Defence Minister Peeni Henare is slow to advocate for our troops, but has been quick to criticise one who has political opinions different to his own, National’s Defence spokesperson Chris Penk says. “The Minister of Defence has consistently failed to champion our Defence Force and national security needs. “Minister
Dr James McDowall ACT Defence spokesperson The Defence Minister needs to explain whether he’s following the law when he interfered in a staff essay writing competition. “Peeni Henare contacted the Chief of Defence and demanded that an award-winning essay, that he hadn’t even read, be removed from the
Australian author Sean McMullen’s Greatwinter novels are set in the post-apocalyptic wastelands of Victoria (no, not Melbourne in lockdown). There are no electrical machines because orbiting robotic battle satellites immediately vaporise any sign of electromagnetic activity. Dare to flick on the simplest circuit and instant, merciless death strikes from
Peter Dutton just looks like an ex-copper, although the exterior I’ve been told belies a thoughtful, even charming person. Politically, though, Dutton often lives up to his appearance: tough, no-nonsense, even a head-kicker when needs be. Certainly, those were the qualities Dutton brought to the Home Affairs portfolio and
In a key scene in Orson Welles’s classic Citizen Kane, an outraged trustee confronts Kane at a party celebrating his purchase of a newspaper. The newspaper is a bad investment, he warns: it lost a million dollars in just the last year. Far from being chastened, Kane replies: “You’
Effectively selling the Port of Darwin to a Chinese-owned company is one of the most spectacular strategic idiocies of recent decades. When the Northern Territory government handed a 99-year lease over the port to Chinese owners in 2015, even the strategically inept Obama administration questioned the decision. Because, let’s
When wartime Australian PM John Curtin announced Australia’s foreign policy reorientation away from Britain and towards America, he did so “More in sorrow than in anger”. What Curtin meant was that it was now obvious that Britain’s war priorities differed from Australia’s. The issue was brought to
Doesn’t China have McDonald’s? I bring this up because of Thomas Friedman’s famous dictum – or wishful thinking – that countries with McDonald’s don’t go to war with each other. Of course, Friedman’s argument is more of a guideline than a rule. India and Pakistan, both
While Australia has been drawing global attention for its stance against China, the brutal fact is that Australia is a middle-power nation. While China is not and probably never will be a superpower, it is undeniably a great power. In this asymmetric diplomatic and trade war, Australia needs its allies
They go in for some weird shit in the name of defence, those Russians. Whether it’s confounding the Luftwaffe by using WWI biplanes so slow that the fearsome Messerschmidt Me-109s couldn’t slow down to engage them without stalling, or simply retreating over an iced-over lake and watching and
My father always used to think that everyone in New Zealand wore grass skirts and threw spears. He wasn’t joking. That was the view often presented to the world when royalty or dignitaries came here. He had a clear memory of the Prince and Princess of Wales in a
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Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has been savaged for sucking up to China and turning her back on the Five Eyes alliance during a historic debate in which British MPs unanimously declared that China is carrying out genocide and crimes against humanity. Newshub Nanaia Mahuta on Wednesday said Aotearoa would continue
As the Australian government is garnering attention and accolades around the world as a middle power nation standing firm against the global bully China, there is no shortage of Beijing’s useful idiots all-too-eager to try and pull the rug from under Canberra’s feet. Some of them are home-grown:
