Following the science
A harsh lesson for our university chiefs
Education Minister Alan Tudge gave a speech at the annual Universities Australia conference yesterday. Here is how the AFR education editor described what…
Another cock up from their ABC
If a story would not stand up in court, it should not be published. It certainly should not be published…
‘Crackpot’ lab leak theory suddenly ‘feasible’
What a difference a year makes. Sir Richard Dearlove, the MI6 chief (‘C’) from 1999 to 2004, was first interviewed on the UK’s excellent Planet Normal podcast almost exactly a year ago. His…
Being in opposition is awesome (really)
If you ever catch a cuppa with an Australian federal or state politician who is out of government and in…
What are the odds of a politician saying something sensible about sharks?
For the first time in five years, an Australian politician has acknowledged a bleeding obvious fact about the way we…
‘Sweaty men have touched that ball’: South Australia’s special corona craziness
Every cloud has a silver lining, and corona craziness is providing a unique insight into how the nawabs of nannying,…
Sesame creep
Just because it’s Gay Pride Month—yep, there’s so many varieties on the LBTIQ+ spectrum they couldn’t just have one day—in…
Their ABC fails the objectivity test on Aboriginal history
According to its Code of Practice, the ABC “has a statutory duty to ensure that the gathering and presentation of…
Joe Biden’s day off
Joe Biden may be the leader of the free world, but that hasn’t stopped him from taking retirement. The President…
Hong Kong’s Tiananmen Square vigil will be different this year
Every year since the tanks rolled into Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989, Hong Kongers have gathered in their thousands…
Boris clamps down on foreign travel over Covid variant fears
Those hoping for a holiday abroad this summer were dealt a blow this afternoon with the announcement of the government’s…
What does the future hold for Donald Trump?
Don’t call it a comeback! Whether it’s by popular acclamation or by a coup, as former national security adviser Michael…
Time for the lying to stop
On 5 March 2019, New Zealand’s Labour Coalition, presided over by the now highly controversial Jacinda Ardern, set up a…
Scott Morrison must remind Jacinda Ardern who her real friends are
If, to borrow Paul Keating’s description, Australia is the arse end of the world, New Zealand is the arse end…
Once were a democracy
There is no doubt New Zealand’s democracy is now under aggressive attack by the small minority of those of part-Maori…
The fight for New Zealand is now underway
In spite of government opposition, a radical report proposing destroying New Zealand’s democracy, unintelligibly called He Puapua (let’s not give…
Butler to Bowen – plus ça change
It’s a testament to the power of Labor’s factions that Mark Butler was able to remain spokesman for environment/climate change/energy…
Vaccine gamble in the lottery of life
People take pharmaceutical shots and pills that promise better health and wellbeing, despite the risk of rare but catastrophic side-effects,…
Is Australia racist? Not so fast
I’ve had a soft spot for Australia since going to boarding school in India run by Australasian Jesuits. The camaraderie…
The A-Z of Palestinian oppression
Are you confused about Israel? Rest assured, you are not alone, so I have compiled this glossary to guide you…
Time for the lying to stop
On 5 March 2019, New Zealand’s Labour Coalition, presided over by the now highly controversial Jacinda Ardern, set up a…
Leftists repent over lab leak farce
In May 2020, the ABC’s Media Watch host Paul Barry dedicated two programs to attacking the Australian’s Sharri Markson (then…
Trump was right (again)
Until recently the sanity of anyone suggesting that the Wuhan virus could have come from a laboratory was put in…
The Rorting Twenties
We are now in the rorting Twenties. Wealth is being concentrated among a few global billionaire elites and large companies…
Chekhov
The trouble with the performing arts in Melbourne is that you blink and they’re gone. The other week we were…
European Masterpieces from The MMA, New York at Brisbane’s Gallery of Modern Art
This is a very active period for the visual arts. The Archibald Prize finalists have been announced, Vivid is returning,…
Macbeth
It’s an extraordinary thing that a director of Bruce Beresford’s reputation should be directing for Melbourne Opera until you remember…
Brett Whiteley : Drawing is Everything (31 July – 31 Oct)
Demonstrating excellent timing, the Bendigo Art Gallery has announced a major exhibition Brett Whiteley : Drawing is Everything (31 July…
The road to firebombing Tokyo was paved with good intentions
In the 1930s, a group of American airmen had a dream. Air power, they believed, would do away with the…
It’s time the British faced some uncomfortable truths, says Matthew d’Ancona
As Britain starts its long Covid recovery, are deeper problems lurking beneath the surface? Matthew d’Ancona certainly thinks so, and…
Orcadian cadences: celebrating the reclusive poet George Mackay Brown
Few journalists can have conducted such a dismal interview as mine with George Mackay Brown in the summer of 1992.…
A mighty contest from trivial things — the quarrel between Alexander Pope and Edmund Curll
Rapid technological advance, a dark underworld of uncensored publishing, a threatened rupture with Scotland, even fears of a new outbreak…
It takes a trained ear fully to appreciate Indian music
At George Harrison’s 1971 concert for Bangladesh, awkwardly, the audience applauded after Ravi Shankar and his musicians had paused to…
The defiance of the ‘ghetto girls’ who resisted the Nazis
‘Jewish Resistance in Poland: Women Trample Nazi Soldiers,’ ran a New York headline in late 1942. That autumn, the Nazi…
A Danubian Narnia: Nostalgia, by Mircea Cartarescu, reviewed
Mircea Cartarescu likens his native Romania to a Latin American country stranded in eastern Europe. Certainly, his writing delivers not…
And then there were five: The High House, by Jessie Greengrass, reviewed
In 2009 Margaret Atwood published The Year of the Flood, set in the aftermath of a waterless flood, a flu-like…
