The death of the heroic political backstory
The orange waters of Secret Harbour
‘There are no safe Labor seats in this state, or in this country any more…’ declared Luke Herdegen, the freshly…
Can Victoria send Albo a melon-surrender bin?
While the fabric of Australia is tearing itself to bits, the national conversation remains preoccupied with the Prime Minister’s melon…
Do politicians have the right to block citizens on social media?
Politicians, or perhaps their shallow-minded media managers, have been going crazy with the ‘block’ button. If you call the Treasurer…
I can’t believe they haven’t banned Community Notes
The fragile feelings and unconvincing campaign promises of politicians are under threat from … X’s Community Notes. We know because…
The Victorianisation of Australia
Australians’ living standards have gone backwards since the end of the pandemic in 2022. In a healthy economy, per capita…
The real secret of Secret Harbour
The real secret of Secret Harbour is that One Nation’s national vote may actually be much higher than we think…
Education departments have a plan for the bully. What about the victim?
A mother asked a fairly elementary question last week: When is enough finally enough? Her primary school-aged son, she says,…
The death of the heroic political backstory
In Blackadder the Third, Series 3, Episode 5, ‘Amy and Amiability’, Warren Clarke’s Josiah Hardwood cuts a formidable figure. The…
When did normal become ‘far-right’?
As an older member of Generation X, I was born only 25 years after the end of the second world…
Woodside drops $7 billion low-carbon investment target
In a sharp reversal of its former clean-energy commitments, energy giant Woodside has apparently dumped its $7 billion low-carbon investment…
One Nation is winning the battle for the somewheres
To help explain Pauline Hanson and One Nation’s rise, it is instructive to reference David Goodhart’s seminal work, The Road…
Open Letter to Dr Anna Cody
Dear Dr Cody, I am a retired Humanities and Social Sciences academic. I am well read in third wave feminist…
Woke hasn’t killed Australia’s adventurer spirit
I was brought up on Boy’s Own adventures. I remember pacing up and down with Sir Douglas Bader’s Reach for…
Tanya Plibersek’s history lesson for young Australians
In early August, the Minister for Social Services, Tanya Plibersek, provided a history lesson for ungrateful young Australians. ‘There’s never…
Checking in on the health of our government
Once again, this week, I heard reports about inflation, interest rates, immigration, employment, and also sex-related humour. How do we…
The standard you walk past
Recently TikTok-ing her way into Victoria’s psychologically bruised subconscious is Labor’s Legislative Council member Sonja Terpstra – clearly unhappy about…
The Curley problem of cynical vote harvesting
Most of you will recognise the Curley Effect, even if you haven’t heard of it. James Curley, also known as…
Victorians have every right to be angry
Ben Carroll can abolish the 1 per cent transport levy, but he cannot abolish the questions surrounding how it came…
Immigration confusion
A clear majority of Australians want less immigration, but it’s not clear exactly what that means. In the lead-up to…
Shahriyaragan: The ancient Iranian tradition of ideal kingship
This essay concerns a desire that Iranians have preserved deep within their collective soul for centuries, a longing for the…
Australia’s eSafety Commissioner loses again – A victory for free speech | Celine Baumgarten S3 Ep 18
Celine Baumgarten (Celine Against the Machine) has celebrated her SECOND victory against the eSafety Commissioner. This wasn’t only a personal…
Did Donald Trump conquer the world with witty insults? | Joel Gilbert S3 Ep 17
Did Donald Trump conquer the world with witty insults? I’m joined by Joel Gilbert to discuss the genius of humour…
Digital tyranny or ‘child safety’? 😵 & the bitcoin revolution | Efrat Fenigson S3 Ep 16
When Australia’s Under 16 social media ban started locking adult political writers out of #Substack – it was just the…
Dolly, Kylie & Albo
Just when you thought it was safe to view melons simply as grocery items, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese himself has,…
Brown study
In the last week, Melongate has proceeded along its sordid way. But it has now taken on a new significance.…
One trillion and counting
Last week, the federal government’s debt dial clicked over one trillion dollars. It’s a figure we should have avoided. But…
The High Court’s Pauline problem
How exciting. Three weeks ago in these pages, I predicted that if Pauline Hanson sought special leave to appeal to…
The heretics strike back
Raising the profile of a not-for-profit organisation is no easy task. Add to that trying to bring in new members.…
Murdoch, the Australian and me
We all know the Australian, the national newspaper Rupert Murdoch created in 1964, as a publication that generally occupies the…
Britain’s feuding conservatives
Most Spectator Australia readers won’t have heard of Sir Simon Woolley, the Right Honourable the Lord Woolley of Woodford, a…
Safety catch
Antisemitism is an abomination, unacceptable in any civilised society. Yet, as we look at the current state of our streets…
TikToxic antisemitism
One of the most illuminating pieces of evidence given to the Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion came in…
The Productivity Commission has declared war on productivity
I served on the staff of Alf Rattigan’s Tariff Board, the Productivity Commission’s ancestor, in the years it began pulling…
Super spivs
Australia’s compulsory superannuation scheme, says Liberal Senator Andrew Bragg, is ‘a massive failure, probably the biggest failure of public policy…
Brown study
The Spectator Australia has just received a leak of the latest entry in the private diary of Anthony Albanese, Prime…
Iceland’s ‘No’ vote is a warning to Europe
This summer, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, Jamie Dimon, bluntly told the American Council on Foreign Relations think tank that…
The unlikely defenders of Milo Yiannopoulos
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained and deported British provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos last week. The official X account of the Department of Homeland Security posted…
Ali G and the death of comedy
Ali G: Who Iz I? is set to hit cinema screens next month. The return of this bling-bedecked denizen of…
Will the shadow chancellor scrap inheritance tax?
