I fled communist tyranny to breathe and speak freely, to live without the fear and obligatory debasement of paying lip service to evil. Don't think me dramatic when I say the the Left in general and same-sex marriage bullies in particular have inspired a deeply unsettling sense of deja vu

Those who regard Section 18c as a foul hobble on the right to express an unfettered opinion are on the side of the angels, but only just. When the holder of a dissident opinion can be fired and lose their livelihood, as has just happened in Canberra, the State is far from liberty's only enemy

The ideology of 'marriage equality' emerged from the politicised and inevitably left culture of our universities. From those institutions come cadres of journalists, teachers, bureaucrats and others bent on imposing their worldview on all, including small children

Grannies catching pneumonia. Mind-boggling bills for daring to stay as warm in our Gaia-green 21st century as once we lived in the cheap-power era of the 20th century. Businesses hit by soaring overheads. Baseload coal-fired power stations being shut -- blown up, even ....

A useful word -- 'marriage', say -- is no longer useful if its meaning is stretched so wide, made so 'equal' and 'non-discriminatory', that it has no meaning at all. When a word can mean anything it represents only the perverse satisfaction to be drawn from debasing language and thought

The ballots are in the mail and the question could not be more bland: "Should the law be changed to allow same-sex couples to marry?" After that, should the answer be 'yes', what next? If the overseas experience is any guide, religious liberty and freedom of conscience will be in peril

No-one asked me, as the part owner of Westpac, if I wanted to give away so much of mine and my fellow shareholders' money, worthy as the recipient cause may be. As for Alan Joyce, his moral authority starts and stops at the obligation not to lose Qantas passengers' luggage

If you take the word of blacktivists bent on blaming any and all ills on white oppression and the ever-handy 'institutional racism', no member of an Indigenous community has a chance to get ahead. That stock standard response pointedly ignores the home-bred ills the BLM mob refuse to see

Those proposing to change the marriage act are impatient and ill disposed, to put it mildly, to any and all discussion of possible consequences. We have no idea whether we are doing the right thing now and, by extension, what we are bequeathing future generations. That's lousy stewardship.

Any attempt to introduce same-sex marriage must respect conscientious objections. Liberals, whose party is pledged to defend 'freedom of thought, worship, speech and association', have been derelict in not revealing the specific legislation they propose should the Yes campaign succeed

I think of my old comrades in the burning forests of Western Australia and smile at the stoic self-reliance that characterised our acceptance of hardship. Then I ponder how today's crews would rather go hungry, or ring their MP, than face a tin of mystery meat simmering on a shovel

The simple act of immersing oneself in hot water is not so simple as you might think, not under the edicts of Brussells' commissars, who busy themselves with regulating bathing costumes, the gender of lockers and which varieties of body hair may or may not be dipped in a Jacuzzi

The errors in 'Little Fish are Sweet' are serial and not trivial, smacking of laziness and a refusal to approach sources who might contradict the lurid tales of a conman and extortionist. That this book is now in the running for Queensland's most prestigious award is a further disgrace

We do not know what legislation might go before the federal parliament should the 'Yes' case succeed, which is ample reason in and of itself to vote 'No'. Mangling the premier theologian of the Catholic Church, as Greg Sheridan has done, sheds not the slightest light on what might be yet to come

The university's 'Unlearn' advertising campaign leaves no doubt it is Leftist indoctrination, not learning, which the institution has made its stock in trade. As a video promotion promises, students will 'question the world, challenge the established, demolish social norms and build new ones'

SSM proponents paint 'traditional' marriage as increasingly dysfunctional, so why not endorse a distorted facsimile of those allegedly troubled heterosexual unions? This neatly ignores the traditional family's need for more protection by the state and society

One argument for altering the definition of marriage is that it will 'dignify' gay unions, but dignity in personal relationships cannot be conferred by the state and its impersonal bureaucracy. The best a state can offer is legal protection, which it does already. Dignity is beyond its reach

The ongoing project by Oxford University Press to publish with commentary every written word by one of the greatest stylists in the English canon is a mammoth undertaking, but much deserved. The style, the tone, the presentation and erudition displayed so far, deserve the widest acclaim

The sixteenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks came and went with minimal recognition on the part of the media, a dreadful pity but not a surprise. Mark that slaughter and, well, people might be reminded of Islam's intolerance, rather than the evil of the 'no' campaign on gay marriage

For the Coalition to have any chance of reversing its dire poll numbers and winning the next election, the Prime Minister simply has to be gone by the end of the year. That leaves just enough time for his replacement to address and remedy the big issue: our national energy crisis