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AUS Politics

Cry-Bully Ardern’s Unconvincing Whinge

Cry-Bully Ardern’s Unconvincing Whinge

My old Mum had a wise saying about bullies: They can dish it out, but they can’t take it. The same is particularly true of cry-bullies: those who self-righteously harass or intimidate others while playing the victim. Jacinda Ardern is having a bit of a sissy-Mary over alleged “bullying”

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Twelve Times the Lockdowners Were Wrong

Twelve Times the Lockdowners Were Wrong

Phillip W. Magness aier.org Phil Magness is a Senior Research Fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research.He is the author of numerous works on economic history, taxation, economic inequality, the history of slavery, and education policy in the United States. This has been a year of astonishing

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Leftist Feels the Sting of Cancel Culture

Leftist Feels the Sting of Cancel Culture

Now I know how the left feel whenever they get someone cancelled. Maybe. Not, I should hasten to add, that I delude myself that I had any hand in the matter, nor, for that matter, would I have wanted the cancellation – or postponement as it really is – to happen. I’

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The Woke Hypocrisy of the Tolerati

The Woke Hypocrisy of the Tolerati

One of the most cutting scenes in Dickens’ Oliver Twist is when the thin, ragged boy tremulously asks for more gruel. The master, “a fat, healthy man” is outraged. As are the board of the workhouse, “eight or ten fat gentlemen” who are almost suffocating in their fake piety. There’

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What Wellington Can Learn from Canberra

What Wellington Can Learn from Canberra

When wartime Australian PM John Curtin announced Australia’s foreign policy reorientation away from Britain and towards America, he did so “More in sorrow than in anger”. What Curtin meant was that it was now obvious that Britain’s war priorities differed from Australia’s. The issue was brought to

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photography of school room

Barking Bureaucratic Madness on Stilts

It’s said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Australia’s education bureaucrats must be barking mad. For the past few decades, Australia’s international education rankings have steadily fallen. In line with demands by education bureaucrats and teachers’

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white and red lollipop on blue background

Suckers for a Good Sob Story

Jacinda Ardern famously thinks that Australia deporting Kiwi-born crims home to New Zealand is “corrosive”. Australians might think that bleeding-heart bureaucrats and lefty quangos letting foreign-born monsters continue to lurk among us is even worse. The Administrative Appeals Tribunal is the perfect embodiment of O’Sullivan’s Law: Any organization

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What If Scott Morrison Was Muslim?

What If Scott Morrison Was Muslim?

Scott Morrison should convert to Islam. Of course I jest, but just as a thought experiment, it’s a delicious prospect. The left continually vilify Morrison for his religious beliefs (conveniently ignoring the number of Catholics on the Labor benches), while viciously attacking anyone who dares criticise, say, Mehreen Faruqi’

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Elites Salivating for Return of Mass Immigration

Elites Salivating for Return of Mass Immigration

Survey after survey, poll after poll, shows that the majority of Australians want to see the country’s immigration drastically curtailed. The only difference between the polls is the size of the majority. No matter what the left-elite may sniff, this is not “racism”: Australians continue to support migration in

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Ratings Shock: Someone Actually Watches Qanda!

Ratings Shock: Someone Actually Watches Qanda!

In news that should surprise absolutely no one, this year’s Oscars drew record-low audiences. In fact, the only real surprise is that they drew an audience at all. The Oscars have faced plummeting ratings for years, but this year they still fell further by an astonishing 60%. Apparently one

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Is China the Democrats’ Next War?

Is China the Democrats’ Next War?

Doesn’t China have McDonald’s? I bring this up because of Thomas Friedman’s famous dictum – or wishful thinking – that countries with McDonald’s don’t go to war with each other. Of course, Friedman’s argument is more of a guideline than a rule. India and Pakistan, both

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white bed mattress

Government Drops the Ball, Aussies Score Again

David Seymour ACT leader Victoria’s plan to open up to international students and workers is what ACT has been calling for since August last year and New Zealand should follow suit. The Australian state of Victoria is doing this right with plans underway for international students and essential workers

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Ardern Government’s Corrosive Effect on Regional Security

Ardern Government’s Corrosive Effect on Regional Security

While Australia has been drawing global attention for its stance against China, the brutal fact is that Australia is a middle-power nation. While China is not and probably never will be a superpower, it is undeniably a great power. In this asymmetric diplomatic and trade war, Australia needs its allies

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Institutional Racism and Bigotry in the Classroom

Institutional Racism and Bigotry in the Classroom

“In the language of Orthanc, help means ruin, and saving means slaying” J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings. This short speech shows that Tolkien was as clear-eyed as Orwell about the nature of totalitarianism. Saruman the wizard, as Tom Shippey has pointed out, is very much a

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