Thank you, Colin Barnett
As the dust settles on the Western Australian election result, let’s not forget that for 8 ½ years Colin Barnett…
Let’s have a day for middle-aged white men
So International Women’s Day (aka the ABC’s male presenters’ RDO) has come and gone. Feminists and social media mavens have…
Our pols can learn a thing or two from the Kiwi cousins
Today, Malcolm Turnbull visits New Zealand for his first leaders’ meeting with Kiwi Prime Minister Bill English. Trans-Tasman trade and whether there’s a future for the…
Women’s tennis is a joke
In the warm afterglow of the festival of tennis that was the Australian Open, and the glorious men’s final match…
Cory finally gets off the pot
So Cory Bernardi has finally done it. Today he leaves the Liberal party for his own vanity project, taking the six-year…
Don’t begrudge Gillard her gong
In her Australia Day column for the Herald-Sun, Rita Panahi decried the giving of Order of Australia honours to former…
Time to expose the public health boot boys and their media droogs
This week the public health Pooh-Bahs opened self-righteous fire on yet another front. A public health Pooh-Bah is a self-appointed…
Turnbull, turn to Key
Once upon a time, a multi-millionaire, former merchant banker Prime Minister, highly successful in business who came to politics later…
Sussan Ley: every cloud has a silver lining
Notwithstanding investigations under way into stood-aside Health minister Sussan Ley’s touching fondness for the Gold Coast, it now appears she…
Bernardi must s— or get off the pot
Last weekend I encountered Cory Bernardi at the Bolt Report Christmas party. He’s a nice bloke: affable, serious, patriotic: a…
John Key’s class act
There’s a photo taken in South Africa after Nelson Mandela’s funeral. Three Anglosphere PMs, Tony Abbott, Canada’s Stephen Harper and…
Labor must share blame for GP co-payment fallout
Last Friday, Fairfax ran a report by Latika Bourke on my talk to the Centre for Independent Studies, as the so-called…
We need a Strictly political Balls-up
In the UK, what gets people talking passionately isn’t Brexit. It’s not Trump. It’s not even the May government’s looming Autumn Statement mini-budget…
We already have our Trump
I enjoyed the sainted editor, Rowan Dean’s, rollicking Flat White account of his Trump, Trump, Trumpety-Trump election count party. Any…
Oh, those wide-eyed Buzzfeed kidz
It must be a quiet news day. Buzzfeed’s Mark di Stefano posted a reheated story this morning, casting a close…
Abbott needs better advice, Turnbull needs to bury his pride
Yes, it is true that the buck stops with him, and that he is responsible for his decisions and actions,…
Time to start looking beyond Abbott
Whoever said or emailed what to whom, David Leyonhjelm’s Adler shotgun blasted through Coalition ranks last week. What this week’s…
At least Abbott stands for something
If Malcolm Turnbull eventually loses his leadership for a second time, his pathetic arse-over-tit performance on gun control this week…
James Paterson’s welcome lateral thinking
Good on Victorian Liberal Senator James Paterson for his media campaign to sell Jackson Pollock’s drunken daub, Blue Poles, to…
Trolling with Clementine Ford
Fairfax columnist and ABC Drum presenter Julia Baird is drawn to forceful, opinionated public women. Baird is writing a biography of Queen Victoria, and in a column this week…
The trumpet blasts of the monstrous regiment
On the weekend I was on an ABC Radio National panel discussion about major topical events of the week. The return…
Hinch’s s*** on the liver
Revelations reported yesterday about Human Headline turned crucial Senate vote Derryn Hinch’s fondness for a tipple caused a bit of…
The Ides of Malcolm
So here we are, marking the Ides of Malcolm. One year ago today Malcolm Turnbull reached for his dagger and…
O brave new political world…
So here we are again. Federal parliament finally is reconvening, a mere four months since it last met and eight…
The morality of mandatory detention
Last week on the ABC programme, the Drum, I confronted my unwilling conscience. The topic was the Manus Island immigration…