In Toryworld, big changes are afoot. Kemi Badenoch has started with the personnel: out goes Priti Patel, replaced as foreign…
Katie Lam gets Cleverly’s old brief
Of all the 26 Tory MPs elected in the new intake, none has grabbed more headlines than Katie Lam. A…
Revealed: the new Tory MPs promoted to Badenoch’s shadow cabinet
MPs from the 2024 intake are being appointed to the Conservative shadow cabinet as part of Kemi Badenoch’s reshuffle, The…
Badenoch bets on a new economy team
Today is the day that Kemi Badenoch settles all family business. A Tory reshuffle that was expected to be small…
Priti Patel out as Kemi Badenoch shuffles her team
It seems that the shadow cabinet reshuffle is less of an event and more of a process. Traditionally, these events…
Has the internet killed comedy?
The comedians have bolted. Once, they were confined to underground clubs, scheduled radio, sitcoms and panel shows. But no more.…
The great lie of ‘multi-faith’ prayer rooms
Waiting in the ITN greenroom before a television appearance recently, I spotted a sign in the corridor for the multi-faith…
Simon Woolley is not fit to lead a Cambridge college
A man stands at a rally in Trafalgar Square, ranting that Jason Arday was murdered in a ‘lynching’ and ‘public assassination’ by…
I’m not convinced keeping PC Harper’s killers in jail is justified
Just in time to meet his self-imposed deadline of early September, the Prime Minister has found a way of preventing two cop-killers from returning to the…
Why you shouldn’t shrug at New Zealand’s greyhound racing ban
Greyhound racing ended in New Zealand on August 1. Those who neither own a greyhound nor care for the sport…
A New Zealand republic in Jacinda Ardern’s lifetime?
New Zealand’s former Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, believes the nation will become a republic within her lifetime. We have heard…
The row over English becoming an official language of New Zealand
Parliamentarians in New Zealand have been limbering up for an oddly unedifying debate over what ought to be the most…
What they don’t tell you about Christmas in New Zealand
‘I still think New Zealand the most beautiful country I have ever seen,’ Agatha Christie marvelled in 1922. Evidently she’s…
Jason Arday’s tragic death is no reason to silence the press
This silly and drivelling piece of tosh
Every so often something comes along that is so bad it fills the soul with wonder and dismay. It seems…
This devastating portrait of Americana
It’s more than 75 years since Lee J. Cobb opened in Elia Kazan’s production of Death of a Salesman and…
An aggravated splendour
Rod Liddle, who died on 2 August, was a journalist of genius and you could only feel a bit wonder-struck…
An exercise in murder
A friend said recently that the only two people he knew who had read Thomas Mann’s Joseph and His Brothers…
An excellent spy: Cold Sunset, by William Boyd, reviewed
Gabriel Dax, the hero of William Boyd’s latest spy thriller, is one of literature’s reluctant spies: good, solitary men who…
We must stop treating soil like dirt
There is a delightful moment at the end of this book when Frank Ashwood is out looking for soil-dwelling invertebrates…
The wonder of ancient English parish churches
John Betjeman, the patron saint of the English parish church, invented the term ‘church-crawler’ in 1948. Rachel Morley acknowledges his…
A world full of artifice: Life of M, by Rachel Cusk, reviewed
The twin themes of Rachel Cusk’s latest novel are truth and fame. In fact it’s not quite accurate to call…
How black music changed the world
In the boiling August of 1919, a 27-piece African-American jazz outfit called the Southern Syncopated Orchestra was summoned to play…
Could we bring back the Great Auk?
In 2023, the State of Nature Report announced that Britain was one of the world’s most nature-depleted countries. This can…
Would Eve Babitz really have wanted her unsent letters published?
‘I regard Too L.A. as Eve’s second masterpiece – her first being, of course, Slow Days, Fast Company – and…
Why Mussolini still fascinates Italians
You do not have to travel far in Italy to encounter the remains of Mussolini’s dreams of architectural splendour. From…