Almost every newspaper in the world from China to Peru has an opinion, usually censorious, about President Hollande of France and the women in his life. The Kathmandu Post, for example, editorialised that Hollande has finally subjected French tolerance to ‘too many tests’. The Gulf Daily News in Bahrain saw the scandals as ‘a sad defection from reality’ (that is, from the dismal French economy.) The Taipei Times in Taiwan quoted Simon Jenkins: ‘Of course it matters. He is a head of state, the embodiment of his people. If Queen Elizabeth II were sneaking off on a scooter each night to see a nearby toyboy, Britons would be aghast and agog.’

But in Australia (and New Zealand) the writers of editorials have been much slower to judgment. Even the cartoonists have dropped their pens, although reporters and the occasional columnist have kept readers up to date. In Wellington the Dominion Post, drawing on New Zealand political history, declared that ‘New Zealand voters are wise in these matters’ — that is, tolerant of politicians’ ‘peccadilloes’ which do not impinge on performance of public duties or involve the misuse of public funds. This may be the (unpolled) view of many if not most Australians. I was the guest the other day on ABC News 24’s once-over-lightly of the morning’s newspapers. You can’t leave, they said at the end, without telling us what you think about the French scandals. The principal issue, I had to agree, is not François Hollande’s private life or even the way he has run down the economy. It is the image of the President of France, successor to Charles de Gaulle, sneaking around the city in disguise when calling on his girlfriend. One French minister compared him to a ‘retarded adolescent’. The Australian editorial is right: ‘France deserves better.’

Glad that Senator George Brandis is consulting widely before proceeding with his amendment of the notorious Keating-Lavarch Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act — the section which penalises ‘acts’ including writings or cartoons that ‘offend’ someone (often called the ‘hurt feelings’ test) on racial or ethnic grounds. He wants to convince the public, especially touchy minorities, that his amendments will do no more than tilt the balance back in favour of free speech. As former Chief Justice Jim Spigelman put it, freedom of speech includes the freedom to offend someone. Even when the Human Rights Commission administers the Act sensibly the law can still tie a defendant up for years. In 1997 an Aborigine lodged a complaint against a newspaper cartoonist in Perth who had good-humouredly mocked some Aboriginal activists. The Human Rights Commission dismissed the complaint. But as the complainant moved in court from appeal to appeal the case lasted five years! When after his current consultations the Attorney-General finally brings in his liberalising amendments the Labor party and the Greens will almost certainly block them in the Senate. That will convict them of repressive political correctness but it will merely delay the passing of the bill until the new Senate meets after 1 July.

One of the main targets of feminists since the days of Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792) has been the traditional woman, usually seen as a family-centred home-maker and often godly mum whose principal responsibilities included the rearing or training of the young. She was often the butt of jokes about henpecked husbands and bossy mothers-in-law. The usage survives today in jeers about the nanny state. So it comes as something of a surprise — in the course of inevitably emotional argument about the terrible deaths of Thomas Kelly and Dan Christie — to hear an appeal from ‘the experts’ to the old, almost forgotten ideal of the traditional family. Gordian Fulde, head of St Vincent’s emergency hospital in Sydney, often has to clean up the mess created after drunken assaults by violent young men. Yes, he says, tighten the laws. (‘Never has alcohol been so cheap and water so expensive.’) But the real change will only come (he says) if we get ‘the females, the mothers, the daughters, the sisters, the girlfriends’ to say no to the idea of a drunken night out. It would be ironic if, after three great waves of feminism over the past 200 years, we had a fourth wave calling for a new Vindication of the Rights of Women, but this time of the ‘traditional’ women. But don’t count on it.

In his splendid speech to the Israeli Knesset during the week, the Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper made plain his disgust with the widespread BDS (Boycott Divestment Sanctions) campaign against Israel. ‘We have witnessed in recent years the mutation of the old disease of anti-Semitism and the emergence of a new strain. We all know about the old anti-Semitism. It was crude and ignorant and led to the horrors of the death camps. But in much of the western world the old hatred has been translated into more sophisticated language for use in polite society. As once Jewish businesses were boycotted, some civic leaders today call for a boycott of Israel. On some campuses, intellectualised arguments against Israeli policies thinly mask the underlying realities, such as the shunning of Israeli academics and harassment of Jewish students. It is nothing short of sickening. But this is the face of the new anti-Semitism.’ This sort of speech by a respected national leader will have far more influence than ill-judged legal actions against BDS campaigners under the Racial Discrimination Act.