Will Covid turn into the common cold?
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Business/Robbery, etc.
A (temporary) triumph of political reality over economic principle as the Morrison government seeks to avoid a very loseable electorally…
Is Grattan. Is Good.
Reform is one of those terms that means different things to different people. The dictionary definition talks about changes and…
Hart was right
For my day job I’m a law professor, having been a lawyer in London and Toronto way back in the…
True lies
The best form of gossip is always laced with the truth. It’s the same with active measures (AM) used to…
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…
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,…
Rose Byrne
‘Unemployed at last!’ That wonderful bit of national self-mockery that opens the classic Australian novel Such is Life takes on…
John Mortimer & Leo McKern
What earthly guarantee do we have that live performance is going to be a viable option for Sydney or Melbourne…
The Greeks
What a time of captivity, what a time of plague. The Disney musical Frozen, long delayed by the mammoth Melbourne…
Martin Clunes
Just as the lockdown imprisons the people of Sydney those in Canberra have had the chance to see that exhilaration…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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,…
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…
