Flat White
The reckoning that never came
Nearly three years ago, on the eve of the election, I wrote my debut Spectator Australia article calling for a…
The failure of Family Law reform in Australia
John Stapleton spent a quarter of a century working as a general news reporter for two of Australia’s leading mastheads,…
Reciprocal tariffs would be foolish
Trump imposing tariffs on Australia was perhaps inevitable. Trump 2.0 is not the Trump 1.0 who negotiated free trade agreements…
Censorship laws: a rod for our own back
An Australian pro-Palestine activist has been charged with allegedly using ‘insulting words in public’ under Section 17(1) of Victoria’s Summary…
Is Jacqui Lambie right, are Vice Chancellors overpaid?
University Vice Chancellors are often accused of being overpaid and of under-performing. For example, Jacqui Lambie has posited that university…
Australia has to change the way its Budget is spent
We need to rediscover a real productivity agenda in our budgets. In the past, Australia built a vastly successful nation,…
Labor’s debt apocalypse is upon us
The Albanese government has spectacularly failed on every level. Instead of pricking the Covid-inspired spending balloon it inherited, Labor has…
Unnecessary distraction on the Right
We’re weeks away from an election. The economy is floundering, social cohesion is under unprecedented strain, and we’re saddled with…
How long can we cruise?
Australia is like a cyclist who has stopped peddling. We have been travelling for some time ,not under our own…
Nasho 2.0
My late father emigrated from Cyprus as a teenager. Unable to speak English he ended up in Katoomba. Within a…
Trump’s ‘art of the deal’ trumps ‘the science’
Being on the receiving end of a deal with the most powerful person in the world must be quite disarming.…
What does it mean to be an Australian?
As we approach another Federal election, which I believe to be my 25th as a voter, this proud Old Bushy…
Albo’s education funding: a predictable failure in schooling
I shuddered when I read this closing sentence in The Australian: NSW Teachers Federation President Henry Rajendra said the agreement…
Finally, the ‘truly superior moral justification for selfishness’
Mount Arapiles in Victoria offers some of the best climbing in the world; it is what Zermatt is to skiing…
Why free speech is an essential election issue
As the 2025 election is looming – scheduled to be held sometime before Saturday, May 17 – many people have…
Darwin: can we please have our port back?
In 2015, the Northern Territory Country Liberal government, controversially, leased the run-down port of Darwin to Chinese company Landbridge, to…
Healing from the inside out
Gut health, ketogenic diets, insulin resistance, and the weight of the food pyramid
Has the West been ruined by the absence of masculinity?
The Western world is being destroyed by an absence of masculinity. Let me explain. We find ourselves in a situation…
Alfred, the not-so-great
Not all cyclones are created equal
Fixing our civics education crisis
Young people know too little about how our democracy works, and we fail to teach democracy to immigrants. According to…
Can liberalism save the West? Zoomers don’t think so
A new poll by Channel 4 in the United Kingdom found 52 per cent of Generation Z, those of us…
Reflections on CPAC: Trump, triumph and hope
Change is required if we’re to pave the path to prosperity. The promise and prospect of such change was the…
Time for a population policy
Back in 2019, then Prime Minister Scott Morrison, in a foreword to the government report, Planning for Australia’s Future Population…
Ukraine: the cost of peace
The confrontational meeting between President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and President Donald Trump (and Vice-President J D Vance) has dominated…
Misplaced green energy
Why are we always putting green energy assets in all the wrong places? The main electricity demand comes from big…
