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-
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
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
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
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
Yet more of the chickens of corruption are coming home to roost in Victoria, with the first high-profile acquittal following from the “Lawyer X” scandal. Jailed big wig Tony Mokbel has had his conviction quashed over a cocaine importation which led him to skip the country during his trial.
Nationals senator Matt Canavan is not one of the Coalition’s shrinking violets. The former Resources Minister has been quite prepared to take the stick to rent-seeking energy companies and mining billionaires giving free propaganda leg-ups to Chinese communist bullies. Canavan has more recently pushed the federal government
The Chinese Communist Party may have bought the undying loyalty of some politicians and mining magnates, but their trade and diplomatic assault on Australia is rapidly hardening resolve on the home front. And at least some in the business community are trying to do their bit. While Twiggy Forrest sneaks
Asking if Australia’s taxpayer-funded media is biased is a bit like asking if water is wet. Everyone knows it is, but anyone who says so out loud is immediately hit with a barrage of “Define wet!” type challenges and assertions that, in someone’s distant memory, it was
