If the Morrison government cares about jobs, it can't cave to union scaremongering
Home ownership or super: the true retirement wealth issue
Another review of the retirement income system has come — and it seems, gone — without clearly having achieved its…
If the Morrison government cares about jobs, it can’t cave to union scaremongering
The naked cynicism of the union movement has been laid bare in its attack on the Morrison government’s very modest…
So now we can’t even talk transgender issues?
Question: How many trans activists does it take to change a lightbulb? Answer: The same number that it takes to…
Joe Biden: gone in 60 weeks?
Joe Biden is not meant to govern. If he manages, and whatever he manages, that’s all well and good, and…
How a conservative Supreme Court nobly upheld conservatism
It appears the United States Supreme Court has snuffed out Donald Trump’s last chance to save his Presidency. This is…
Who is compulsory super benefitting: ordinary Australians or the top end of town?
Mainstream Australians are being failed by the political class as the gap between two Australias continues to widen. This failure is…
You too can wallow in Waleed’s wisdom, thanks to their ABC
Waleed and Scott are two of ABC radio’s intellectuals. Doubtless, they’d correct me to say they are ‘the’ two intellectuals at…
How Australia failed the Covid-19 test
As the wintery Northern Hemisphere suffers through a surge in coronavirus cases, Australians feel the relief of low numbers and…
Closing time at the Barr
William P. Barr is out. Joe Biden is in. And Donald Trump has a few more weeks left to bemoan…
Trump was right about the vaccine release
Donald Trump said during the second and final presidential debate on October 22 that he was optimistic a vaccine would…
Should we worry about the new variant of Covid-19?
Should we worry about the emergence of a new variant of SARS-CoV-2, the virus which causes Covid-19? News of the…
Emmanuel Macron’s great Brexit gamble
There is an intriguing pattern in our relationship with European integration. A Frenchman vetoed our attempt to join. A Frenchman…
Fighting back with conservative appointments
Why is it that left-wing political parties are so good at ruthlessly appointing like-minded fellow travellers to all the key…
It’s not over
From the moment he and Melania glided down the golden escalator at Trump Tower to announce his candidature, the denizens…
Putting the ‘Panic!’ into pandemic
Remember the brilliant Clive Dunn as Lance-Corporal Jones in Dad’s Army? His default response to a crisis was to shout…
The end of the affair
China’s wolf warrior diplomats keep warning us to ‘reflect on our deeds’ or learn how it feels to ‘walk into…
Business/Robbery etc.
Wolfensohn’s success was Australia-based The glowing world-wide obituaries detailing the remarkable achievements of expatriate Australian James D. Wolfensohn who died…
Smashing an old China plate
With China’s ministers refusing to take the calls of their Australian counterparts, bilateral relations have been outsourced to the Global…
They are spitting in our face
Why are we so surprised and outraged by the recent behaviour of the Chinese government? A nation which can machine-gun…
Playing politics with mental health
As a psychiatrist working in the public sector, I was depressed to see that the Productivity Commission’s Inquiry Report into…
Ned Kelly
All the young millennials I know were raging in Melbourne the other Saturday night and so were some of their…
Australian Brandenburg Orchestra
Time to look to the future; performing arts companies are encouraging us to do so through their subscription seasons now…
Gary Garrels
Let me take you down the strange rabbit hole of contemporary art museum culture. The senior curator of painting and…
Richard Tognetti
There’s no doubt about the Australian Chamber Orchestra; full of confidence it is sailing into 2021 with its most ambitious…
Office boy
For most of us, going to work means going to an office, to sit at a desk and perform bureaucratic…
The brutality of the Gulag was totally dehumanising
‘It was a gray mass of people in rags, lying motionless with bloodless, pale faces, cropped hair, with a shifty,…
Unpleasant smells can actually enhance pleasure
Harold McGee’s Nose Dive: A Field Guide to the World’s Smells is an ambitious and enormous work. Indeed it’s so…
Joseph Ratzinger’s coat of many colours
A common but flawed assumption about Joseph Ratzinger is that he is simply an ardent conservative. That’s the figure we…
James Kelman’s ‘Memoirs’ are a misnomer
James Kelman doubtless remains best known for his 1994 Booker prize win for How Late It Was, How Late and…
The serious business of graphic novels
One of the running jokes about ‘serious’ graphic novels is that so many seem to consist, one way and another,…
Transport to Australia was the saving of Carmen Callil’s family
If 2020 has given us something to talk about other than Covid, it’s been history — and, more precisely, to…
War was never Sir Edward Grey’s métier
This meaty but easily digested biography pivots around the events either side of that fateful evening of 4 August 1914…