Category blog
Susan Broomhall, Australian Catholic University; Andrea Gaynor, The University of Western Australia, and Andy Flack, University of Bristol When was the last time you saw a frog? Perhaps you came across one in your garden and wondered at its little… Continue Reading →
By Brian Toohey: Pearls and Irritations The Australian Secret Intelligence Service was established in 1950 to conduct spying overseas and morally repulsive covert operations. It had a slow start, but in the 1970s it sent three staff to Chile to… Continue Reading →
Sean Campbell, Anglia Ruskin University During a concert in Dublin in 2022, Bob Dylan paused between songs to pay tribute to another singer-songwriter who was in attendance that night. “I want to say hello to Shane MacGowan”, said Dylan, praising… Continue Reading →
By Lindsay Murdoch and Michael Vatikiotis: Australian Strategic Policy Institute John McBeth, one of Asia’s pre-eminent journalists with a record of scrupulous and groundbreaking reporting, has died after a short illness. He was 79. Over a career spanning more than… Continue Reading →
By Rex Patrick: Michael West Media The Albanese Government has just announced another $3B into the US submarine industrial base, in addition to the $4.7B already committed. It’s money that should have been spent in Australia instead. Rex Patrick reports on a… Continue Reading →
Michelle Grattan, University of Canberra Peter Dutton has his tail up, but he’s being careful to manage expectations. As the opposition celebrates its suddenly improved fortunes, Dutton told the party room this week that inevitably the government would recalibrate over… Continue Reading →
A Sense of Place Magazine was an unabashed fan of Maria Popova’s celebrated blog Brain Pickings, which has now evolved into the more mature The Marginalian, easily one of the best literary journals in the world. Her book Figuring is a fascinating… Continue Reading →
By Professor Ramesh Thakur: The Brownstone Institute The evil that men do lives after them. The good is oft interred with their bones. Thus spake Mark Antony in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. So let it be with Covid. I ask as… Continue Reading →
Henry Kissinger’s death draws to a close the epoch of intellectualism in foreign policy to which he was committed following his early study of and belief in a system of organised strategic balance and restraint of the kind that emerged… Continue Reading →
Ethan Nash: TOTT NEWS The federal government’s concerning ‘misinformation bill’ will face delays and head back to the drawing board, following significant criticisms of the dystopian legislation. But it will re-emerge in the future. The Albanese government is reportedly set to overhaul its… Continue Reading →
By Paul Collits Every Australian, or just about every Australian, knew what happened on the 14th of October. The date for the massively divisive, ill-conceived and and problematic Referendum on an Indigenous Voice to Parliament finally came to pass. We… Continue Reading →
By David Bell: Brownstone Institute If you place a frog in cool water and slowly raise the temperature, it’s said that you can boil it without it noticing and fighting to free itself. I never tested this, as I liked… Continue Reading →
Ellen K. Mather, Mike Lee, and Trevor H. Worthy, Flinders University Today, Australia is home to 17 species of hawks and eagles. But the fossil record shows some other, rather special raptors were present in the relatively recent past. Tens… Continue Reading →
By John Stapleton. With TOTT News. In a first, the National Free Media Summit in Adelaide last weekend brought together a gathering of some of the liveliest journalistic talents to emerge from the past few dark and tumultuous years of… Continue Reading →
Kara Thomas: Australian Medical Professionals Society ‘The medical-political complex tends towards suppression of science to aggrandise and enrich those in power. And, as the powerful become more successful, richer, and further intoxicated with power, the inconvenient truths of science are… Continue Reading →
Anna Clark, University of Technology Sydney Despite the inherent chance and coincidence of Australian history, there’s a certain sense of inevitability when we trace our national narrative in hindsight. The sequence of chapters in our textbooks and syllabuses seems logical… Continue Reading →
By Toby Rogers: University of Sydney When the Commons was Eden “The commons” is a foundational idea in left political philosophy. The commons refers to shared spaces — oceans, lakes, rivers, forests, the air — that are not owned by… Continue Reading →
By Greg Barns: Michael West Media Israel has killed more than 7000 Palestinians since the brutal Hamas attacks of October 7 sparked the war on Gaza. Human rights lawyer Greg Barns SC examines Australia’s complicity in war crimes. That Israel and Hamas… Continue Reading →
Michelle Grattan, University of Canberra At a White House briefing last week, Joe Biden’s press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, was asked whether there’d been any thought of postponing Anthony Albanese’s state visit because of the Middle East conflict. No, she said,… Continue Reading →
By Greg Barns: Pearls and Irritations Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will have plenty to talk about when he meets with US President Joe Biden this week. The Middle East, China, AUKUS and submarines will no doubt dominate the agenda. But… Continue Reading →
Collated By John Stapleton Russell Shakespeare is one of Australia’s most celebrated photographers, having worked in newspapers and magazines for the past three decades, fulfilling an obsession which began in early childhood. He is rarely ever seen without a camera… Continue Reading →
Something different is killing Australian people in a most unusual way, and in large numbers. This unsettling fact has been evident to the Australian Medical Professionals Society and the time has come to confront it. Authorities in medicine, and the… Continue Reading →
By John Stapleton Australia has the world’s highest electricity costs, highest housing costs, slowest and most expensive internet, most insane immigration system and consequently one of the most fractured societies on Earth. And is one of the most heavily taxed… Continue Reading →
By Paul Strangio: Monash University Who have been Australia’s most accomplished federal opposition leaders? The conventional answer to this question is Robert Menzies and Gough Whitlam, both renowned for rejuvenating their respective sides of politics and galvanising new constituencies of… Continue Reading →
By John Stapleton Since the beginning of literature technologies have shaped the written word. And thereby publishing technologies have shaped history, culture, politics and war. The adage history is written by the victors has transposed in this truly astonishing era… Continue Reading →
By John Stapleton. Sources: Various. Millions of words have been written over the past 18 months in Australia about a government proposal to create an Indigenous Voice to Parliament, an advisory body to represent the interests of the Nation’s First… Continue Reading →
By Rebekah Barnett: Dystopian Down Under Elite left-wingers say racist voters are duped by misinformation, but the Taranto Principle suggests that, once again, it is the elites who are duped by the reverberations in their own echo chamber. Formulated by… Continue Reading →
The Australian government is determined to embark on the greatest act of environmental vandalism in the nation’s history, the building of massive offshore windfarms which will destroy whale and bird migration routes, cause massive disruption to the marine ecosystem, decimate… Continue Reading →
By John Stapleton Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will be touring Australia this week promoting the “Vote Yes” campaign for the Referendum for constitutional recognition of an Indigenous Voice to Parliament, prior to the vote this coming Saturday, 14 October. Problematic… Continue Reading →
Rebecca Banham, University of Tasmania. The famous Sycamore Gap tree in the UK was felled last week, prompting global expressions of sorrow, anger and horror. For some, the reaction was puzzling. Wasn’t it just a single tree in northern England?… Continue Reading →
Callum Foote: Michael West Media Forestry officials have blocked journalist access to scientists at a global forum earlier this month aimed at monitoring the destruction of native forests. This report explores the secrecy of Department of Agriculture officials following the destruction… Continue Reading →