each other, I’m…
Methinks they doth protest too much
With apologies to Shakespeare and Hamlet’s mother, Gertrude, for the reference in the title, the recent ranting by both Labor…
Israel’s war in Gaza
Before any serious discussion of the war in Gaza can begin, one fundamental distinction must be made: civilian deaths, however…
Novak Djokovic and the night his body said ‘enough’
There are defeats in tennis that live in statistics, and then there are defeats that live in memory. Novak Djokovic’s…
The load-bearing wall: Vale Dr Dale
In residential construction, a load-bearing wall is the one nobody thinks about until it is gone. It carries the weight…
Memo to Liberal Party
Liberal leadership hopeful Andrew Hastie sent an email to supporters over the weekend, doubling-down in his unnecessary public spat with…
Remembering September 11: still reeling 25 years on
It’s 25 years since that fateful day when a whole new reality crashed in on our world and set civilisation…
Veterans deserve better
In the May Budget, the Labor government, through Veterans’ Affairs Minister Matt Keogh, announced a $5,000-a-year cap on veterans’ allied-health…
We have not forgotten
It is my view that the Liberal Party and News24 are making a serious mistake by persistently conflating the Ben…
Please never explain
You may have heard I’ve been working as a barista, driving a school bus, and driving a truck in regional…
AOC and the parasocial nature of politics
Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who often goes by AOC, recently took to the internet to share that she would be freezing…
Restoring choice for stay-at-home parents
There is little to no defence from those in the modern Liberal Party of Malcolm Fraser. Even rarer is any…
PLEASE EXPLAIN! Why politicians are getting salty over satirical cartoons… | S3 Ep 19
This week… Jacqui Lambie’s rant over One Nation’s Andrew Hastie ‘traitor’ cartoon. Who dragged Albanese’s mother into the political conversation…
Australia’s eSafety Commissioner loses again – A victory for free speech | Celine Baumgarten S3 Ep 18
Celine Baumgarten (Celine Against the Machine) has celebrated her SECOND victory against the eSafety Commissioner. This wasn’t only a personal…
Did Donald Trump conquer the world with witty insults? | Joel Gilbert S3 Ep 17
Did Donald Trump conquer the world with witty insults? I’m joined by Joel Gilbert to discuss the genius of humour…
Aussies teed off
When it comes to sinking the career of Anthony Albanese, the scandalous ‘Golfgate’ should be a hole-in-one for the opposition.…
A phalanx of unelected commissioners
I am often in the car around 5 p.m., having helped with the school/kinder pickup. It’s a great joy hanging…
Barnaby’s bread and circuses
I am borderline innumerate. Angus enjoys reminding our children of this, perhaps because his own identity is so bound up…
Chairman Kim’s codswallop
Many, if not most, Australians would have been embarrassed, even angered, by the fatuous welcome to ‘Naarm’ provided to the…
View from the Chairman’s Lounge
Somewhere behind a door through which few Australians will ever pass, inside the Qantas Chairman’s Lounge, a member of parliament…
Whose super is it? Albo’s?
A recent cartoon in the Australian captures the confidence trick Labor politicians are playing on the workers they pretend to…
We’re still woke, folks
Firstly, let me remind readers we have some big elections looming in the Anglosphere. Everyone will know about the US…
The road to hell is paved with political intentions
Standing beside Georgia Tree, Labor’s candidate for the safe Labor seat of Secret Harbour recently, West Australian premier Roger Cook…
Whyalla wipeout
On Monday night, Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen conceded that green hydrogen had proved slower and more expensive…
Hastie & Pickering
It’s fascinating to compare the current imbroglio between two potential political leaders: Warren Pickering, of whom nobody had ever heard…
If 9/11 happened today
Twenty-five years on, if the 9/11 terrorist attack by al-Qaeda happened today, the response in Australia and countries such as…
The Plibersek paradox
It’s surely impossible to imagine Tanya Plibersek – Plibbers to most of us – ever being the prime minister of…
Jews don’t need Andy Burnham’s Yom Kippur platitudes
With Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement beginning today, social media will no doubt soon be humming with supportive messages from…
Here is how Healey can avoid going to the IMF
The loud, wheezy hoot of the pit horn used to signal the end of the shift. Blaring across the town,…
Why do the unions want the Boriswave to settle?
