A warning from Australia on the transgender debate
It’s great that Britain’s high court has ruled that children can’t give informed consent to receive puberty blockers. I only wish…
Daniel Andrews’ corona incompetents: name them
The Nine newspapers today contain an interview with the supposed “patient zero” of the latest Victorian quarantine disaster that my…
PM damages his brand
‘Free speech never created a single job,’ a sanctimonious Scott Morrison once informed the nation, forgetting of course that his…
Euro notes
Ursula Fond o’ Lyin’ Odd policy choices continue to bedevil Boris Johnson’s government. Almost a year after Australia started putting…
New Zealand is being transformed, but not in a good way
Rampant identity politics are blighting the country
Das Rheingold
You could hardly ask for a more exorbitant return to mainstage theatre than a production of the first part, the…
Robyn Nevin
The Adelaide Festival program describes her, accurately, as ‘our finest stage performer’. Robyn Nevin is appearing there (2 Feb-14 Mar)…
Aussie Life
It’s likely that 2021 will see the last walkers freely ascend the summit of Mt Warning in northern New South…
Aussie Language
The word of the past decade (2011-2020) is ‘fake news.’ That, at least, is the opinion of the fine folk…
Perfect to fall asleep to
Good Grief is a new drama starring Sian Clifford who shot to fame as the older sister in Fleabag. The…
A prison of our own making
Anyone who’s been through customs Down Under isn’t surprised by the region’s OTT response to Covid. Having been X-rayed before…
Rebuilding welfare
Amid the many failures of public policy during the Covid crisis, one success has gone largely unnoticed. The Universal Credit…
Real life
Eventually, I got so bored I ended up at Burger King. For no other reason than to amuse myself one…
Diabolical twists
This is not the age of experimental fiction — it’s Franzen’s, not Foster Wallace’s. That shift was on its cusp…
