Mungo MacCallum (Dec’d)

The hard fact is that the lists which bulk up the morning papers each year are far from representative of our diverse population, and suggest that there is at least a vestige of the despised British class system still lingering at the edges of the cultural cringe.   (more…)

So even if we ignore the bunyip in the room – the invasion, the stealing of the land and the children, the destruction of the culture, the systematic trampling of the many nations which once made up the continent – there are copious reasons to question whether our national festival of nationalism and booze is, to use one of Turnbull’s favourite words, appropriate.   (more…)

Exclusive, scoop, shock, horror! Politicians tell porkies!  In an amazing journalistic breakthrough, it can be revealed that sometimes Australia’s political leaders may not hold strictly to the unvarnished truth. Lengthy and painstaking research shows that there are times when they exaggerate and even mislead the public in a quest for advantage.   (more…)

So here we go—2018, the year of delivery.

Or was that 2017, or maybe 2016? No matter – 2018 will be the year Malcolm Turnbull’s government seizes the initiative, surging forward to cement its underrated achievements to take control of politics and the economy.  (more…)

Malcolm Turnbull’s New Year resolution is apparently to update his slogan – jobs and growth is so 2017, and thus is ready for a rejig. (more…)

The renaissance of Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership proclaimed with such jubilation by John Alexander after regaining the seat of Bennelong lasted just 24 hours. (more…)

You may have missed it in all the excitement and jubilation of the passage of same sex marriage, but last week Malcolm Turnbull announced the most significant overhaul of Australia’s espionage laws in decades. (more…)

So after all that, the bomb did not drop, the world has not ended. John Alexander has been re-elected and Australia’s champion, Bennelong’s champion, will relapse into the obscurity of the backbench whence he came. (more…)

There is an old science fiction story about a totalitarian state which regularly paraded dissidents before a packed arena bent on retribution and punishment.   (more…)

When the New South Wales Nationals leader John Barilaro called for Malcolm Turnbull’s resignation last week, it was simple for Turnbull’s federal allies to dismiss it as just another distraction – just another frustrated voice howling into the empty air.   (more…)

A vague and uncosted promise of tax cuts and a debate on religious freedom are Turnbull’s tactics to push serious policy issues off the Parliamentary agenda, and to distract public attention from the Coalition’s troubles. (more…)

The government of Malcolm Turnbull has now transcended mere dysfunction – it has lapsed into anarchy, total chaos. (more…)

Let’s cut to the chase: whatever the optimists in the ALP may imagine, there is almost no chance of Kristina Keneally beating John Alexander in the Bennelong by-election. (more…)

So Malcolm Turnbull’s big idea to end the dual citizen crisis is to ask (or perhaps tell – it is not clear which) his troops, and presumably the rest of the parliament, to explain openly and concisely whether they believe they are compliant with the constitution or not. (more…)

Simon Birmingham and other exasperated colleagues are quite right: it is bizarre and dishonest in the extreme for those who have spent the last months – years even –  implacably opposing same sex marriage to now demand the right to determine how it is to be implemented, assuming the interminable plebiscite get a majority this week. (more…)

Taking a break between grave matters of national security and remembering the holocaust in Israel, Malcolm Turnbull said somewhat incongruously that he was having more fun than he had ever had in his life. (more…)

After a week of incompetence, chaos and downright embarrassment Malcolm Turnbull may have been looking for a silver lining. (more…)

Tony Abbott’s bravura performance as a stand-up comic at the Flat Earthers Twilight Home Laugh In, or whatever it was called, deservedly received rave reviews – the consensus was that he was a raving ratbag. (more…)

I may be getting nostalgic n my old age – hell, I am getting nostalgic in my old age. But it was hard not to rejoice in the good old days as Bob Hawke and Gareth Evans arrived at the National Club Press last week to spruik Evan’s memoir.  (more…)

Well it was not exactly water tight – or perhaps gas tight. (more…)

“Keep politics out of sport.”  No doubt this piece of graffiti appeared some two thousand years ago on the walls of Olympia, when the Roman emperors were accused of fixing the chariot race. Certainly it has appeared on and off ever since as conservatives pretend that sport is some sacred activity that can be divorced from the messy business of being part of the society in which it takes place.

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ABC news flashed the headline last Thursday: “Abbott headbutted by SSM supporter.”  For a delirious moment I thought that Malcolm Turnbull had finally run out of patience with his sniping, undermining, wrecking tormentor and replied to his latest provocation with a full blown Liverpool kiss.   (more…)

The Australian has now abandoned any pretence that the current plebiscite has anything to do with same sex marriage and instead embarked on a holy war to maintain, and if possible enhance, religious (by which it really means Roman Catholic) privilege.   (more…)

Malcolm Turnbull is doing something about the energy crisis he has manufactured. (more…)