flat white

Tough love: how lockdown’s got us painting rocks and why that’s not all bad

A regular series of rules for life by Pete Shmigel, a former senior state and federal political advisor and CEO…

10 Aug 2021

Why women are at risk from the campaign to abolish sex

The latest human rights push is the inalienable right to keep your birth sex private.  We all have to pretend that we…

9 Aug 2021

The zero risk approach is driving us up the wall

Road deaths are far too high and need to be reduced at all costs.  Despite police action, people still speed…

9 Aug 2021

A public holiday for a cancelled event? You can't get much more corona-crazy

Those south of the Queensland border may have heard of the Brisbane Exhibition — or the Ekka as it colloquially…

9 Aug 2021

The Drum sounds the ABC’s death knell

Propriety, and the laws of defamation, prevent me from writing about ABC TV’s The Drum that which so richly deserves…

9 Aug 2021

Newspoll: Governments usually win one election more than they deserve. Was 2019 one of them?

Today’s Newspoll is dire for the Prime Minister. The two-party preferred split of 53:47 is bad enough but can be…

9 Aug 2021

Why conservatives should support an Indigenous Voice to Parliament

At the 1897 Adelaide Federation Convention, Alfred Deakin implored delegates to see themselves as ‘trustees for posterity, for the unborn…

9 Aug 2021

Their ABC and ‘allegations’, rather than ‘facts’

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it…

8 Aug 2021

Sign up to the Morning Double Shot newsletter

The Spectator Australia's Morning Double Shot delivers a hearty breakfast of news and views straight to your inbox

Sign up to the Flat White newsletter

Weekly round up of the best Flat White blogs - delivered straight to your inbox

Can Australia escape its Covid lockdown cycle?

In the early days of the pandemic, Australia was the envy of the world. The country was lauded as a…

10 Aug 2021

The betrayal of Afghanistan

There is a common misconception that America somehow imposed democracy on Afghanistan. In reality, Afghans welcomed the opportunity to live in…

10 Aug 2021

Revealed: the BBC guide for covering climate change

Climate change is once again dominating the news agenda. A report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that even if…

10 Aug 2021

Scoop: young libertarians are still really cringe!

Kissimmee, Florida On Thursday morning as I boarded my plane at Reagan National Airport to fly to Orlando, I managed…

10 Aug 2021

Sign up to The Spectator Australia newsletter

Australia's best political analysis - straight to your inbox

Sign up to the Best of the World newsletter

Get the latest developments around the world

You go, girl! Laurel Hubbard and the other trans Olympians

You’ve got to give it to Shania Twain.  When she belted out her 1997 hit, Man! I feel like a woman! she…

6 Aug 2021

Compelling children to wear masks

Should small children and even teenagers be compelled to wear masks against the Coronavirus variants?  Given the pandemic in the…

4 Aug 2021

Laurel Hubbard? No thank you

The footage today of three of the strongest women in the world politely declining to comment on the entrance of a male into their sport…

4 Aug 2021

Is it fair for Laurel Hubbard to compete against women?

Today, the conversation about transgender rights and the interests of women turns to sport. At the Olympic Games, Laurel Hubbard…

2 Aug 2021

The strange case of Covid-19

The responses to Covid-19 by rich countries across the world include some strange and inexplicable events. In the face of…

Waging the war on Covid

New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian made headlines around the world this week when she put soldiers on the streets…

7 Aug 2021

Business/Robbery, etc.

A (temporary) triumph of political reality over economic principle as the Morrison government seeks to avoid a very loseable electorally…

7 Aug 2021

Is Grattan. Is Good.

Reform is one of those terms that means different things to different people. The dictionary definition talks about changes and…

7 Aug 2021

Hart was right

For my day job I’m a law professor, having been a lawyer in London and Toronto way back in the…

7 Aug 2021

True lies

The best form of gossip is always laced with the truth. It’s the same with active measures (AM) used to…

7 Aug 2021

The People vs the Privileged

The long line of red lights stretching into the darkness ahead of me is a familiar sight. I am on…

7 Aug 2021

No longer creative destruction

No longer, as Shakespeare might have said, ‘this other Eden, demi-paradise,’ a land of gradually advancing  prosperity, based on liberty,…

7 Aug 2021

Rose Byrne

‘Unemployed at last!’ That wonderful bit of national self-mockery that opens the classic Australian novel Such is Life takes on…

7 Aug 2021

John Mortimer & Leo McKern

What earthly guarantee do we have that live performance is going to be a viable option for Sydney or Melbourne…

31 Jul 2021

The Greeks

What a time of captivity, what a time of plague. The Disney musical Frozen, long delayed by the mammoth Melbourne…

24 Jul 2021

Martin Clunes

Just as the lockdown imprisons the people of Sydney those in Canberra have had the chance to see that exhilaration…

17 Jul 2021

Aussie Life

The voiceover says new ABC series Ms Represented is all about Australian women in politics but really it’s all about…

7 Aug 2021

Aussie Language

When Kaylee McKeown won Olympic gold her comment on worldwide television became the headline. Her sister and mum were watching…

7 Aug 2021

What would Avery Ice Age have made of the Tokyo Olympics?

Avery Brundage was known to his enemies as Avery Ice Age — and to quite a few of his friends…

7 Aug 2021

Dear Mary: How do we tell our interior designer relative we don’t want her doing up our house?

Q. I’ve just completed a six-month paid internship for a hedge fund manager. I was mostly in his private office…

7 Aug 2021

Lucy Ellmann is angry about everything, especially men

Is Lucy Ellmann serious? On the one hand, yes, very. The novel she published before this collection of essays was…

7 Aug 2021

An interest in the bizarre helps keep melancholy at bay

If you crush the right testicle of a wolf and administer it in oil or rose water it will induce…

7 Aug 2021

The AI future looks positively rosy

In the future, men enjoying illicit private pleasures with their intelligent sexbots might be surprised to find that even women…

7 Aug 2021

The Cambridge Greek Lexicon is an eye-opener for classical scholars

The great Latinist D.R. Shackleton Bailey was once said to have been pinned into a corner at a party and…

7 Aug 2021

When family viewing was full of creeping menace

Strange, really, that the scheduled output of traditional broadcasters became known as ‘terrestrial’ television, given that TV is an etheric…

7 Aug 2021

Startlingly sadistic: Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, by Quentin Tarantino, reviewed

There’s no doubt that Quentin Tarantino is a movie director of brilliance, if not genius. But can he write? Well…

7 Aug 2021

A true bohemian: the story of Nico’s rise and fall

It is well established that artists are not always the nicest people. On the surface, the life of the model,…

7 Aug 2021

Gay abandon: Filthy Animals, by Brandon Taylor, reviewed

What does it mean to be a body in this world? It’s the question animating Brandon Taylor’s Filthy Animals. Our…

7 Aug 2021