Women in parliament problem? Your answer’s Rwanda
The Coalition has received sustained media and ALP criticism regarding their percentage of women in parliament – so much so…
Hire two new pen-pushers: that’s economic reform, NSW Liberal style
Last May at the New South Wales Business Chamber, Treasurer Dominic Perrottet announced with great fanfare the state would establish…
Eighty-nine billion new reasons to quit the Paris Agreement
Momentum continues to build for Australia to exit the Paris Climate Agreement. New economic modelling prepared by Managing Director of…
Why this Conservative believes Fraser Anning couldn’t be more wrong
I was working out of a coffee shop in Cairns overlooking Trinity Inlet when my Twitter feed went nuts with…
Is virtue signalling our new social currency?
The internet was imagined by its pioneers to be the arbiter of a new information renaissance, believing that it would…
Ten reasons why Donald Trump will win a second term
In one of those classic, “the truth is stranger than fiction” scenarios, it’s been revealed that former First Lady Hillary…
The scare is settled? Have the climate catastrophists won?
Evidence does not seem to matter in the debate on human-induced climate change. Hardly anyone is listening to reason. Minds…
Memo, Josh: only fiscal discipline works long term
Former Treasurer Wayne Swan’s valedictory speech hailed the legacy of his stimulus package (but not the subsequent — and growing…
May tries to avoid Tory meltdown by only requesting short Brexit delay
After much speculation, a furious Cabinet and the threat of another backbench rebellion, No. 10 has finally confirmed what type…
Andrew Yang is the Democrat Ron Paul…except he might actually win
Long-shot Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang isn’t afraid to take a position on, well, anything. Browse through his campaign website,…
Has Bercow just destroyed May’s last chance to pass her deal?
No. 10’s strategy to win over the DUP and the Brexiteers to Theresa May’s deal in time for a third…
How Biden loses
Presidential politics is all about excitement. So maybe it should worry the Democrats that their most exciting 2020 presidential prospects,…
Business/Robbery etc
Is it $8.5 million of BHP’s shareholders’ money wasted on a directors’ virtue-signalling frolic to further their climate change credentials…
In praise of Justice Fagan
One sombre fact of life in contemporary Australia is the steady flow of terrorism prosecutions in which individuals have been…
Germany’s schizoid approach to Israel
One would have thought that, for certain historical reasons, Germany today would show extra-sensitivity in avoiding appearances of anti-Semitism. However,…
My pencil knows best
A recent Wall Street Journal editorial ‘Who’s Afraid of Socialism?’ laid out the case that much of the US Democratic…
Super Justice Warriors
Captain Marvel, released to cinemas this month, is more than just another addition to the already saturated superhero film market.…
Judge dread
Let me talk about an example of an undemocratic trend from my home state of Queensland. A fortnight ago the…
Newspeak, translated
‘There’s not a good enough reason for Adelaide to be there,’ quipped ALP grandee Graham Richardson on Sky TV, inadvertently…
Education and the modern declaration
The 2008 Melbourne Declaration, endorsed by state, territory and commonwealth education ministers, is the strategic ‘road map’ that has directed…
Aurum by Alice Topp
Such a wonderful word: ‘verve’. Not used much now, it’s one of the words we owe to the French. We…
Kathryn Stott – Artistic Director
Townsville is bouncing back; it is also tuning up for the Australian Festival of Chamber Music. Battered by the recent…
Pinchgut Artistic Director Erin Helyard
A rarely performed sacred work by J. S. Bach and a masterpiece by Telemann that has never been performed in…
Bangarra 30th Anniversary
A year of 30th anniversaries; the latest is Bangarra Dance Theatre founded in 1989 by a South African Cheryl Stone…
Richard Sorge: the Soviet Union’s master spy
Interviewed on the Today programme on 7 March, a former executive of the gigantic Chinese tech firm Huawei admitted: ‘It…
Who was the real St Patrick: an evangelist or a tax dodger?
St Patrick’s Day, on 17 March, is now regarded as a prime opportunity for Irish politicians to travel abroad on…
The subversive, Austenesque wit of ‘Late in the Day’, by Tessa Hadley
Tessa Hadley is not the sort of writer to land the Booker Prize, which tends to reward writers from ‘anywhere’…
The uphill task of judging whether Tony Blair was a villain or hero
On the day that Tony Blair left the Commons chamber for the last time (to a standing ovation led by…
Has Dave Eggers finally found his voice?
The Parade, Dave Eggers’s eighth novel, is a slim, strange book, another unpredictable chapter in the career of this hard-to-pin-down…
The cheerful manifesto of anti-ageism activist Ashton Applewhite
Ashton Applewhite is a leading American ‘inspirer’ on how to make the most of being over the hill. She has…
Two big books on motherhood and childlessness: Catherine Mayer got emotional
A single survey, elevated by news organisations to scientific certainty, suggests that air travellers may be more susceptible to tears…
One of the world’s great love stories
‘I still think he was a bastard.’ This is the opinion that Julia, daughter of the novelist Arthur, has about…
America’s empire – a story of the secret and the convenient
Where other nations disbanded their empires following the second world war, America’s underwent transubstantiation, from something solid to something more…
Making the case for multilingualism – a timely reminder
English as the world’s lingua franca isn’t going anywhere. Why, then, should we Anglophones bother to learn another language? What’s…
Sadie Jones’s modern morality tale
The love of money, says St Paul, is the root of all evil. The Snakes makes much the same point.…
In (vain) search of the snow leopard
Alex Dehgan is clearly someone with a penchant for hazardous jobs. Even in the first few pages we find him…