A Sense of Place Magazine

Beautifully written stories on politics, social movements, photography and books

The Dads4Kids Interview: Failure Family Law Reform Australia

The year 2025 marks the 50th anniversary of the passing of the Family Law Act, the single most intrusive and destructive piece of legislation to ever pass the Australian parliament. In that time the Family Court has been the subject… Continue Reading →

The Australian Election: Labor’s in with a fighting chance, but must work around an Unpopular Leader

Chris Wallace, University of Canberra The Albanese government has a fighting chance of winning the 2025 election, but will need to achieve in five weeks of campaigning what it hasn’t in three years in office. That is, work out a… Continue Reading →

The Laughing Lama: On Meeting a Buddhist Master.

By John Stapleton “Spiritual truth is not something elaborate and esoteric, it is in fact profound common sense. When you realize the nature of mind, layers of confusion peel away. You don’t actually “become” a buddha, you simply cease, slowly,… Continue Reading →

Australia: Land of Slaves

From Michael Gray Griffith: Café Locked Out In the Kimberleys, I saw the broken backbone of a mountain range—time had spent millions of years pruning it down to here. Its rocks were cracked and angry, too hot to touch, for… Continue Reading →

It’s a Family’s Despair: Fred Pawle

A new book chronicles the Family Court’s 50 years of destroying families and men’s lives. It is a harbinger of the deeply flawed secular world into which we are sleepwalking. The creation of the Family Court of Australia in 1975… Continue Reading →

Australia IS tangled in a Gates Foundation web even as the new US Administration rips itself free with three key appointments

Alison Bevege: Letters from Australia Three key confirmations may go a long way to ripping the Gates/Pharma influence network from the US health system – but it’s doubtful the win will flow through to Australia. Our health sector has been… Continue Reading →

The Failure of Family Law reform in Australia

From Augusto Zimmerman: Spectator Australia John Stapleton spent a quarter of a century working as a general news reporter for two of Australia’s leading mastheads, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian. He is currently the editor of A Sense of Place Magazine and is… Continue Reading →

Australia’s Kultarrs: Carnivorous Marsupials, Tiny, Cryptic Creatures

By Hayley Stannard, Charles Sturt University and Julie Old, Western Sydney University In Australia’s arid and semi-arid zones lives a highly elusive predator. It’s small but fierce and feisty, with big eyes, long hind legs and a pointy nose. A… Continue Reading →

The Myth of Black Opal: Lightning Ridge and the Fiery Guardians of Eternal Love

The picture above was taken in 1909, at the height of the what was known as the Three Mile Rush. The bicycle polisher rigged up in the centre of this picture was being used to rub down opal. The commercial… Continue Reading →

Australia’s Covid Response Caused Significant Harm, Yet Another Official Report Finds

By Rebekah Barnett, The Daily Sceptic Five years on from the declaration of a global pandemic, I’m weary of Covid inquiries. They tend to go either of two ways. They either run through bureaucratic checkboxes and give everyone a medal… Continue Reading →

Life in the Carpark Beneath Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s Clifftop Mansion

From Michael Gray Griffith: Café Locked Out Michael Gray Griffith is Australia’s leading contemporary historian. An inspiration to his thousands of followers, he travels Australia in his bus, which he calls Florence. A truly beautiful writer, everywhere he goes he… Continue Reading →

Failed Family Court Reform, Bettina Arndt

It is the 50th anniversary of Australia’s Family Court. That’s hardly cause for celebration. Over the last half century, what was originally designed as a “helping court” became the frontline of feminism’s gender wars and thus one of the country’s most… Continue Reading →

Out Now: Failure Family Law Reform Australia

The new book Failure Family Law Reform Australia is now available on some platforms and will become more broadly available in the coming weeks. Recommended retail is $59.99 but the pricing varies wildly across the various platforms. Here’s links to… Continue Reading →

The Trump Ascendancy: Travels in America

By Abraham David Australian consultant Abraham David travelled across America on public transport during the 2024 election period, when Trump gained a a thumping victory. Here he looks back at the experience. What he saw on the streets explains why… Continue Reading →

Australia Wheels Into an Election Year: Labor crashes to a 55–45 Poll Deficit

By Adrian Beaumont, The University of Melbourne A national Resolve poll for Nine newspapers, conducted February 18–23 from a sample of 1,506, gave the Coalition a 55–45 lead by headline respondent preferences, a three-point gain for the Coalition since January…. Continue Reading →

What the Smartest AI on Earth, Grok 3, recommends for an Australian Department of Government Efficiency

Picture this: an American-style Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)—the Elon Musk-Trump brainchild launched in January 2025—lands in Australia. In the U.S., it’s a temporary advisory crew with a wild mission: slash $2 trillion from federal spending, gut regulations, and shrink… Continue Reading →

A win for transparency, a blow to secrecy, a loss for the Maugean Skate

Rex Patrick: Michael West Media The Albanese Government forked out tens of thousands of taxpayer’s dollars in legal fees to Clayton Utz to resist releasing a Ministerial brief on the prospective extinction of the Maugean Skate. That’s public money not… Continue Reading →

Author Interview. Failure Family Law Reform Australia.

