Kerry Packer famously told Australia’s parliament that, “Anybody in this country who does not minimise his tax wants his head read. I can tell you as a government that you are not spending it so well that we should be donating extra”. New revelations about the antics of some
George R R Martin famously wrote that, “When you tear out a man’s tongue, you are not proving him a liar, you’re only telling the world that you fear what he might say. ” Outside of possibly North Korea, today’s despots don’t go in much for tongue-tearing
When Australia’s intelligence chief, ASIO Director-General Mike Burgess announced that ASIO would no longer use such “stigmatising” terms as “Islamist extremism”, it provoked a storm of disbelief and derision. This announcement came just a week after it was revealed that ABC management had instructed reporters not to refer to
Kurt Mahlburg mercatornet.com 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
As I’ve written several times, Australians have to deal with two Scott Morrisons. There’s Scott Morrison the global statesman, justly recognised around the world for his government’s brave and resolute stance against unprecedented trade and diplomatic bullying from China. Then there’s the domestic “Scotty from Marketing”
When Chin Tan replaced execrable race-hustler Tim Soutphommasane as Australia’s race discrimination commissioner, he seemed like a breath of fresh air; a return to a semblance of sanity in an institution notorious for its Woke-extremism. With admirable commonsense, Tan rejected the notion that Australia was a racist country:
Well, you’ve got to hand it to Australia’s secret service – they’re very secretive. Of course, a certain level of discretion goes with the spook territory. We’d hardly expect ASIO to letterbox the neighbours, informing them that they’re surveilling the suspected foreign spy at No. 2
Damian Wilson rt.com Damian Wilson is a UK journalist, ex-Fleet Street editor, financial industry consultant and political communications special advisor in the UK and EU. Aussie spy agency head Mike Burgess risks international confusion as he caves in to the wokelords and dumps universally understood labels for extremists like
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. ASIO is changing the
In the war that gave birth to ANZAC, Australian and New Zealand soldiers enjoyed a reputation as formidable soldiers. But lately, it seems, our militaries are being asked to be less effective fighting forces than Boy (and Girl) Scouts with guns. At best (and honourably) as a kind of militarised
The definition of insanity, it is said, is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. On that score, the Australian media can be forgiven their periodic pack-hunts because until now, depending on how Attorney-General Christian Porter’s defamation case against the ABC goes, they’ve not
As Jacinda Ardern showed, COVID panics might have caused global economic havoc and stripped civil rights on a grand scale, but they sure are a sweet vote-winner for the incumbent. Liberty dies, as Padme Amidala sadly observed in Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, “with thunderous applause”. The
The ABC-led media-elite witch hunt against Australian Attorney-General Christian Porter has followed a drearily familiar script. Trumped-up allegations, an unfashionably conservative target and an unscrupulous media whipping up a frenzied lynch-mob. The method is the same whether the target is a frumpy church-goer (Lindy Chamberlain), an unashamedly conservative clergyman (Cardinal
The viciousness of the campaign of vilification against Cardinal George Pell by Australia’s taxpayer-funded broadcaster was at times astonishing. The ABC aired uncritically the most lurid and outlandish accusations against the cardinal. Following Pell’s now-quashed conviction for child sex abuse, the ABC could barely hide its glee. When
New Zealand Labour governments have a noteable track record in poisoning trans-Tasman relations more thoroughly than Trevor Chappell bowling a grubber. David Lange trashed the ANZUS alliance in order to pander to the watermelon left. Jacinda Ardern, though, is making Lange look like a rank amateur. Ardern has steadily white-anted
As the New Zealand government prepares to pay off its most loyal allies by ploughing tens of millions into the dying legacy media, Kiwis ought to learn a lesson from Australia. Australians are forced to hand over more than a billion of their tax dollars to a state-funded broadcaster. Despite
