Michelle Grattan University of Canberra Michelle Grattan is one of Australia’s most respected political journalists. She has been a member of the Canberra parliamentary press gallery for more than 40 years, during which time she has covered all the most significant stories in Australian politics. Jeannette Young sounded at
Yun Jiang Australian National University Yun Jiang is a managing editor of the China Story blog at the Australian National University and produces China Neican. She has published widely on China-related topics and has been quoted in several major national and international press, including New York Times, Financial Times, ABC,
What the hell is going on with Tasmanian Labor? It might seem understandable that they dumped Rebecca White as leader after a second election defeat – but to replace her with an open Communist sympathiser? A photograph of Tasmanian Labor leader David O’Byrne wearing a “good communist” T-shirt has surfaced,
Contrary to the blatherskite of the racially “Indigenous Voice” proposal, Aboriginal people already have a voice to parliament. It’s called a “vote”. There are a plethora of other Aboriginal “voices”, too: quangos and taxpayer-funded corporations supposed to advance Aboriginal interests. Supposed to. Too often, it seems, such bodies are
Barnaby Joyce really is back – grabbing headlines and making the media-elite clutch their pearls. Of course, what makes the media luvvies and the tiny clique of Twitter activists they slavishly follow reach for the smelling salts doesn’t necessarily bother actual voters. As Australian columnist Chris Mitchell recently wrote, Australia’
It was in the 1980s that the left-elite were shocked by revelations that George Orwell had maintained a list of suspected British Stalinists. That anyone who’d read Animal Farm could be shocked by Orwell’s antipathy to Stalinism is an object lesson in Doublethink. Because Orwell, while still a
Last week, the Australian taxpayer-funded broadcaster’s Four Corners program was described as “embarrassing the whole organisation”. “Hold my beer,” says 7.30. Apparently taking lessons in wokeness from across the Tasman, the program will be peppering its reports with Newspeak that almost no one understands nor wants to hear.
The great Richard Feynman warned that “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool”. The problem, though, is that some people want to be fooled so very, very badly. So they’ll happily believe the most obvious nonsense, if it’
Despite the left’s mythologising about Whitlam and “free university”, during the Menzies era, almost all university students were funded by the government. But it was a merit-based system: score well enough on your matriculation, and the government paid your tuition. Teacher training, even more so: by far the majority
So Barnaby “The Beetrooter” Joyce is back. What does this mean for the Australian political scene? It means that both Labor and the Liberal wets will be worried. Sky News host Alan Jones says Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese “can now not win the federal election”. “His pathway to the Lodge
Sometimes, I feel like Shrek, losing his patience with the annoying Donkey. I just want to grab the media-political class by the ears and scream, “Can you just shut up about COVID. For. Five. Freaking. Minutes?!” Can we go one day without the hysterical shrieking about “new cases” (meaning, people
The Australian Senate has voted to ban the racist nonsense of Critical Race Theory from Australian schools. The left are shocked and bewildered. So naturally, instead of confronting the horrifying reality that CRT is a deeply racist, Marxist ideology, they scream and rail against a cavalcade of red herrings and
Let’s admit it: the UN is no longer fit for purpose and should be abandoned. The last remaining shreds of the UN’s relevance evaporated in the 1990s with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Since then, the UN has been little more than the plaything of despots, meddling
Groucho Marx would never join a club that would accept him as a member. On the other hand, certain women are determined to barge their way into any clubs that just don’t want them. HESTA chief Debby Blakey has added her voice to the growing chorus against The Australia
