In international relations terms, Australia is strictly what would be called a “middle power”. We’re not among the elite movers and shakers of world events, but we are far from irrelevant. In recent months, Australia has upped its ante from being a middle power to being what is called
A curious thing happened last week: China’s “wolf warriors” suddenly began to sit up and beg. “We hope that the relationship can come back to the right track as early as possible, and we would welcome efforts by all who want the relations to improve to make some efforts,
Margaret Thatcher famously said that the problem with socialism was that sooner or later you run out of other people’s money. As much of the Western world descends into a medically-induced quasi-socialism (what else would you call a regime where the state rules which businesses may trade, and how,
As I wrote yesterday, Australian PM Scott Morrison is a bigger fool than he looks, if he thinks the grievance-left are going to be satisfied with changing just one word of the national anthem. As I warned, activists always have a laundry list of complaints and pansy-conservatives always delude themselves
The Wuhan plague has brought out the inner snitch in too many people. Jacinda Ardern’s COVID snitch hotline melted down with curtain-twitchers all-too-eager to rat out their neighbours for the heinous sin of leaving the house. In Australia, the long arm of the law was ever-ready to swoop on
If one thing has been blindingly obvious during the Wuhan pandemic, it’s that those making the policy decisions feel no obligation to abide by their own rules. Whether it’s David Clark breaking lockdown to go to the beach, or New York mayor Bill de Blasio enjoying a New
Scott Morrison seems determined to piss away every one of the advantages that won the Coalition an unexpected, thumping victory in 2019. The latest is his surprise unilateral decision to tinker with the national anthem, Advance Australia Fair. Australians will declare themselves “one and free” from January 1 under a
As has been obvious since at least Tocqueville the most astute observations about the national character are often made from the outside. However much it hurts. But Australians are notoriously prickly to even constructive criticism from non-Australians (excepting New Zealanders: as our siblings, you’re allowed to pick on us
Although the hapless Neville Chamberlain has borne the historical burden of the disastrous appeasement policy prior to WWII, the reality is that it was an enormously popular policy on nearly all sides. Cheering crowds greeted Chamberlain’s “piece of paper”. Even after the war began, many left-wing groups in particular
As reported yesterday on The BFD, the curious (if not exactly surprising) finding of the Coate inquiry into Victoria’s catastrophically failed hotel quarantine scheme is that no one is responsible. Not the Premier. Not his Ministers. Not his senior bureaucrats. Perhaps taking a leaf out of the Homer J
Failure truly is an orphan in “Dandrewstan”, otherwise known as the Australian state of Victoria. After months of hearings and millions of dollars, the Coate inquiry has finally identified just who was responsible for the farcical hotel quarantine regime that ultimately led to 800 deaths in that state – and a
Yet another follower of the Religion of Peace has gone on yet another murderous rampage in Australia, this time in Brisbane. Only the quick actions of police prevented more deaths. An accused ISIS supporter is suspected to have snapped and murdered an elderly couple in their Brisbane home, before being
Another day, another COVID “hot spot” – and another round of state governments and bureaucrats slamming their iron fists down on the Panic Button. Call me a cynic, but I’m beginning to suspect that the Little Hitlers in our state capitals and health bureaucracies just about wet themselves at every
Auntie’s slip is showing, yet again – and, yet again, it’s hanging too far to the left. In reaction to yet another report finding that Australia’s [taxpayer-funded leftist propaganda network] public broadcaster is not exactly living up to its statutory requirement to be balanced and impartial, ABC chair
It’s shaping up as the biggest communist spy scandal since the Cambridge Five or the communist infiltrations of Hollywood and the US political bureaucracy in the 1930s and 1940s. When academic Clive Hamilton published Silent Invasion: China’s Influence in Australia he was immediately attacked by China sympathisers in
