In-depth analysis of the day’s news, plus stories and gossip from Australian politics.
Pesutto’s war against Moira Deeming is utterly unprincipled
Flying home from Canberra last week, I finished listening to The Witch Trials of JK Rowling, a podcast exploring how a…
The ‘Local Voice’ vs. the ‘Canberra Voice’
The Liberal Party recently came out against Anthony Albanese’s proposed Indigenous Voice to Parliament – under which an advisory body…
Dear Peter … now that you’ve found your Voice
Peter Dutton and I were good friends once, and worked together closely in the Howard and Rudd years. Sorry to…
The tragic end of Book Depository
The sudden closure of UK-based Book Depository has sent a shiver through the Australian literary scene. As one of Australia’s most…
The federal Libs must condemn Pesutto for throwing women to the wolves
A woman in the Afghan Parliament has been suspended by her political party for the crime of advocating for women’s…
The devolution of Western teaching
The National Curriculum is broken. So too is the profession of instruction and teaching. Each new Education Minister – be…
Catastrophic: an interview with Peter McCullough and John Leake on the politics of Covid
Before the United Australia Party’s hotly anticipated Dr Peter McCullough Covid-19 Vaccine Conference in Sydney, Australia, Julie Sladden was invited…
The Uluru Statement from the Heart and the Voice
The three demands of the Uluru Statement, accepted entirely by the Prime Minister, are the Voice, a Makarrata Commission, and…
Ardern’s last speech to Parliament commits her to climate action
Remember when Jacinda Ardern said, rather tearfully, ‘I don’t have enough in the tank.’ A sniffle later, the former Prime…
Let’s face it, we suck at this
The ‘left’ – and by this term I mean Labor, Teals, the moderates of the Liberal and National parties, as…
Women work harder than men – phooey!
‘Women work harder than men,’ so read a sexist headline for an article earlier this year. Hardly unusual, given that…
If politics were a game show
Every now and then, life serves us up a political microcosm – a vignette where broader political issues are presented…
The world’s flattest batteries
Kites are thought to have originated in China over two thousand years ago. Since the original incarnations, kites have evolved…
Trashing the right to be commercial
For a long time, Australian unions, labour academics, and their political fellow travellers have sought to cut away at the…
Climate change and the rhythm of life
As a teenager, I was entranced with the song The Rhythm of Life from the movie Sweet Charity sung by Sammy Davis Jr.…
Social Justice or Social Darwinism?
Ever since the days of Richard Hofstadter, one of the Left’s favorite accusations to hurl against its enemies has been…
Torture-Resistance course weakens Army
The current Federal court case around the Conduct After Capture (CAC) course is just the latest in a long line…
Why an Australian recession is almost guaranteed, even in a benign world
In 2019, Australia’s economy was stalling. House prices were declining even though mortgage rates were only about 3.25 per cent.…
Democracy under stress in America and India
The United States is the world’s oldest, most powerful, and most consequential democracy for the future of free peoples everywhere.…
Richard Dawkins committed the cardinal sin
The West is a theocracy. Not a Christian theocracy – or even an Islamic one – but rather a theocracy…
Did the federal government refuse to protect women?
If you caught the news last week, you might have wondered, what on earth is going on in the nation’s…
Cancel Mozart
Why should we stop at cancelling the world’s greatest explorer, Captain James Cook, and the greatest playwright, William Shakespeare? Why…
Lessons from Japan
Japan is Australia’s third largest trading partner and is involved with India and America in the quad strategic dialogue. After…
North Korea: the man who would be God
There were around 50 of us standing in a car park and waiting for something but we didn’t know what.…
What does reconciliation look like?
Reconciliation. The word is used almost automatically, especially in the context of the arguments about the Voice referendum. It sounds…
