A Catch-22 defeated Peter Ridd – but there’s still hope for academic freedom
Peter Ridd has lost in the High Court, but the judgment has nevertheless set an important precedent in favour of…
There's nothing wrong with foreign owned football
Many are blaming the failed European Super League on foreign owners, presenting it as a greed fuelled attempt by overseas…
Deal or no deal
No longer can Brexit be considered inevitable: British democracy is on life support, and there are many who want to…
Transforming Goosefish into Monkfish: branding’s slippery secrets
We live in a logic-obsessed world, from computer modelling of the economy to businesses run by spreadsheets. But we also…
Galileo wins court case
‘Vindicated. The score is 17-nil, the judge’s findings were damning. It could not have gone better,’ Professor Peter Ridd explains…
Everything is… just fine
‘Britain in worst crisis since WWII,’ declared the Australian’s front page last Thursday. ‘Britain’s state of dismay,’ professed the Age’s…
The job of universities
Amelia is an academic at an Australian university. She reached out to me earlier this year after seeing my work…
Free speech now comes with security costs?
La Trobe University is encouraging censorious behaviour by charging special security fees for an event with commentator Bettina Arndt hosted…
The kids aren’t all left
Last week Elin Ersson, a 21-year-old Swedish student, halted the deportation of an Afghan asylum seeker from Sweden by refusing…
Australian notes
Universities of the closed mind A series of leaked emails reveal the depths of prejudice and groupthink at Australia’s universities.…
Where have all our entrepreneurs gone?
Australia is has experienced a gigantic fall in entrepreneurship. Between 2003-05 and 2012-14, small business start-ups — as a percentage…
Budget 2018: What have you achieved?
Treasurer Scott Morrison’s budget speech opened with the remark ‘What have you achieved?’ to which the chamber responded with howling…
Is it Monash or Marxist University?
Monash University, the first Australian university to introduce trigger warnings, appropriately begins their “#CHANGEIT” advertising campaign by declaring “SOME OF…
Top three lefty unis
From the sandstones to the concrete monstrosities, Australia’s university students are returning to lecture halls and classrooms in coming weeks.…
Time for a freedom fight back in our universities
‘Who has been too scared to express their opinion in a tutorial?’ I asked a room packed with students last…
Repeating Turnbull’s blunder
Watching the Conservatives fall apart over leadership gives me uncanny déjà vu after Australian politics. In the last eight years, Australia has…
Expat diary
‘Oooo, Jer-emy Cor-byn. Oooo, Jer-emy Cor-byn,’ the cult-esque chant goes as we walk past. I’m marching with the LGBTories in…
The freedom conundrum
Recently I attended the Centre for Policy Studies’ Margaret Thatcher Conference on Security 2017 at the august Guildhall in the…
The left’s exotic Venezuelan romance meets reality
In London’s posh South Kensington on Sunday afternoon I witnessed anti and pro-Venezuelan government protests form outside the Venezuelan embassy.…
Senator’s inspirational first speech savages welfare traps
‘I remember the first time we found welfare money in our bank account shortly after our arrival in Australia,’ South Australian Senator Lucy…
Values matter in politics
One statistic is essential to understanding the shock British election result: the turnout by people aged 18 to 24. Since 1992 only…
You don’t argue with Ms 61 per cent
Malcolm Turnbull must be staring at UK Prime Minister Theresa May’s poll numbers with vaulting envy. The Britain Elects polling…
Campus censorship ratchets up
Free intellectual inquiry is under serious threat at universities across the Anglosphere. At the very places designed to inspire a battle of…
Censorship, trigger warnings and “free speech”: the National Union of Students meets
This week the rabble that is the National Union of Students will hold their annual National Conference in Geelong at Deakin…
Brexit means Brexit – and democracy, too
The stench of elite hatred for democracy is sifting through the streets of London. The courts have ruled against the…
