Trumpian dreams
Half-a-dozen mainstream, left-wing publications have warned the Liberals about embracing Trumpian policies. You should always do the opposite of what…
Safe search off…
Sometimes I embrace delusions of owning a small apartment. As a single, young, working-class professional with no particular victim cards,…
The exorcism of Malcolm Turnbull
It’s been almost a decade since Malcolm Turnbull held power over the nation, yet his presence managed to haunt the…
Jeff Kennett suggests preference deal with One Nation
Jeff Kennett’s influence over conservative voters has diminished since the whole Deeming-Pesutto saga, nevertheless he came out over the weekend…
The rock and the storm
‘Be like the rock that the waves keep crashing over. It stands unmoved and the raging of the sea falls…
Numbers tell the story of Australia’s northern war
The anniversary of the first air raid on Australia occurs every year on February 19. The numbers associated with the…
e-bike nightmare: I almost killed two teenagers
I didn’t mean too, but I almost killed two teenagers on separate occasions. The first time was during the afternoon,…
ISIS brides, Gaza visas, and the IRGC
When Australia originally decided to repatriate women and children from Syrian camps linked to the Islamic State (ISIS), the government…
Sorry Tim. You’re dreaming…
The new Shadow Treasurer, Tim Wilson, has been more visible in the few days since his appointment than his predecessor…
Minds that dare: restoring Western education – a true story
It’s 2023 and the Western education system is broken, the culmination of a process that has its roots as long…
Vale Brigadier ‘Warrie’ George Lyon Mansford AM
Not for generations has there been a ‘soldier’s soldier’ of such calibre in the Australian Army nor a man who…
How Hollywood lost the plot
There was a time when one could identify a film’s author within minutes. Not from the credits, but from the…
Australia’s political orphans feed populist rise
When I was a young union official, angry, often obnoxious, and knee-deep in the Robe River dispute at the ripe…
Hard energy lessons from Europe point to our future
In Australia, all the way down at the bottom of the world, it sometimes takes time for certain messages to…
Andrew’s arrest – no silver bullet for republicans
There was considerable interest from local and even international media concerning the arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor on suspicion of misconduct…
Allegedly distorting an alleged allegation
Have you observed that media outlets frequently use the adjectival term ‘alleged’ when referring to individuals who, although charged with…
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…
Digital tyranny or ‘child safety’? 😵 & the bitcoin revolution | Efrat Fenigson S3 Ep 16
When Australia’s Under 16 social media ban started locking adult political writers out of #Substack – it was just the…
Can Angus Taylor save the Liberal Party from the rise of One Nation? | James Allan S3 Ep 15
Has the Liberal Party betrayed Australia’s commitment to #FreeSpeech and freedom of political communication? Can Angus Taylor unseat Sussan Ley…
IR is now a lost cause
There was a time when I used to write a lot about industrial relations. There were examples of constructive changes,…
Minister Marles unfit for military service
Defence Minister Richard Marles recently announced that, following an ‘independent’ review, Defence would divest itself of assets it no longer…
Can Taylor fix the broken covenant?
We are told Angus Taylor is a reset. Borders. Lower taxes. Australians first. One can almost hear the rustle of…
Taylor to the rescue
Now that Angus Taylor is leader, conservative voters should give the Liberal party a chance to redeem itself: first, because…
The Angusean stable
Australia is not yet in full blown decline. Not yet. But the architecture of decline has been assembled with such…
100% Angus. No bull
I’ve never really thought of myself as a perfectionist. Lord knows my wife of forty years certainly wouldn’t consider me…
Revenge of the Somewheres
A recent analysis by the AFR framed One Nation’s rise primarily as a triumph of modern campaigning – a victory…
J’accuse Labor for Bondi
The growth in antisemitism in Australia since October 2023 is manifested in two ways. The first, and most obvious, is…
Wartime love is not for the faint-hearted in Kyiv
People say love develops more quickly in war – because in a world where anything can happen, what is there…
Inside the real jobs crisis
After much talk of an economic slowdown, February brought reassuring headlines. The official unemployment rate had fallen as another 130,000…
My theatrical Senate confirmation hearing
It’s a bit difficult to explain a Senate confirmation process to those who haven’t gone through it. It is, to…
The generation that may never marry
Friends is still the most streamed show in the UK. Gen Z is relaxing to a sitcom that was set,…
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…
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…
The inconvenient truth about polar bears
Strange and familiar
One of the excitements of seeing Ngaire Dawn Fair in the full trilogy of The Summer of the Seventeenth Doll…
Dark and stormy
The opening gala of Melbourne Symphony Orchestra this year with the renowned pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet seems in every way congruent…
Camp indulgence
Music has the odd quality of being an abstract art as well as one that generates great gulfs and legions…
What Catherine O’Hara gave to cinema
There are actors who dominate the cinema screen, and actors who deepen it. There are stars who are ‘bankable’ and…
Double trouble: As If, by Isabel Waidner, reviewed
I think I’d be pretty hostile if I met my doppelganger – living proof of my mediocrity. My fragile ego…
Everybody needs ‘good neighbours’: fairy folklore from time immemorial
To our jaded century, ‘fairy’ carries connotations ranging from the sentimental to the sickly. It conjures childishness, foolishness, insipidity and…
The Labour party should finally grow up about Ramsay MacDonald and his conduct
The subtitle of Walter Reid’s biography of James Ramsay MacDonald refers to ‘the extraordinary rise and tragic fall’ of Labour’s…
Things still seem oddly disorientating without Seamus Heaney
Whether you went with the two big rugby goalposts, those opposing H’s of Heaney and Hughes, or with Blake Morrison’s…
Adventures in the City of Light: Rousseau’s Lost Children, by Gavin McCrea, reviewed
What biographer would pass up a time-travelling opportunity to meet their subject face to face? This novel’s protagonist, Gavin Mulvany,…
The sweeping drama of Australia’s political history
Tony Abbott’s history of Australia comes as a surprise. It has a spellbinding verve which will beguile friend and foe…
Blitz spirits: Nonesuch, by Francis Spufford, reviewed
If you read books for a living, the calling probably started with a moment of utter entrancement: a novel you…
Searching for the one and only is futile, say the sexologists
In a tiny town tucked into the desert an hour’s drive out of Nevada, a legal brothel operates. Its ‘menu’…