Leading article Australia
Labor is beatable
Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen is pretty darn sure of himself. What he wants out of May’s election: a clear mandate…
The Internationale
The number of significant political events that have taken place over the past week or so should, when taken together,…
Power without responsibility
Stanley Baldwin is remembered for saying ‘power without responsibility – the prerogative of the harlot through the ages’. Baldwin meant…
Kenneth’s bank job
Bank bashing is a national pastime in Australia and the proliferation of parliamentary inquiries into financial services – there have…
A chink of Newspoll light
Prime Minister Scott Morrison must be wondering what he did right. This week’s first Newspoll of the year has Bill…
Silence of the Lambassador
It’s beyond embarrassing, it’s humiliating. But more importantly, it is the perfect metaphor for how the values of mainstream Australia…
The real dangers of Labor
Four months out from a likely election day, the Australian Labor Party is sitting pretty. The polls have Labor commandingly…
Free speech beached
Let’s start by stating the bleeding obvious. The organisers of any ‘right-wing’ rally that allow or fail to prevent a…
ScoMo’s last chance
As election year dawns, polls point to a looming Coalition electoral catastrophe at the hands of Bill Shorten and Labor.…
PM’s Christmas gifts
As we settle back for the unique delights of the Aussie Christmas, placing the pressies under the Chrissy tree and…
Let there be light
Light, or enlightenment, is a metaphor for so many optimistic, positive and critical components of our humanity, and of our…
Last Quango in Paris
This week, the world’s climate-obsessed leaders meet in Katowice in Poland in a desperate attempt to put teeth into the…
In praise of the PM
Don’t sign! warned our editorial on this page last week. Our readership may not match that of the the daily…
Don’t sign
If, as seems to be reliably reported, the Morrison government has decided both to sign up next month to the…
Hail to The Chief
The US mid-term elections are the most important in recent history and not just for Americans. Since 1788, Australia has…
Stand for something, ScoMo
Prime Minister Scott Morrison may be bruised by Malcolm Turnbull’s bile-laden farewell present, the Wentworth by-election. But this atypical Turnbull-loving,…
All trick, no treat
The election to parliament of the ghoulish political figure of Dr Kerryn Phelps on the eve of Hallowe’en seems, alas,…
Bill Shorten, drunken sailor
When Bill Shorten tried to make Question Time hay of Malcolm Turnbull’s political demise, to gales of backbench laughter Prime…
Scott, don’t go to Poland
This week’s IPCC report, with yet another deadline for action to avert climate ‘catastrophe’, deserves push-back from Australia. Instead of…
Juvenile and clueless
‘Juvenile and clueless’ is how the Australian’s esteemed Editor-at-Large Paul Kelly deems the suggestion by Liberals and conservatives (including many…
Aunty’s dropped her bloomers
There’s delicious irony in sacked managing director of the ABC, Michelle Guthrie, being replaced by a man. Having pursued the…
Turnbull’s Costa Concordia
In 2012, the liner Costa Concordia struck a rock just off the Italian coast. The huge ship capsized and sank,…
Turnbull’s political suicide
The Canberra press gallery can’t work out why their favourite Liberal is no longer prime minister because they have almost…
Satisfaction guaranteed
‘It’s wonderful to be here, it’s certainly a thrill. You’re such a lovely audience, we’d like to take you home…
Thanks for nothing, Malcolm
One thing we can be sure of is that the Liberal prime minister who once tried to join the Labor…