In July 2011, one of the most extreme climate change denialists, Lord Monckton, accepted an invitation to take a trip to Australia – a country that matters greatly in the struggle against global warming because of its vast deposits of coal. According …

For better or for worse, unlike most commentators, my judgments about Australian politics are generally formed not by conversations with Canberra insiders but almost solely by reading history books, listening to radio, watching current affairs television …

“When the facts change I change my mind. What do you do, Sir?” – John Maynard Keynes On the weekend perhaps two hundred asylum seekers bound for Australia perished off the coast of Java. One key question about Australia’s asylum seeker problem …

For several decades I have engaged in ideological disputes. The first dispute involved a disagreement with the Left over the nature of communism. I found it difficult to understand how people of good heart were unable to see what was in front of everyone’s …

The opinion poll results over the past eight months are as bad for an Australian government as any I can recall. As measured by Newspoll, Labor’s primary vote has been hovering around 30%. Between early July and late October it was consistently in the …

Somewhat to the surprise of the head of the media inquiry, Ray Finkelstein, I had drawn only two main conclusions in my recently published study of the Australian, “Bad News”. Firstly, the paper would only change as a consequence of courageous …

Three telling opinion pieces on climate change have been published in the mainstream media in Australia in the past few days. One was alarming. One was fascinating. And one was unusually foolish. On the Drum of 26 October, Stefan Rahmstorf, Professor …

On 28 September 2011, Andrew Bolt was found to have committed an offence under section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act. He had written two articles in the Herald Sun which had the capacity to offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate …

Before my Quarterly Essay on the Australian was published there was some discussion about what it should be called. Before “Bad News” my preference was for “Out of Control”. A brief account of how the Australian …

Since 1976 some 25,000 asylum seekers have arrived on Australia’s shores. Despite these modest numbers, the issue has played a major role in our politics for at least the past twelve years. Yet never in that period has the situation of asylum seeker …

Update: Since writing this, Paul Kelly has pulled out of the debate at the Wheeler Centre. The event is still going ahead.*On September 14 Paul Kelly wrote the first considered response from a journalist at the Australian …

Why have I decided to begin a blog? In part I relish the opportunity to write more freely and with greater immediacy than is possible with print. In part, as I have just entered an area fraught with danger—a critique of the Australian, …

Julian Assange: the unknown story

Robert Manne on John Howard’s ‘Lazarus Rising’

Politics is indeed a strange business. We have recently experienced the most dismal election campaign in memory, where the argument between the major parties turned on a series of confected panics about cynically selected non-problems – the reincarnation …