Flat White

In-depth analysis of the day’s news, plus stories and gossip from Australian politics.

The war front is closer than you might like

15 March 2022 12:00 pm

Trouble at home, trouble abroad. Australia is being challenged at a number of levels, but there are some common themes.…

A Twitter war could bring down the International Space Station

15 March 2022 9:00 am

‘Twitter is not real life!’ insist ‘professional’ political commentators. Their denials grow weaker as the prime ministers and presidents of…

Muzzling children to keep politicians happy

15 March 2022 4:00 am

The Victorian government has finally scrapped mask mandates for most indoor settings as the number of Omicron cases continue to fall, and…

Men can’t do anything right

14 March 2022 12:00 pm

Men can’t do anything right, and International Women’s Day proved it. The New Zealand All Blacks marked the day by…

The bride of tyranny

14 March 2022 9:00 am

The Trojan Horse of globalism is the extension of the world’s constant regional battles into terrifying wars that encompass the…

The era of unprecedented ignorance

14 March 2022 4:00 am

What else could go wrong? First, we had a global pandemic. Then we had to deal with the devastating impacts…

Speak loudly and wave around wet lettuce: Morrisonian national insecurity

13 March 2022 12:00 pm

The expression, ‘speak softly and carry a big stick’, is attributed to former American President Theodore Roosevelt. Imperfect as his…

Is anyone bothering to calculate the 'carbon-cost' of war?

13 March 2022 6:00 am

Does anyone still buy the headline that our world leaders believe we’re on the verge of a climate apocalypse? The…

Where are the strategists and tacticians?

12 March 2022 11:00 am

There’s nothing like the whiff of distant grapeshot to energise Australia’s plethora of armchair military strategists. Military professionals, on the…

The last few days (of chaos)

12 March 2022 12:49 am

The afternoon sunlight creeps down the wall and as the day trades its heat for the intensity of evening’s deeper…

Each-Way Albo - I can be Bob Hawke!

11 March 2022 2:00 pm

[Calm down, it’s satire.] Labor leader Anthony Albanese has promised to say anything anywhere in order to win the upcoming…

Practicalities in addressing autocrats’ aggression

11 March 2022 12:00 pm

The shock of the Russian invasion of Ukraine is that it demonstrated a form of aggression most people thought belonged…

Ukraine’s ‘disposable’ men

11 March 2022 9:00 am

The tragic video of the Ukrainian father breaking down when saying goodbye to his family was heart-wrenching. But even as it attracted…

The Greens call for ‘Truth and Justice’

11 March 2022 4:00 am

Many Australians would be understandably sceptical of the Greens’ call for a ‘Truth and Justice Commission’ to conduct ‘truth-telling’ with…

Logic is still dead in Dom’s domain

10 March 2022 2:00 pm

Throughout the Covid-era there has been a significant lack of logic in decisions made and restrictions imposed. Double standards have…

Mullumbimby saves itself while SES continue with vaccine mandates

10 March 2022 12:00 pm

‘It’s frustrating to think we are forgotten…’ said a member of the Mullumbimby community, after they were left without government help…

Brisbane mud army 2.0 – a lesson in liberalism

10 March 2022 9:00 am

It was 1.30pm on Saturday afternoon and the humidity was stifling – even for Brisbane. ‘Get some selfies for your…

You’re bad, we’re good – the binary politics of 2022

10 March 2022 4:00 am

The current advertising campaign for the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age newspapers pens a letter to the perceived closed minds of Australia accusing…

CSIRO-LGBTQQIAAP+

9 March 2022 12:00 pm

Don’t expect Australia’s peak science body to come up with a vaccine against ‘wokeness’. They are, themselves, riddled with it.…

Zelenskyy and Ukraine are unifying the West

9 March 2022 9:00 am

Lamenting an old England disappearing under modernity, Philip Larkin wrote in his poem Going, Going:  Most things are never meant. The…

Sharks, technocrats, and the post-human delusion

9 March 2022 4:00 am

Politics never interested me until a spate of shark attacks occurred at my local Ballina beach next to the river…

Green power or confusing failure?

8 March 2022 12:00 pm

I am at a loss to understand the ‘Green Movement’. I fully understand their concern about the use of fossil…

Capitulation complete for Ukraine-Russia conflict

8 March 2022 9:00 am

It cannot be any clearer: 141 countries have condemned Russia for its invasion of Ukraine as illegitimate in a vote…

Why is India holding back?

8 March 2022 4:00 am

India, like Australia, America, and Japan, is a full member of the ‘Quad’ – the new political group formed to…

The Central Bank Digital Currency is on the horizon

7 March 2022 12:30 pm

When Covid spread its shady particles around the globe, the borders of nations were profoundly meaningful as travel restrictions were…