Put coal back in the Coalition energy policy
Most protagonists of nuclear power like to say it is clean, meaning no CO2 is released, as though this is…
Are they criminalising hate speech, or valid criticism of gender politics?
On the first of May, Queensland began living under the Criminal Code (Serious Vilification and Hate Crimes) and Other Legislation Amendment…
Mugged by bad law
In the course of human affairs and communications, words have specific meanings, and nowhere is this more important than in…
Scream louder: we will not suffer the e-Stasi Commissar
A healthy democracy has a zero tolerance policy when it comes to censors. As I pledged on Spectator TV last week, One…
The Resolute desk needs a resolute occupant
Like others perhaps, I used to think that the ‘Resolute desk’ in the Oval Office of the White House was…
WA Court of Appeal upholds Police Commissioner’s powers to mandate Covid vaccination
Senior Constable Ben Falconer and Police staff member Les Finlay lost their appeals in the WA Court of Appeal against…
Albanese’s political censorship plan
No wonder the Albanese government is worried about misinformation. This week as news broke about an horrific attack on an Australian couple…
Was Lehrmann’s presumption of innocence left in the ‘lions’ den’?
It was over dinner that a former senior Australian Federal Police investigator brought it up. A question no one appears…
The modern obsession with ‘green’ investment
The recently deceased Charlie Munger of Berkshire Hathaway was arguably the most successful investor ever. He was noted for his…
‘E-safety’: the new thought police
Give an inch and they’ll take a mile – it is fair to say Australians are waking up to the…
Is there a plot afoot to get rid of Albo?
Speculation, of course, but Albanese is either uncommonly talented in the art of self-destruction, or Labor is getting ready to…
Record business collapses… I am not surprised
A record 7,747 companies hit the wall in the first nine months of this financial year, according to last weekend’s…
Slipping on a banana Teal
When I heard that two Victorians, Bronwen Bock and Lucy Bradlow intend to nominate as candidates to share the representation…
Making appointments, Coalition-style
Readers, let your minds drift back to pre-Albanese times. And then imagine your typical Coalition government cabinet meeting as the…
Four troubling features of the Higgins judgment
On 15 April, Justice Michael Lee brought down the curtain on Lehrmann’s suit against Network Ten and Lisa Wilkinson. His…
Trump versus Biden
I know that there are plenty of Trump admirers among Speccie readers. And there were certainly aspects of his time…
The Spirit Whale has spoken
It is a sign of the times when an $18.7 billion gas project, 180 kilometres north-west of Northwest Cape off…
Business/Robbery, etc
At last! A barely noticed Federal Court order in April means there is now a real prospect that the cloak…
How to be an ‘Approved Jew’
Alas, it is so hard to be an Approved Jew™ these days, meaning, of course, approved by the ‘progressive’ left.…
Tertiary degrees in Intifada
‘University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small,’ quipped Henry Kissinger adding, ‘University politics make me long…
Labour keeps the spirit of Karl Marx alive
Purging the left has been one of Keir Starmer’s main goals since his election as leader four years ago. His…
The local election results hold few crumbs of comfort for Sunak
Given the universal forecasts of the Tories taking a proper pasting in yesterday’s elections, it is quite something for Rishi…
Boris Johnson forgets his ID to vote
With millions of voters heading to the polls today, how many will forget to bring along suitable photo ID? One…
Von der Leyen can’t buy her way out of the migrant crisis
Elections have a wonderful way of focusing a politician’s mind. So it is with Rishi Sunak and the Tories, who…
Why New Zealand is cracking down on immigration
The government of New Zealand this week tightened the country’s working visa rules in order to stem historically high numbers…
Why is New Zealand’s deputy PM rowing with Chumbawamba?
In their musical heyday, the English anarchist punk band Chumbawamba enjoyed a reputation for having an irreverent attitude towards those…
New Zealand’s imperial judiciary
If you cast your eyes across the Tasman right now, you can see the beginnings of an imperial judiciary, the…
Subversion within New Zealand
Recently querying why New Zealand governments make annual January pilgrimages to the Maori Pa at Ratana, to celebrate the birth…
The Xi files: how China spies
Music as pasta
It’s sad to see that Sir Andrew Davis, the former head of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, has died. The man…
Taylor Swift is a rotter
Taylor Swift has released another album spilling the beans on her private life. ‘I’d written so much tortured poetry in…
The barbarity of this man
It’s a spectacle a lot of people would kill to see: Hugo Weaving in a Sydney Theatre Company co-production of…
Shylock and the Nazis: the truth about Shakespeare’s most infamous character
None of William Shakespeare’s characters are more controversial than Shylock. The moneylender from The Merchant of Venice may be the…
A GP diagnosed me with ‘acute anxiety’ – only to exacerbate it
In 2008, after his first child was born and before he was due to get married, Tom Lee began to…
Death was everywhere for the Victorians, but it was never commonplace
Death’s great paradox is its inconstant constancy. Its forms and rituals change from generation to generation. In our own era,…
Nietzsche’s thinking seems destined to be mangled and misunderstood
For Mussolini’s 60th birthday, Hitler gave him a de luxe edition of Friedrich Nietzsche’s complete works, bound in blue pigskin.…
A timely morality tale: The Spoiled Heart, by Sunjeev Sahota, reviewed
Who would have thought that the battle between champions of old-school socialism and contemporary identity politics for the post of…
Living in the golden age of navel-gazing
If you are under 40, you probably already know of Joel Golby. He writes stream-of-consciousness personal essays and the satirical…
Are all great civilisations doomed?
To quote Private Frazer in Dad’s Army, ‘We’re doomed, doomed!’ That seems to be the message of Paul Cooper’s eminently…
A surprising number of scientists believe in little green men
In 1928, a young physicist and engineer named Karl Jansky began working at Bell Telephone Laboratories, tasked with investigating any…
The Berkeley scandal of 1681 transfixed London society – and Aphra Behn soon capitalised on it
If you want to understand in detail what people in the past were capable of doing, thinking and saying, there…