By this author
Bogans and boat people (Pt 2)
blog
Read part 1 here Western Sydney and the shallows of abundance “We are a wealthy country” is a familiar phrase of entreaty in refugee advocacy. Implicit in it is an understanding, even if it’s an indirect one, …
So this is what it’s like to be English
blog
The Australian cricket team’s painful declension from the Invincibles to the Washington Generals has paused, thanks to Ashton Agar’s defiance. He might spark a comeback of fortunes, but for now Australian fans are still tasting something unfamiliar: …
Bogans and boat people (Pt1)
blog
The failure of the pro-refugee movement The Papua New Guinea solution marks the symbolic failure of the humanitarian case for refugee resettlement in Australia. More than a decade of persuasion, from the infographics posted on Facebook, …
Hunting Canberra’s Loch Ness Monster
Australian Politics
Today we know that a petition ended the political career of Julia Gillard. But we don’t know if the petition ever really existed. Even when this mysterious document was still being circulated no MP would say they had actually seen or signed it, …
NSA surveillance
Society
How the National Security Agency is undermining privacy and sovereignty
We Need to Fall Out of Love With Obama
blog
It’s hard to imagine the current scandals wreathing the White House will do much to dim the glowing image of Barack Obama over here. The fact various administration officials targeted political opponents with tax probes, spied on journalists and …
But The Australian is Elitist, Too
blog
David Flint must be kicking himself. Watching the debate started by Nick Cater’s book The Lucky Culture, among John Howard, Mark Latham, Janet Albrechtsen (and many, many more), he must have trouble shaking the feeling that he’s missed …
Not Craig Thomson
blog
I’ve come to admire Craig Thomson. Like many people, I underestimated him at first, writing him off as an ordinary, flawed person in an extraordinary situation, frozen into an agonised pose by the carbonite of a hung parliament. But he’s not …
The Sport Doping Enquiry Isn’t Just Stupid - It’s Wrong
AFL
‘UNITE THE FIGHT AGAINST NATIONALLY SIGNIFICANT CRIME’. That’s the awkward, shouty slogan of the Australian Crime Commission, turning its attention to problems that, like the old line about the Holy Roman Empire, are not national, …
Why I Am Not A Conservative (Any More)
Conservatism
Perhaps it’s another sign of the Triumph of Selfishism, but Margaret Thatcher’s death got me thinking about myself, and my own political development. It’s the Benjamin Button version: I started off as an undergraduate who believed in …
Whatever happened to Mamdouh Habib?
Guantanamo Bay
‘Who?’ That was the response when I mentioned that Mamdouh Habib had won the right to sue the NSW Police for racism. He failed the pub test not once, but several times, once yielding a ‘was he that cleric guy?’ Always in the shadow …
Is Graham Richardson psychic?
Labor Party
In the course of last week’s Crean Immolation, there was only one commentator who finished the day of chaos with a perfect record of prediction. That man was Graham Richardson, Labor’s own Talleyrand minus the stocking. For the entire day, …
Laughing Gas
When Lieutenant John Pike was filmed pepper-spraying cross-legged Occupy protesters with the nonchalance of a retiree hosing down the garden, it took a day for the image to make him famous. It took two days for him to become the ‘Casually Pepper Spray …
