Columnists Australia

Brown study

21 December 2019 9:00 am

My problem with Christmas is that it is all ‘give, give, give.’ Whatever happened to ‘take, take, take’? Taking is…

Brown study

14 December 2019 9:00 am

The newly elected Morrison government is now just over six months old, so it is probably a good time for…

Brown study

7 December 2019 9:00 am

I don’t like writing in support of politicians. It only encourages them. But Scott Morrison has been subjected to such…

Simon Collins

30 November 2019 9:00 am

Like any right-thinking Australian, I was outraged to learn from a newspaper that our oldest bank has broken the law…

Brown study

23 November 2019 9:00 am

New York is a difficult place to get a handle on just how the place works. But despite this, every…

Simon Collins

16 November 2019 9:00 am

‘We are assessing the concerns raised and will investigate whether the program met our editorial standards,’ said the ABC’s managing…

Brown study

9 November 2019 9:00 am

I had just settled down in Air Canada’s luxury airliner that would whisk me across the Pacific to Vancouver and…

Simon Collins

2 November 2019 9:00 am

With its manicured beachfront and sparkling, yacht-speckled view out across the water to the harbour heads, The Bathers Pavilion at…

Brown study

2 November 2019 9:00 am

I am catching up on writing my award-winning treatise on practical politics. Here are three general principles about politics on…

Brown Study

26 October 2019 9:00 am

This week marks the 50th anniversary of my election to the House of Representatives on 25 October, 1969. What has…

Simon Collins

19 October 2019 9:00 am

For aesthetic reasons I did not participate in this year’s Sydney Skinny, the all-nude fund-raising harbour swim organised by my…

Brown study

19 October 2019 9:00 am

I need your help. I am applying to the Australia Council for a literary grant and I need a few…

Brown study

12 October 2019 9:00 am

I am just amazed that we seem to be sleepwalking into a complete overthrow of our structure of government and…

Simon Collins

5 October 2019 9:00 am

No institutions play a bigger collective part in the socio-economic future-proofing of a country than its universities. That’s where its…

Beige open plan work space

5 October 2019 9:00 am

It may seem strange that a columnist should write about his own column and, in particular about a feature as…

Brown study

28 September 2019 9:00 am

There is no doubt about the vigour and enthusiasm of the Morrison government in bringing about social reform. Only the…

Woodstock woes

21 September 2019 9:00 am

Thanks to the refusal of Australian weather to stick to the IPCC script, Sydneysiders have just experienced one of the…

Brown study

21 September 2019 9:00 am

I have recently been reading two political books each of which was a complete waste of time and money. Then…

Brown study

14 September 2019 9:00 am

I made three gigantic mistakes in my political career. Not just the usual stupid things that politicians do, like wasting…

Simon Collins

7 September 2019 9:00 am

If last ditch Remainer attempts to block a no-deal Brexit fail, our head of state, already seen to have aided…

Vale Tim Fischer

31 August 2019 9:00 am

Tim Fischer’s penultimate speech in the House of Representatives was in response to a motion condemning the September 11 terrorist…

Simon Collins

24 August 2019 9:00 am

In a recent Speccie column my friend Giles Auty recalled his late father’s difficulties with door handles. This may have…

Simon Collins

10 August 2019 9:00 am

When I filed my first Spectator piece the Aussie edition was still a twinkle in the eye of the then…

Latham’s law

3 August 2019 9:00 am

If only all Australians had the same intellectual luxury available to them as the Victorian Labor Premier, Dan Andrews. Earlier…

Simon Collins

27 July 2019 9:00 am

Thanks to the increasingly infantile appetite of cinema audiences and the laziness of modern screenwriters, two distinct but related film…