In Vogue
A kangaroo on the beach with a model was the unsubtle cover of Vogue in December 1965. It will be…
Deserter dads
Nearly everyone in New Zealand has been made to feel they could play a part in the forthcoming Royal Commission…
What to do to grinning do-gooders
In the 1860s, Australian colonies adopted, virtually unaltered, the English Companies Act 1862. Despite initial distrust of this new corporate…
Worse than 18C
The federal government’s draft religious discrimination bill highlights – no doubt unconsciously – some of the limitations on freedom of…
Woodstock woes
Thanks to the refusal of Australian weather to stick to the IPCC script, Sydneysiders have just experienced one of the…
Iran’s hostage chess
The gentle reader will never, never know what a consummate ass he can become until he goes abroad,’ wrote Mark…
Brown study
I have recently been reading two political books each of which was a complete waste of time and money. Then…
Campus of dunces
Allan Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind (1987) showed higher education failing democracy and impoverishing students. Forty years later,…
Our unique opportunity
Australia, more than any other, is a child of the two great English-speaking nations. They have for two centuries successively…
Euro notes
Hungary rhapsody for Tony Abbott If only the voters of Warringah had been Hungarian. The land of goulash and paprika,…
Conversation stopper
A s heavy snow fell in southeastern Australia this week, for the third time this year, preparations were still underway…
Diary
When a few months ago my friend Tom Switzer – former editor of this magazine and now director of the…
The eve of the Bernie-Warren online battle
The great ‘Bernie vs. Warren’ online wars have yet to fully commence, and the current state of affairs resembles something…
Kiev won’t chicken out over Trump’s desired Biden probe
For several years Donald Trump has depicted himself as a kind of Roger Thornhill, the advertising executive in Alfred Hitchcock’s…
The Mueller inquiry was an attempted coup
More official reports, reprimands and (probably) indictments are to come in the Great Get Trump imbroglio of 2016 to 2019.…
Farewell to Bill de Blasio, 2020’s least consequential candidate
Friday news drops are often saved for surprising or important stories. What NYC mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Morning…
School climate strikers should answer these two questions
“The Earth is dying”, “the world is on fire”, we’re undergoing an “environmental extinction”: just three of the sentiments which…
The feminist assault on justice — and due process
Sexual harassment, let alone sexual assault and rape, are tragic occurrences. However, the idea that any charge a woman brings…
Boris, Brexit, the courts – and the ghost of Gough Whitlam, laughing
There is an interesting debate going on in the British courts which could have lasting ramifications for the practices of…
The climate strike: slacktivism and sloppy thinking
Would you rather be stuck in school at a maths lesson on a Friday afternoon or be outside stirring with your mates? No prizes for…
Will the Supreme Court end the prorogation of Parliament?
At the close of Supreme Court proceedings on Thursday, there was quite a lot of to and fro about what…
Justin Trudeau isn’t a racist, he’s a spoiled rich kid
I don’t like to say I told you so — I bloody love it. Lo, a whole 19 months ago,…
Asylum – or arrogant entitlement?
The high-profile story of the deportation of the Sri Lankan Murugappan family has reminded us of the perennial tension between…
A corroboree of jobbery: Daniel Andrews First People’s Assembly
On Monday morning, voting began to elect the new ‘First Peoples’ Assembly of Victoria‘. This ‘voice for Aboriginal communities’ seeks…
There’s no such thing as a “potential human”, Jane
Jane Caro is one of those feminist exhibitionists who seem to have been dared to say something increasingly stupid or…
