One of the great comic creations of the last fifty years was Rik Mayall’s “Rick”, one of the four student housemates of The Young Ones. Rick is a shrewdly drawn instance of the perpetual archetype of the middle-class leftist: parroting the slogans of radical leftism whilst remaining utterly, selfishly
The greatest problem facing centre and right-of-centre voters across the Western world is finding a clear point of difference between major parties. Supposedly conservative parties today only seem to offer an alternative of left, rather than far-over-the-cliff left. In Australia, we’ve long dubbed them “Laborals”. Americans have their “RINOs”
Thankfully, the Indigenous Voice referendum seems unstoppably headed for defeat. Australians, sensibly, are increasingly revolting against the idea of turning Australia into an apartheid state, with Constitutionally-mandated racial separatism. If the chaos unleashed in Western Australia by that state’s Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Act isn’t warning enough, Australians just
Australia’s spiciest defo case is slowly grinding its way through the NSW courts. As I’ve written previously, a flamboyantly homosexual MP has taken one of Australia’s most notorious political bruisers to court. All over a tweet graphically describing gay sex. When I first wrote about this, I
In 1999, Australian lawyer and journalist Paul Chadwick warned that, “All roads from a so-called independent statutory tribunal lead back through a parliament to a cabinet room”. Chadwick was speaking particularly of perennial issue of governments attempting to impose tighter control on media and information, but the same principle applies
Is Australia on the verge of dodging a very nasty bullet? It looks like it, but campaigners for the No case in the Indigenous Voice referendum are warning against complacency as opinion polls continue to plummet. For the first time, support for a constitutionally enshrined Indigenous voice has fallen below
In a stunning move that will inevitably have dire repercussions for the Indigenous Voice referendum, Western Australia is overturning its contentious Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Act. Not amending — completely repealing. WA Premier Roger Cook has apologised for the unintentional “stress, confusion, and division” caused by controversial Indigenous heritage laws in the
In hindsight, was the public campaign against smoking a colossal mistake? This is not to dispute the manifest benefits of the massive decline in smoking, of course. From the precipitous decline in smoking-related diseases to the blessed relief of sitting through a restaurant meal or a pub gig without coming
Shane Drumgold has bowed to the inevitable and quit as Director of Public Prosecutions for the ACT. The extraordinary fall from grace for the top legal official comes in the wake of the Soffronoff Inquiry, which Drumgold himself requested. The inquiry made damning findings of misconduct against him. Drumgold, however,
The Climate Cult are getting crazier and more dangerous by the day. Not content with gluing themselves to roads, attacking priceless artworks or defacing war memorials, their latest tactic is targeting the homes of law-abiding citizens. The latest such attack was a home invasion inflicted on a West Australian mining
As I wrote recently, “a week in Australian politics just can’t go by without a fresh absurdity from Brittany Higgins”. Well, it’s been a banner week, this week. From revelations of Higgins’ claim to be Aboriginal, to the release of the bombshell Sofronoff inquiry into the prosecution of
Michael Cook Michael Cook is editor of Mercator. mercatornet.com If The Voice means anything, it means improving the lot of Australia’s Aboriginal people. There is a life expectancy gap of 20 years. They have some of the worst incarceration rates in the world. Life in some outback towns
The long-anticipated Sofronoff inquiry has been released – and it’s as explosive as anticipated. The inquiry into the conduct of ACT chief prosecutor Shane Drumgold during the Brittany Higgins scandal and subsequent rape trial of Bruce Lehrmann has found a laundry list of appalling behaviour by the Canberra Director of
Kurt Mahlburg Kurt Mahlburg is a writer and author, and an emerging Australian voice on culture and the Christian faith. He has a passion for both the philosophical and the personal, drawing on his background as a graduate architect, a primary school teacher, a missionary, and a young adult pastor.
The Albanese government has been consistently criticised for trying to keep detail of its proposed “Indigenous Voice” from voters. Which, when we’re voting to change the Constitution, is just not good enough. Such a momentous change demands an informed vote. That’s the last thing the government obviously wants.
