In-depth analysis of the day’s news, plus stories and gossip from Australian politics.
Is Australia derivative?
Donald Horne complained in 1964 that we were ‘derivative’ with ‘second rate’ leaders. The coming of British liberties in 1788…
Albanese snubbed by Trump at G7
Any hope of Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese meeting Donald Trump face-to-face at the G7 appears to have been scuttled…
Penny Wong’s Middle East policy: out of her depth
Foreign Minister Penny Wong’s handling of Australia’s Middle East policy has come under fierce scrutiny – and with good reason.…
Sussan Ley on women, energy, and Kevin Rudd
Opposition Leader Sussan Ley made an appearance on Kyle and Jackie O a few days ago. We covered a lot of ground.…
The Country Liberal Party: scrap Net Zero, ditch Paris!
To enormous fanfare, Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price announced on Facebook that the Country Liberal Party Central Council had decided to scrap…
Trump’s military parade exposes weak Albo and Wong
On June 14, Washington DC roared to life with the thunder of tanks, the wokka of choppers, and the march…
Warwick Stacey: One Nation’s Senate ‘stunner’
One Nation’s newly elected senator, Warwick Stacey, brings to the table skills and experience that most Australian politicians have only…
Nationals lead fight against Net Zero
Senator Matt Canavan announced over the weekend: This afternoon [June 14] the NSW Nationals Party conference voted to abandon the…
Chris Bowen must be sobbing over Albanese’s AI deal
AI is the new trend for unpopular Prime Ministers who are in desperate need of a media distraction. Keir Starmer…
The curious silence of Wong as war threatens
Please stop the bleeding-heart politics before it bleeds all over international diplomacy
Surfing the waves of nostalgia with Brian Wilson
The 1970s were a strange time to be a kid. The world was caught between post-hippie naivety and the gritty…
Superannuation… They are coming for it.
Paul Keating was Prime Minister of Australia from 20 December 1991 to 11 March 1996. In that time his political…
Australia’s legal system fails to make top 10
Many ordinary Australians would scoff at the suggestion that our legal system is ‘good’ or ‘very good’. The view through…
Productivity? Government is a dead weight on the economy
Past performance is the best predictor of future performance, so the business chiefs heading to Anthony Albanese’s Productivity Summit should…
Aukus at a crossroads: testing the trust in trilateralism
In 2021, the Aukus security pact was hailed as a bold reconfiguration of 21st Century deterrence strategy – a trilateral…
Productivity Summit: Do we really need a talkfest?
The irony of hosting a talkfest to improve national productivity hasn’t escaped commentary. If there’s more doing and less talking…
An Australasian sceptical note on the effectiveness of Covid vaccines
According to Our World in Data (accessed on 1 June 2025), New Zealand achieved 75 per cent coverage of the…
The renewable empire of waste
Flashback to 2001. The Liberal Party has introduced Australia’s Mandatory Renewable Energy Target within the Renewable Energy (electricity) Act 2000.…
The Left are undermining our defence relationship with America
Australia’s defence strategy is America. Let’s get that out of the way at the beginning. No America. No national security…
Political fat cats give themselves a raise (on you)
There are few things more upsetting than over-paid politicians (who claim a special empathy with the poor), giving themselves a…
The elusiveness of teaching-only positions in UK universities
The percentage of teaching-only academics in the United Kingdom (UK) grew from 10 per cent of the academic workforce in…
When hatred finds a home in our institutions
I recently watched the documentary October 8 – a searing and distressing film about the aftermath of the October 7…
Tassie heads to the polls as the Liberals leave the building
Fight for your principles. Fight for your base. Fight to win...
How many electric cars are at the bottom of the ocean?
Have you ever imagined a post-apocalyptic Earth, devoid of oceans, where the shipwrecks of human history are laid out, poking…