To listen to the Café Locked Out interview with author John Stapleton on his new book Failure Family Law Reform Australia go to the YouTube link here. I strongly recommend this book, which compellingly demonstrates that the family law system… Continue Reading →

USAID Projects in Australia and Associated Controversies: An Overview

While USAID does not traditionally fund projects directly within Australia, it collaborates with the Australian government to support initiatives in neighbouring Pacific Island countries. Here are some notable projects: Controversies Surrounding USAID Projects Broader Implications Conclusion The collaboration between USAID… Continue Reading →

Australia: The Great Silence. The Power Of Now.

Michael Gray Griffith: Café Locked Out “I’m a paramedic,” he said. “Forty years. And do you know how many cases of myocarditis I saw in that time? Zero. Pericarditis? A few times, not many. But now—it’s everywhere.” “I’m a paramedic,”… Continue Reading →

Trump inherits the Guantánamo prison, complete with 4 ‘forever prisoners’

By Lisa Hajjar, University of California, Santa Barbara President Joe Biden’s record of handling the U.S. military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, is decidedly mixed. He succeeded in reducing the detainee population he inherited by more than half, but he… Continue Reading →

Classic Australiana: Jason In The Deep North 

From Café Locked Out If anything is going to make you laugh it is this funny and profound podcast. Shot at by poachers, dealing with crocodiles and the many travails of establishing an alluvial gold mining operation in the country’s… Continue Reading →

The Australian Electoral Commission wants to stop AI and misinformation. But it’s up against a problem that is Deep and Dark

Susan Grantham, Griffith University From the moment you open your social media feed, you’re stepping into a digital battleground where not all political messages are what they seem. The upcoming federal election will see an influx of deepfakes, doctored images,… Continue Reading →

Extract: Failure Family Law Reform Australia. From the Introduction. Publication date 28 February 2025.

Through the latter half of the twentieth century, as more than half of all marriages came to end in divorce, the belief that family law in Australia was overwhelmingly tilted against fathers and that this hostility was doing massive harm… Continue Reading →

Whipping up Aboriginal enthusiasm

Jack Waterford: Pearls and Irritations Here’s a sad prediction for 2025. By the end of next year, more states and territories will have dropped the age of criminal responsibility to 10, and adopted punitive laws based on slogans such as… Continue Reading →

DeepSeek shatters beliefs about the cost of AI, leaving US tech giants reeling

Michael J. Davern and Matt Pinnuck, The University of Melbourne Almost A$1 trillion (US$600 billion) was wiped off the value of artificial intelligence microchip maker Nvidia overnight on Monday, when a little-known Chinese startup, DeepSeek, threatened to upend the US… Continue Reading →

Why do some vaccine-injured people wake up – but others don’t?

By Rebekah Barnett: Dystopian Down Under As Covid vaccine injuries started mounting up, and the topic became somewhat less taboo in the media – albeit always accompanied by boilerplate text about how the benefits outweigh the risks – some of… Continue Reading →

Failure: Family Law Reform Australia. Out in February. Extract.

Chapter Two: A Little Bit Of History On the 5th of January 1976 the Family Law Act 1975 came into effect It was passed into law by just one vote This marked a controversial and historically significant turning point for… Continue Reading →

Why the Australian Media Failed during Covid: An Insider Perspective

David Southwell: Dystopian Down Under I’m a Daily Mail Journalist. When the Albanese government’s expert panel on Australia’s Covid response delivered its report late last year the verdict was damning. The panel found that harsh Covid measures were imposed often… Continue Reading →

The Age of Big Brother: Australia’s Biometric Shift

By Ethan Nash: TOTT News Biometric surveillance — the use of facial recognition, fingerprint scanning, voiceprints, and even behavioural tracking to monitor people — is rapidly expanding. Governments, corporations, and private institutions are quietly rolling out these technologies with promises… Continue Reading →

Sydney City Council snubs its own colonial history on Australia Day, gives $2 million to Chinese New Year instead

Alison Bevege: Letters from Australia British heritage demonised as Aboriginal cause used to bludgeon Australia. January 26 is not just Australia Day, it was the first settlement of Sydney. The First Fleet set up camp in Sydney Cove on 26… Continue Reading →

A Front Page Reminisce

John Stapleton Newspapers are collaborative efforts – journalists, editors, layout people, printers, distributors, the office manager, all combine to produce order out of the chaos of daily life. And every now and then, the universe decides to collaborate as well,… Continue Reading →

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