Want the best economic stimulus? Cut payroll tax
Self isolation? Working from home? Some of us have flourished for years doing it
For many years now, the world has been slowly moving towards working remotely. Recent studies conducted by the International Workplace Group…
Remember: big government loves a big crisis
On Sunday Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced a set of stringent measures to keep coronavirus in check, including travel restrictions,…
Coronavirus: you don’t even need to catch it to become a fatality
If you spend a little bit of time on Twitter or Facebook pages discussing the coronavirus outbreak, you are soon…
Want the best economic stimulus? Cut payroll tax
Governments across Australia have completely failed to deliver, or even propose, meaningful reform in the face of an economic fallout caused…
The toilet paper pugilists have more morals than our vice-chancellors
Many Australians are rightly concerned about the health risks posed by the arrival of the coronavirus on our shores. Elderly…
The Greens new coronavirus contribution
The Greens have other practical ways of stopping the coronavirus pandemic as well as giving them money. Shortly before the…
Beware the new ScoMo derangement syndrome pandemic
Make no mistake: the coronavirus blame game is the new sports rorts. The usual suspects, vocal left-wing irritants and high…
What can we learn from the journals of the plague years?
Two of Britain’s most famous writers have left us accounts of the plague years. They were Daniel Defoe, journalist, pamphleteer,…
Boris tells Brits: halt all non-essential social contact
In a dramatic escalation of government advice, Boris Johnson, the chief medical officer and the chief scientific adviser have said…
Youngsters are ill-equipped to cope in this time of coronavirus
We’re all worried about older people right now. But I’m worried about the young too. I fear they lack the…
Coronavirus fears are causing Chinese people to flee the West
A little over a month ago, the Foreign Office was airlifting Brits out of quarantined Wuhan. But now with Europe…
Is 'crazy' Bernie trying to tear the Democrats apart?
Bernie Sanders needs a wing and a prayer to overtake Joe Biden in the delegate count. Last week’s resounding defeat…
Can the Libs move just a smidgen to the right, please?
Much has been said of late, not least by me, about the absolute and unequivocal uselessness of this Coalition government…
Aussie surfers riding a wave of hypocrisy
‘We’ve done it!’ exclaimed Damien Cole, the leader of the protest movement against Norwegian company Equinor exploring for oil in…
Threatened with extinction
You’d think if you lived in Hong Kong just now you’d have more to worry about than fantasies about the…
Dr WHO?
President Xi Jinping has already written a modest account of the glorious role of the Chinese Communist party’s leadership in…
Listening to Leonard when the plague is coming
It’s only March, and what a Cohenesque year it has been already. First, in the wake of the late military…
Guilt by accusation
Tutoring journalism students in Beijing, a leading Australian editor counselled them not to describe an accused person as ‘guilty’. A…
Beware the ‘aspirational goal’
It is a law of political science that any organisation that must name itself after a virtue tends not to…
Tinkerbell wins Gold at the Sydney Peace Prize
How nice of the Sydney Peace Prize people to award its Gold Medal for Human Rights this month to Christiana…
David Hallberg
The artistic leadership of a major performing company is, by definition, important. The Australian Ballet has a forthcoming vacancy of…
David Williamson
‘That sinkhole of ambition and superficiality we call Sydney.’ That’s a direct quotation from the Melbourne Theatre Company’s promotion of…
Trent Dalton
He’s barely in his forties. He’s married with two nearly teenage daughters. He lives in Brisbane. He’s a staff journalist…
Bruce Beresford at home in Birchgrove 2018
Sydney’s Archibald has the name and the fame, but there is a new kid on the block: the Darling Portrait…
A dark journey into a fanatical underworld
Two years ago, the counter-extremist analyst Julia Ebner decided she needed to delve deeper into the extremists trying to disrupt…
America’s love-hate relationship with Shakespeare
Shakespeare’s single explicit reference to America is found in The Comedy of Errors. The two Dromios are anatomising the unseen…
The Renaissance in 50 shades of grey
The Mediterranean-centred era spanning a century or so either side of 1492 is filled to the brim with stories. There…
Tales from behind the veil: Moroccan women talk about lies and sex
The Moroccan-born Leïla Slimani has made her name writing novels of propulsive intensity. Lullaby, the story of a nanny who…
If you haven’t read Louise Erdrich, now’s the time to start: The Night Watchman reviewed
Louise Erdrich’s grandfather, Patrick Gourneau, was tribal chairman of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa when the US Congress imposed…
The Big Three who ended the Cold War
Historians argue endlessly and pointlessly about the extent to which the human factor rather than brute circumstance determines the course…
Adam Mars-Jones’s protagonist has disarmingly low self-esteem: Box Hill reviewed
Short, fat and shy, the protagonist of Adam Mars-Jones’s latest novel doesn’t have much going for him; even his name…
Rescued by the Goldberg Variations
Were this a less good book than it is, it would be called How Bach Can Help You Grieve. As…