The thought of the government taxing the family home after it has already messed endlessly with your super, and is now trying to make you work into your seventies, is beyond galling -- not least because, as fifty- and sixty-somethings know, they're not wanted in the workforce

Apart from George Pell's victory in winning the right to present his case to the High Court, it has been a year of unalloyed gains for those who see the Church as enemy and are determined to destroy its influence by any means necessary, from media-propagated slanders to unleashing a politicised police force against perceived enemies

Welcome to a world of bullshit jobs, disappearing real jobs, jobs unaligned with training, jobless men without dignity, a Ponzi-scam economy, and two-income families who have basically offshored the raising of their children. Do our political leaders talk about this, let alone understand it? Nope, not a clue

Was Pell hounded, then pursued, his reputation trashed, then charged, then convicted and then jailed just because of the efforts of crusading women? Of course not, you might think. Highly improbable. On this view, mesdames Gillard, Waller, Wallington, Milligan, Adler, and Ferguson, were simply 'doing their jobs'

Local governments are bloated, ludicrously and inappropriately woke, don’t do their day jobs, inclined to meddle self-importantly in things that are none of their proper concern and which end badly when they do. Worse, they are often nascent fascists and their senior staff grossly overpaid gauleiters

The 'party of the bush' isn't anything your grandpa would recognise. At the forefront of the push for gay marriage, it was their votes which secured the passage of NSW's appalling abortion law. What the recently departed and much missed Tim Fischer might have made of the today's hayseed hipsters, alas we'll never know

It is way too early to pronounce on the Prime Minister's career, his likely political legacy and stature. But the signs are not good at many levels and on many issues, as conservatives would have noted amidst his deafening silence on the Abortion Bill debacle in NSW. Being remembered as a vote-winning stump performer is all very well and good but principle is what really matters

Just about everything that could have gone wrong for Pell did go wrong. The question should be asked: has this been the result of a series of unconnected events, mere sad happenstance, or has there been something more nefarious afoot?

Having an embittered, devious and bizarre boss like Premier Daniel Andrews doesn’t help, but the misadventures of Victoria Police speak volumes of an institution that is rotting from the head. Selective prosecutions, using at least one lawyer as an informant, financial harassment of those on the right -- policing in the Garden State is a disgrace