In-depth analysis of the day’s news, plus stories and gossip from Australian politics.
The fat bogan tax
Last week the good people at Centre for Authoritarian Ideas – otherwise known as the Grattan Institute – released a…
Demockracy
Australia is becoming a mock democracy; a demockracy. It is observable on a daily basis as some politicians, journalists and…
The latest from The Age…
Forget the tyranny of low expectations. The opposite happens at The Age. As its standards plummet, the paper soars to…
Parliament should stay sitting until its work is done
Where is Professor Triggs when you want her? How could the Turnbull government be so mean and petty and also,…
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…
Military injustice
Was it William Shakespeare who wrote, “Put a lawyer into uniform but it cannot a soldier make”? Perhaps not, but…
Castro a tyrant? Not according to the ABC
Unbelievable. Absolutely un-be-f*cking-lievable. Read the ABC’s obituary of Fidel Castro, the “romantic revolutionary”. Not one mention of human rights abuses.…
Protect our troops. Abolish the Office of Military Prosecutions
‘Stop firing’ screamed the Afghan interpreter metres away from a suspected Taliban leader as he emptied his magazine towards a…
What was that Paul Keating was saying about the ABC?
What was that Paul Keating was saying about the ABC only yesterday? Something about the broadcaster “letting Australia down” in…
Twins, caesarians and Centrelink
I had finished work the previous day in preparation for a fortnight of paternity leave. My wife was on the…
Soft power, hard outcomes
Wednesday’s edition of 7:30 included a fascinating piece on the campaign of the Chinese government to make China the world…
Don’t tell the Greens, but I’ve been to Israel
Don’t tell the Greens, but I’ve gone to Israel. After possibly the best midnight flight to Jerusalem since Mohammed’s horse…
Raising the flag (without getting arrested or killed)
On November 28, East Timorese celebrate the anniversary of the day in 1975 when their country was declared an independent nation and they raised…
The Donald, the media — and the misunderstandings
You’ve really got to hand it to mainstream media commentators – often wrong but never in doubt. Their spectacularly inaccurate…
Why I joined — and quit — the Australian Republican Movement
As a long-time republican, I made the decision last year to join the Australian Republican Movement. Having spent the better…
“Privilege”? Tell that to the Queensland University of Technology three
Writer Benjamin Law used the final Q&A for the year to claim discussion around 18C was just our privileged class…
The Human Rights Commission must be abolished
Cato the Elder would end every speech with, ‘Carthago delenda est’; ‘Carthage must be destroyed’. Rome had defeated Carthage in…
Registered Organisations Bill a win for workers
Monday’s long awaited passage of the Registered Organisations Bill has been touted as a much-needed win for the Turnbull Coalition…
When “Australian” said it all
I feel many reading this will know of families that have been interwoven from their past through to their present so first a…
One Nation, many leaders, few (cogent) ideas
Of all the political imperatives missing in Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party, loyalty, unity and personality rate among the highest.…
The forces underpinning Trump are nothing new
Australian political commentators and self-proclaimed experts who have been traumatised or shocked by Donald Trump’s victory could well be accused…
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…
Pauline Hanson and Australian Jewry
If there is word such as Trumpism, then it is expressing itself in Australia via the rise of Pauline Hanson’s…
Roz Ward, Safe Schools, not so so safe streets
Could that be former Safe Schools supremo and general hard-left ratbag Roz Ward engaging in a bit of biff in…
My husband and I … are paying for the renos, thank you
You would have thought that with the egg on their faces over Brexit and the American election, the media would be…