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood’s changes to Indefinite Leave to Remain status, first announced almost a year ago, are still to…
Ed Sheeran, Macklemore and the ugly new anti-Semitism
Is there a German word for when someone you loathe does something you admire? ‘Feindbewunderung’ perhaps? I’ve been taken aback…
Autumn is the cruellest season
Autumn has arrived; a transition of colour like a Mark Rothko painting with its softened frayed edges. The introduction of…
Are we diagnosing too many people with ADHD?
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder was named in the 1980s, and by the end of that decade forty people in Britain…
The Church of England is destroying itself
Many of Britain’s institutions are being destroyed from within by leaders who do not seem to understand what they are…
Rejoice in the return of Kevin Pietersen
For the decade after his England debut in the technicolour summer of 2005, Kevin Pietersen was the most compelling cricketer…
Why the Civil Service are revolting – again
Many people who work in the Civil Service are revolting. Quite literally in the verbal meaning of the word, and,…
Help! I’ve got a sex offender tattooed on me
Some wear their hearts on their sleeves. Others wear convicted sex offenders on their biceps. The phrase “Rolf Harris tattoo”…
Does Reform really want to win?
Well chaps, it’s over. Reform have buckled under the pressure. The towel has been thrown in. The party in teal…
Trump’s second term has put his legacy in grave peril
Two recent stories sum up the state of Donald Trump’s presidency and underscore the growing gap between him and his…
Why you shouldn’t shrug at New Zealand’s greyhound racing ban
Greyhound racing ended in New Zealand on August 1. Those who neither own a greyhound nor care for the sport…
A New Zealand republic in Jacinda Ardern’s lifetime?
New Zealand’s former Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, believes the nation will become a republic within her lifetime. We have heard…
The row over English becoming an official language of New Zealand
Parliamentarians in New Zealand have been limbering up for an oddly unedifying debate over what ought to be the most…
What they don’t tell you about Christmas in New Zealand
‘I still think New Zealand the most beautiful country I have ever seen,’ Agatha Christie marvelled in 1922. Evidently she’s…
The autistocracy: the men on the spectrum who rule our world
A gorgeous evocation of the natural world
The world of artistic expression runs in a thousand ways. The Melbourne Symphony’s Spring Gala – paralleling the Opera’s Wagner…
A man of great suavity
They were both films that stay in the mind from a lifetime ago. Peter Pan is J.M. Barrie’s contribution to…
The sexiest kind of rock star
It’s strange and sad what the world throws at us. We are assailed by musicals – a production of Reg…
This silly and drivelling piece of tosh
Every so often something comes along that is so bad it fills the soul with wonder and dismay. It seems…
Art conquers all: The Disappearers by Marlon James, reviewed
Gothic fiction is full of Jekylls and Hydes. For every castle, there is a dungeon; for every locked door, a…
Pain passed down: a portrait of Russia and the war that dare not speak its name
Long before Asne Seierstad arrived at the bookseller’s house in Kabul, she studied in Moscow. ‘I tried to be one…
Rebecca reimagined: The Housekeeper by Rose Tremain, reviewed
Mrs Danvers is one of those rare characters who has transcended her original setting to enter the wider culture. She…
Too much and much too long: The Rouse by China Miéville, reviewed
China Miéville’s new novel is 1,264 pages long. Following his breakthrough ‘New Weird’ masterpiece Perdido Street Station (2000), Miéville was…
Worried about masculinity: from turrets and gargoyles to the state of men
In 2023, the author Jon Ronson woke one Sunday in upstate New York, where he lives, to a string of…
Curiouser and curiouser: The Strangers by Naomi Alderman, reviewed
This aptly titled novel might be Naomi Alderman’s strangest book yet – a work of fiction about a writer called…
Mind the gaps: a far-from comprehensive life of Hannah Arendt
In 1975 – the year of her own death – Hannah Arendt published a heartfelt memorial essay about W.H. Auden…
In with the new: Julie Christie, Mary Quant, Up the Junction – the decade that changed Britain
This glorious historical monument slows, expands and luxuriously stretches to encompass one of the defining moments of change in our…