Don’t get me wrong, as I am all in favour of taxing the well-heeled. But soaking the rich, as the Left forever advocates, will see investment stall, capital stock run down, progress go into reverse and poverty increase. Welcome to your socialist paradise: an equality of impoverishment for all

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Should the 'other activities' touted by those who pushed for the climbing ban fail to attract visitors, expect to see a vicious circle take effect as flights are cancelled for want of passengers and fares increase as a consequence, meaning even fewer visitors and tourist dollars. This is unlikely to end well

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Protesters are beaten, gassed and shot but prompt only neglect from governments that take their own democracies for granted while a craven expedience banishes all thought of riling Beijing. Meanwhile, demonstrators wave the Stars and Stripes because, while it represents a nation, it also symbolises the liberty they crave

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UPDATED: The scenario laid out by George Pell’s accuser and accepted by the Victorian Appeal Court simply could not have happened. There was no time available in the priests’ sacristy for six minutes of sexual abuse to take place

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The Shortfin Barracuda submarines we are buying from France represent the worst military equipment purchasing since Federation. Slow, vulnerable and not yet anywhere near being designed, I'm tempted to make a joke and say the first should be named HMAS Pyne Box. But this is no laughing matter

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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'

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Like the legendary lost treasure of popular imagination, it is to be hoped that somewhere beneath the Ukraine's history of subjugation and corruption a better future remains more than a myth, awaiting the day when the nation is genuinely independent and can take its rightful place as an equal member in the concert of nations.

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The former Opposition leader was not alone in asking voters to endorse a platform self-evidently intended to screw and beggar young and old alike. But he's the one who took the fall, leaving Labor to conduct its review of what went wrong and, or so we are told, mend its ways. Believe that and there is every chance you are also in the market for a nice, carbon-free bridge

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When the economy falters what happens to a society whose vote-buying leaders owe their positions to handing out lots of free stuff? What direction will be followed when they are under pressure from those who take but do not give and deem that their inviolable right? Call me a pessimist, but it is hard to see democracy surviving in the form we now know it

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Attempt to determine Australia's rank in terms of global prosperity and the result will vary, often dramatically, according to the selected yardsticks. Whatever standard is used, however, and no matter where a particular appraisal places us, one rather chilling fact remains: unlike the urge to regulate, there is no appetite in Canberra for reform

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