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
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.
As China flexes its muscles in the Asia-Pacific with increasing aggression, many of its neighbours are naturally wary. Especially as so many of them have already experienced first-hand being monstered by the thousand-pound panda. Whether it’s Taiwan listening to the sabres rattle across the Strait, Japan
The dangerous, illiberal witch-hunt being peddled by the left-media in their unconscionable pursuit of Attorney-General Christian Porter has been correctly labelled a threat to democracy and the most basic principles of the rule of law. But there is an even more objectionable aspect of the Press Gallery’
You can blame it on the glaring lack of anything resembling an opposition party in the state, or you can blame it on a population who’ve lurched so far left that it’s a wonder they haven’t triggered earthquakes in Bordertown. Either way, Victorian voters will find themselves
As I reported for The BFD last year, Victorian premier Daniel Andrews’s attempt to whitewash away his hotel quarantine disaster with the Coate Inquiry was surely not going to be the end of investigations into the affair. In a supremely fitting irony, the very “industrial manslaughter” laws brought in
Amidst all the palaver and virtue-signalling in the media, and the strangely contradictory cavalcade of back-slapping and pearl-clutching whining of International Women’s Day, there is one group of Australian women who go almost completely ignored by the great and good of the Lady Pages and Mummy
Dave Pellowe goodsauce.news It’s big of John Sandeman, editor in chief at Eternity News, to clarify they don’t think Martyn Iles or I advocate violence or revolution. This back-handed retraction instead accuses us of “silly and possibly callous banter.” Instead, Iles and Pellowe engaged in silly
Noting the recent death of porn king Larry Flynt, one of my friends commented, “The guy might have been a creep, but, damn, he fought for our free speech rights when no one else would.” Sometimes you can’t pick and choose the heroes of freedom. Real heroes aren’t
Many Australians were upset that Anzac Day was cancelled altogether last year, “becuz COVID”. But most grudgingly accepted that “we’re all in this together”. Although more than a few eyebrows were raised when lefty protest marches went ahead. But when, this year, Anzac Day was cancelled again, while Sydney’
Only days ago, the West Australian state government was bragging that it had “the best budget performance in the world through the pandemic”. Leaving aside the dubious morality of making billions from a genocidal communist dictatorship, West Australians might be excused for asking why, if their government really is such
Clarence Darrow famously said, “I have never killed anyone, but I have read some obituary notices with great satisfaction.” Similarly, while there are many political figures I loathe and whom I would dearly love to see thrown out of office, there are few people I would actively wish harm upon.
It’s an old adage in politics that you should never hold an inquiry unless you know the outcome. The corollary of this is that if you don’t know the outcome, don’t have the inquiry – and can it, quick-smart, if it’s already begun. Especially if the
Angela Shanahan mercatornet.com Angela Shanahan is a Canberra-based freelance journalist and mother of nine children. She has written regularly for The Australian for over 20 years, The Spectator (British and Australian editions) for over 10 years, and formerly for the Sunday Telegraph, the Sydney Morning Herald and the
In the lead-up to the last Victorian state election, unions, especially the United Firefighters Union, were premier Daniel Andrews’s especially loyal boot-boys. It was all a neat little quid pro quo, of course: Andrews had bullied the state’s revered volunteer firefighter organisation, the Country Fire Authority,
National is calling on the Government to open the trans-Tasman bubble with Australia to give our desperate tourism sector a much-needed boost and reunite Kiwis with family and friends across the ditch. “New Zealand and Australia have both done well to reduce the threat of Covid-19,” Leader
