Warren Mundine's biography languished on my pile of unread books until just before Christmas, when I finally got to it. I’m glad I did, as it is more than the engrossing account of one man's life. It is also a liberating book, providing an assurance that one should not be ‘guilted’ into voting 'yes' in the  Voice referendum. 

'At the plovers' initial swoop half the first company scattered shamefully. The rest had not yet reached the notional line marking the birds’ territory but were soon met with an even more ardent ferocity. One brave, war-hardened sergeant tried to stand his ground but soon assumed a submissive crouch while no doubt wishing there was a white flag handy'

Patrick Moore's 'Fake Invisible Catastrophes and Threats of Doom' was published in 2020, but deserves a better fate than a transitory flash across the bookshop shelves. Logical, making no claims without evidence and, surprisingly, courteous despite the slanders he has endured at the hands of former green comrades, it is the perfect Christmas gift for the carbon hysterics in your circle

The national broadcaster hopes you'll buy the proposition that it is a fair, honest and impartial organisation capable of casting an unjaundiced eye over any topic in pursuit of truth. We all know that's rubbish, but here is the ABC's chance to prove its detractors wrong. How about an open, even-handed examination of the notion that the Great Barrier Reef is on its last legs?

At what point does it become the moral and legal duty of scientists to speak out when an issue involving the integrity of science arises?  As a moral obligation, always. Yet from GBR researchers who know better, hardly a peep about the dubious claims and temperature readings of colleagues bent on promoting the 'climate crisis' narrative

Cast out by James Cook University, Peter Ridd has found time amidst his ongoing legal battles with the institution's taxpayer-funded lawyers to pen a book whose titular focus is on the science of the Great Barrier Reef. More than that, it is a summons to defend the scientific method, so often observed these days in the breach

This year's whale migration up the east coast leaves no doubt the species is rebounding at very close to its maximum reproduction rate. Now it's true humpbacks have yet to produce a Shakespeare or Einstein, but we can be certain they're smarter than the alarmists who claim the Reef, their destination, has grown hostile to life, whales included

There are words Quadrant Online generally eschews and this essay is about just such a term, recently favoured by the ABC. The minister's complaint was sneeringly dismissed with the advice that he should get a sense of humour. Misogyny equals mirth, apparently, when broadcast by the unaccountable

Those who have made sound-byte alarmism a career-enhancing skill swear blind that a 'fragile' Reef is on its last legs -- a condition only lots of additional research grants can remedy. They should study Eniwetok Atoll, where the US tested its A-bombs and today's coral couldn't be healthier.