by FRED PAWLE – BY PASSING even more tyrannical hate-speech laws, our politicians have revealed how little they know about Australian culture, let alone the fragile freedom upon which it is based. In the middle of a housing and cost-of-living crisis, what…
by JOHN MIKKELSEN – THE speed at which Chris Bowen and Anthony Albanese’s green dominoes are falling is truly breathtaking. When Queen front man Freddie Mercury belted out the chorus to Another One Bites the Dust back in 1980, he would never…
by PAUL COLLITS – AUSTRALIA is doomed to another period of tip-toe, pale conservatism in the event of a change of government. Paul Kelly of The Australian newspaper penned a long-winded exposition this week on the state of Australian politics as the…
by PAUL COLLITS – STEPHEN Jones – a politician of whom I had happily never heard, until this week – is retiring. He is taking his bat and going home. He is, appropriately enough, the Member for Whitlam. (Formerly it was called…
by JOHN MIKKELSEN – A FAMOUS line from an old Australian film was my first thought when I heard Labor’s latest renewable energy pipe dream – a $2b subsidy for “green aluminium”. “Tell him he’s dreaming” was uttered by Darryl Kerrigan’s main…
by FRED PAWLE – INDUSTRY Minister Ed Husic has set the tone for the forthcoming federal election by singing from Labor’s tired Kumbaya song book. But there are signs that the fans have stopped listening. The vibe is shifting around the world….
by FRED PAWLE – DESPITE the bleakness of our current outlook, it’s crucial to remember that the best way to defeat tyrants is to not take them too seriously. For all his literary brilliance, George Orwell wasn’t great at irony. His use…
by NAZIYA ALVI RAHMAN – THE Albanese Government’s adoption of key recommendations from the Varghese Review, including the defunding of a prominent Australian think tank known for its critical stance towards Beijing, has sparked controversy. The Varghese Review is named after Peter…
by ROGER CROOK – THE last time I saw Labor luminary Dr Jim Cairns was in the 1980s on a very cold Saturday morning in a market at St Andrews, up in the hills outside Melbourne. He sat behind an old card…
by FRED PAWLE – THE Albanese Government has given up pretending that parliament bears any influence on its policies. Crucial decisions are being made even before MPs have had a chance to debate them. Anthony Albanese’s contempt for parliament goes beyond treating…
