Old people with money who can’t run away represent rich pickings for home-invasion bandits and muggers, which is where one might hope the abuse of elderly Australians would stop. Alas, recent treasurers and aspiring treasurers have taken note of the easy pickings

Read More

The Australian Conservatives' appeal boiled down to being little more than a vehicle for voters cranky with the Liberals to express that anger and then, having made their point, see their preferences flow back to the Coalition. An observer might reasonably ask of such a minor party, 'What is the point of you?'

Read More

The Soviet apologist Hillary Clinton vanquished in the 2016 primaries only by stacking the system will run again in 2020, and the distressing news is that he might well claim the nomination. How would Sanders react, I wonder, to a Hungarian museum that captures the totalitarian horrors of the system he supported?

Read More

The Queen Empress would live just three weeks after Federation, which she opposed as too reminiscent of the dreadful Cromwell. Her connections to Australia, however, are deeper than states named in her honour and well worth recalling

Read More

Chastened by their party's rejection at the ballot box, we're hearing expressions of regret that 'people of faith' feel themselves to have been not merely rejected by the sermonising Left but actively derided. The language might soften, but the attitude never will or can

Read More

Writing at The Conversation, Oxford's Dr Nayanika Mathur makes no bones about the appetite for human flesh acquired by an Indian tiger, which made plenty of bones out of quite a few villagers. Instinct? Feline infirmity? No, none of that. It's global warming's fault

Read More

Bill Shorten learned the hard way that issues animating 'doctors' wives electorates' don't fly in seats where overloaded infrastructure, ever-rising electricity bills and unassimilated immigration are far more pressing concerns. As Labor mulls its next next leader and direction, an important new book urges the rejection of identity politics

Read More

Somehow, in the matter of Israel Folau and his 'inappropriate' beliefs, the governing body of rugby in Australia, in its infinite wisdom, has chosen to inflict on the code this exemplar of modern corporate managerialism, spouting well worn platitudes like all good sporting bureaucrats now do

Read More

Success has many fathers, as they say, while failure is reckoned to have only one. After a political lifetime of scheming and posing, most recently as Labor's firebrand class warrior, Bill Shorten's parentage of his party's failure makes the case. There are many reasons why he came spectacularly undone, but these strike us the greatest of his stump follies

Read More

Bill Shorten heeded the economic counsel of Chris Bowen and threw away the unlosable election. Meanwhile in Warringah, a quite astonishing number of voters jettisoned a seasoned, dedicated and decent man for a blonde political confection preaching the utter nonsense of climate catastrophism. Celebrate the Coalition's win certainly, but take no comfort in it

Read More