Free speech under fire
The culture wars are the only thing that matters
How many times have conservatives been told ‘not to fight the culture wars’? Worse, how many elected members of the…
Victoria rejects clarity around self-defence
Why is it that the Victorian Parliament managed to unite in rapid time over a useless machete ban, but failed…
Australians (should) have a right to defend their homes
‘At the moment, in Victoria, there’s some exemptions for self-defence in your home, but we want them to look at…
Australian politicians react to Albanese’s decision to recognise a Palestinian state
Protests have consequences. Allowing a mob to strut across the Sydney Harbour Bridge was all the encouragement needed for Labor…
Albanese betrayed Israel, says Netanyahu after Visa snub
In a scathing response to yet another Israeli MP having their visa cancelled at the last minute, Israeli Prime Minister…
Forty Years in Exile
For more than four decades in exile, Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi has been recognised as the most prominent figure of…
Cut the red tape!
With the Albanese government’s economic roundtable this week, there is now bipartisan agreement that over-regulation is holding back the Australian…
Record Qantas fine reveals Australia’s perverse moral compass
Let’s be very clear – the awarding of a significant proportion of a civil penalty (a fine) to a union…
Replacing science with scaremongering
Over the past two decades, there has been an explosion in instances of climate anxiety, especially among young people, which…
Productivity or a griftocracy?
Welcome to the Productivity Summit where the word ‘productivity’ means the exact opposite of what you think. The goal is…
Judicial tyranny and the death of free speech in Brazil
The Trump Administration has recently imposed tough sanctions under the Magnitsky Act against Brazilian Supreme Court judge Alexandre de Moraes…
A tale of two tipping points
The tipping point that keeps warming alarmists awake at night occurs when the level of CO2 reaches a point where…
Vale Terence Stamp
Terence Stamp, the renowned British actor known for his roles in Superman and The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the…
Have ‘left-acting’ students betrayed themselves?
Recent research suggests nearly nine in ten university students pretend to hold more progressive beliefs than they actually do. While…
Albanese’s dangerous dance with Palestine
By any reasonable standard, when a terrorist organisation publicly praises a democratic leader, that leader should stop and ask: Where…
Who really pays for taxes?
When politicians get on their high horse about tariffs, company taxes, payroll taxes, or environmental levies, they love to pretend…
Populist parties seem to be mightily popular
A good working definition of political ‘populism’ in today’s rich democratic world is something along the lines of ‘that party…
Legalising WFH
You have to hand it to Labor in Victoria. When it comes to pulling stunts, Jacinta Allan and her merry…
Covid’s nasty hangover
Earlier this month, in the Washington Post, Jay Bhattacharya – Professor of Medicine, health economist, and current head of the…
Trump punctures India’s hype
For the purposes of containing China’s influence across the Indo-Pacific, there is no more important partner for the US than…
Business/Robbery, etc
Division, discord, the importing of foreign wars and hatreds – these were not what governments (of both persuasions) promised us…
Albanese, the Useful Infidel
Until now there was not a lot to say, good or bad, about Anthony Albanese as Prime Minister. From a…
You say you want a revolution
I’d like to offer a word of caution. Don’t peek inside grandpa’s shopping trolley next time you visit, because handcuffs,…
Burka’s burkacrats
A burka is a garment that envelopes a devout Muslim woman’s entire body, from head to toe, and only allows…
Britain is being pulled under by debt
Britain is slowly drowning in debt. Figures just released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that in the…
Israel risks rewarding Hamas’s kidnapping
What weapon is stronger than F-16s, drones, targeted strikes, disciplined and war-hardened ground troops, and even nuclear weapons? Hostages. Despite…
Dirty tricks have gone too far
Last week, John Power reported on Labour’s alleged ‘dark arts’ strategy: a cynical ploy to damage Nigel Farage and his…
Labour MSP charged over child sex abuse images
Scottish Labour MSP Colin Smyth has been arrested and charged in connection with the possession of indecent images. The 52-year-old…
New Zealand is undoing Jacinda Ardern’s disastrous energy legacy
The centre-right government of New Zealand’s Prime Minister Christopher Luxon voted this week to overturn the previous Jacinda Ardern-led administration’s…
New Zealand’s Associate Energy Minister, Shane Jones, is awesome
In today’s tiresome world of prefabricated media grabs and rehearsed campaign slogans uttered by cardboard cut-out ministers, it is not…
Jacinda Ardern’s triumph of style over substance
Jacinda Ardern’s tenure as New Zealand’s Prime Minister (2017–23) was lauded globally as a masterclass in empathetic leadership, her image…
Jacinda Ardern and the empty politics of ‘kindness’
Just over two years on from stepping down as Prime Minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern is awaiting the imminent…
The demise of South Park
A world away
Remember Gus the Theatre Cat in T.S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats? He says that he has acted…
Shaggy dog tale
I thought it would be impossible to make a bad film about a dog but the production team for The…
Getting down and dirty
It’s splendid to be sitting at the very front of the Playhouse watching a new musical from the Melbourne Theatre…
Unparalleled strangeness
How strange it is to be transported back to some version of the world of Lena Dunham. Remember Girls, that…
The woman I’m not – Nicola Sturgeon
Nicola Sturgeon has all the usual things she wants to achieve in her memoir: rumours to scotch, a legacy to…
Culture clash: Sympathy Tokyo Tower, by Rie Qudan, reviewed
Language, it has been said, is the only true democracy – changed by the people that use it. But as…
The enduring pathos of Wound Man
‘Full of strokes and blows/ broken, pitifully wounded’, the man, naked, or almost so, stands full frontal, legs and arms…
How can Gwyneth Paltrow bear so much ridicule?
There is nobody who finds Gwyneth Paltrow, 52, more interesting than the woman who was a teenager in the 1990s.…
Deception by stealth: the scammer’s long game
We all know that life is full of people who try to con us, often starting with a voice on…
The AI apocalypse is the least of our worries
What is your p(doom)? This is the pseudo-scientific manner in which some people express the strength of their belief that…
Campus antics: Seduction Theory, by Emily Adrian, reviewed
There is a fine tradition of campus novels that stretches from Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited (1945) and Kingsley Amis’s Lucky…
The scourge of the sensitivity reader
‘Something strange is happening in the world of children’s and YA [young adult] literature,’ writes Adam Szetela, and his horrifyingly…