by BETTINA ARNDT – IT IS hardly surprising Federal Transport Minister Catherine King is trying to avoid scrutiny over her decision to reject more flights for Qatar Airlines due to her concern about the Doha strip search. Here was ideology trumping proper…
by PAUL COLLITS – THOSE who questioned the power of the State and were sceptical of its claims were once taken seriously, even lauded – whereas now they’re routinely pilloried by those under the State’s thumb. I had never heard of Kelly…
by PAUL COLLITS – FRESH from her strategic involvement in the low rent Brittany Higgins scandal, Labor Minister Katy Gallagher is now hell bent on rolling out a digital ID system for Australia. To be operational by mid-2024. As always, the proposed…
by DAVID FLINT – ONE of the most compelling denunciations of the Albanese Government’s misinformation bill has come from the new leader of the Liberal Democrats, John Ruddick. In an interview on Spectator TV on July 7 [watch it online at watch.adh.tv],…
by PAUL COLLITS – I TUNED in the other day to an excellent webinar titled “Prayer and Pushback” organised by the redoubtable Pat Mesiti. It was a forum for COVID, woke and climate deplorables. A similar event of Pat’s a year ago…
By SCOTT HARGEAVES – I’M NO fan of the Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi. But credit where credit’s due, she went to Taiwan even when both Chinese Leader Xi Jinping and US President Joe Biden told her not…
SOCIAL justice advocates have transitioned into ruthless tyrants and oppressors ~ more interested in emotions than facts, according to a leading Australian academic. Dean of Law at Melbourne’s Swinburne University Mirko Bagaric has described woke culture as a threat to western society. …
AUSTRALIAN Education Minister Alan Tudge has given universities until the end of the year to enforce a freedom of speech code, threatening to use legislation if they refuse or cannot implement it. “You cannot pursue truth without freedom of expression. You cannot create knowledge without freedom of academic inquiry,” Mr Tudge said in a speech to the Universities Australia conference in Canberra on Thursday.
THE High Court will soon have the opportunity of demonstrating that traditional academic freedom and freedom of expression are still alive in Australia. The decision they hand down in Peter Ridd v James Cook University will rank in importance with the Court’s unanimous decision concerning Cardinal Pell, reaffirming the presumption of innocence and that guilt be proved beyond reasonable doubt.
FORMER Melbourne University vice-chancellor Glyn Davis has called the government a “threat” to academic freedoms over its insistence on freedom of speech on campus. In a heated exchange with former education minister Dan Tehan, Prof Davis wrote “there is an irony in governments deciding to investigate academic freedoms as government frequently emerges as the largest threat to such freedoms”.
