Education nation
The great equaliser becomes the great disappointment
Conflict, confusion, and caution
Why are there so many lawyers?
(A failed) Australian realignment
Australia is due a political realignment. The split in the Liberal-National coalition this week could be a good thing if…
An island of strangers
Is this the end of the UK’s open borders experiment?
What the Australian election means
In his political history of the 1980s and early 1990s, The End of Certainty, Paul Kelly articulated the tectonic shifts…
Anzac memories
War and peace and history
Apparently Peter Dutton is a Liberal
If he wanted to cut taxes, he would
The problem with modelling
One of my economics professors at university once said that when someone tells you the results of their economic modelling,…
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…
Labor policy makes gas more expensive
Sometimes politicians say things that are true. When they do, people often note that they are ‘saying the quiet part…
Australian notes
On 30 November Britons and Australians alike celebrate the 150th birthday of a great, but largely forgotten man: Winston S.…
Do we fill job vacancies with pensioners or migrants?
The Albanese government is demonstrating a truism in Australian politics: no matter what party you vote for, you’ll get rapid…
Australian notes
Why on earth are we stopping people who want to work from working? I used to work at a community…
The danger of ‘luxury beliefs’
“Luxury beliefs” are all the rage in elite circles. Rob Henderson, a PhD candidate at the University of Cambridge who…
Why a move to home quarantine is long overdue
For those stuck in their umpteenth lockdown – despair not! It seems that after 18 months of working from home, someone…
Governments might refuse to acknowledge the devastation of lockdown, but the top end of town is talking
One would be hard-pressed to find many silver linings as millions of Australians endured further lockdowns in July, but the admission by many business…
Covid notes
Talkers, we need to talk.. Two things stand out almost immediately when one gets on an early morning train in…
The Rorting Twenties
Covid: robbing the poor to give to the rich
Daniel Andrews’ budget belts business already caught by Covid
“There have been some big winners from the pandemic – and after a year defined by widespread sacrifice, it’s only…
Don’t forget the media’s part in our ongoing corona confusion
For the past year, Australians have been told to listen to the experts. Schools were closed, businesses were forced to…
Why we need a manufacturing sector
Since the year 2000 something has gone wrong in Australia. As it happens, this was two years after the old…
Why are we letting the Reserve Bank make housing less affordable?
It speaks volumes to the lack of ambition in the federal government that it took a first-term senator on the backbench to identify and…
Why you’re stuck with lower wages (unless you’re a public servant)
The past 12 months have exposed the deep and dangerous division between the two Australias, one comprised of mainstream Australians and…
Government and little people: the democratic divide in Danandrewstan
The disconnect between the protected public sector and mainstream Victorians was perfectly encapsulated by the Secretary of the Department of…
It’s not just Albo and Labor. Both parties must meet mainstream Australia’s needs, not pander to special interests
If Labor’s reshuffle will be enough to correct the party’s woeful policy agenda and reconnect with mainstream Australians remains to…
