This is the humblest day of my life, declared Rupert Murdoch to a parliamentary committee on 19 July 2011. (more…)
Category: Politics
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Best of 2025 – The Chris Hedges Report: We are all antifa now
The designation of the amorphous group antifa as a terrorist organisation allows the state to brand all dissidents as supporters of antifa and prosecute them as terrorists. (more…)
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Minister for Home Affairs Tony Burke should reject a visa application for Israeli President Herzog
Australia’s visa laws allow exclusion on grounds of character and incitement of discord. Those tests raise serious questions about whether Israel’s president should be welcomed while the killing in Gaza continues. (more…)
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Best of 2025 – Recognition of the Palestinian State without halting the genocide: A meaningless decision
Since the occurrence of the war in October 2023, which shocked the conscience of the world, bringing the Palestinian question back to the forefront of international attention, much more legitimacy has accrued to the rights of the Palestinians. (more…)
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Avoiding false conclusions
In the aftermath of the Bondi attack, explanations have been offered quickly and with strong moral force. Misidentifying the causes of violence, however, risks obscuring political responsibility and undermining efforts to reduce future harm.
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Best of 2025 – The poisonous chalice of recognition: A double-edged sword for Palestine
While we should not regard it as a “historical moment” or a “game changer”, the recognition does have the potential to help Palestinians lead us into a different future. (more…)
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Best of 2025 – More Boomers are choosing not to retire. Why? They don’t want to
As the great bulge of babies born after World War II has moved through their life course, the world has changed to suit them and their needs. (more…)
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Best of 2025 – Koalas, carbon credits and the fine print of conservation
We congratulate the NSW Government for establishing the Great Koala National Park, which will protect a nationally significant koala population. (more…)
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Best of 2025 – Disengaging from the dangerous alliance
When, in the course of close — some would say politically intimate — relations between allies, the dominant partner demands that the subordinate partner betray its democratic principles as a cost of receiving favourable treatment, the time has come to terminate the relationship. Such is now the state of the Australia-US alliance. (more…)
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Best of 2025 – Hamas is better than us
This headline could get me jail time if, as reported, the New Zealand Government is planning to take the same authoritarian turn that the UK has sunk to with its proscription of Palestine Action. It would represent another dangerous conflation of protest with terrorism. (more…)
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Best of 2025 – Don’t mistake truth for hate, prime minister
Anthony Albanese says Palestinian children are taught to hate. My daughter’s first trip home proves otherwise. (more…)
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Best of 2025 – Government is planning hardship for older Australians living at home
Aged care has again been in the media for all the wrong reasons. Two failures are attracting particular attention. (more…)
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Best of 2025 – How important is an Albanese-Trump meeting?
Trump’s record suggests that meetings with him frequently fail. Instead, Albanese has an important agenda to pursue at the UN in New York, and when dealing with the US better outcomes are more likely if Australia develops its own policies in its own interests. (more…)
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Best of 2025 – Ex-bishop questions if Coalition is committed to Mideast peace
Former Anglican bishop of Canberra Goulburn, George Browning, has criticised federal Opposition leader Sussan Ley over a letter she sent to members of the Republican Party who had written to Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, attempting to stop him from recognising a Palestinian state at the UN this week. (more…)
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We’ve had 26 royal commissions. Their failures should caution us against a repeat
Calls for a royal commission after the Bondi shootings reflect public anger and distrust, but decades of experience suggest such inquiries rarely deliver lasting reform or accountability. (more…)
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Best of 2025 – What game is he playing? The PM and AUKUS
As the Australian prime minister prepares for his visit to the UN in New York next week, Robert Macklin looks into what Anthony Albanese might be hoping for on the trilateral security deal. (more…)
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Best of 2025 – Genocide betrays the living and the dead
Genocide scholars Damir Mitric and Jill Klein have deep personal and professional experience in genocide and repercussions across generations. As the world watches in horror as the genocide in Gaza continues, they bring us their story. (more…)
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Best of 2025 – UN at 80 – Rome is burning, governments are fiddling and the UN is ailing – Part 1
This year marks the 80th anniversary of the signing of the UN Charter. During these eight decades, much has been accomplished that calls for celebration. Yet, there is no denying that the United Nations is facing perhaps the greatest crisis of its 80-year history. (more…)
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Best of 2025 – Flawed Hero, flawed decision: The War Memorial’s institutional cowardice
The Australian War Memorial remains one of Australia’s most cherished national institutions, attracting a million visitors, mainly tourists, to Canberra each year. (more…)
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Best of 2025 – Blaming China won’t keep the lights on – or pay the power bill
Sky News is back on the beat with a familiar headline: “The $20,000-per-person climate tax: Cost of Australia’s green agenda to become astonishingly clear this week when new emissions targets are set.” (more…)
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Best of 2025 – A smart productivity play: Stop subsidising loss-making native forest logging
On 7 September 2025, NSW set the proposed 476,000-hectare boundary for the Great Koala National Park and halted native-forest logging within it (plantation harvesting continues), with formal gazettal slated for 2026. (more…)
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Best of 2025 – FOI changes big backward step for government transparency
There has been much commentary, most of it critical, about federal Attorney-General Michelle Rowland’s recently introduced Bill that amends the Freedom of Information Act by restricting access through measures that will allow undermine a core democratic principles – accountability by government to the people it serves. (more…)
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Best of 2025 – Vale Pat Power, a true minister
The Australian Catholic Church lost one of its genuine leaders on Monday morning with the death of 83-year-old Bishop Patrick Power, retired Auxiliary-Bishop of Canberra Goulburn. (more…)
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Best of 2025 – Out of darkness comes a shaft of cheer
The news from Indonesia this month has been dispiriting – natural disaster flooding in Bali and Flores, man-made maladministration, political chicanery, perpetual graft and rioting in the cities. The headlines imply the country is crumpling. It’s not, and here’s why. (more…)
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Best of 2025 – Australia needs to diplomatically disengage from our ‘dangerous ally’
It seems likely that our prime minister will meet Donald Trump at the United Nations General Assembly later this month. (more…)
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Rethinking the call for a royal commission after Bondi
After initially calling for a federal royal commission into the Bondi attack, Greg Barns and Kym Davey explain why they have changed their minds – and why existing legal processes may offer greater accountability without inflaming division.
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Best of 2025 – Why key leaders attended China’s military parade – Asian Media Report
In Asian media this week: Nations “must adapt” to new power politics. Plus: Raid “will hurt” South Korea’s US investments; Trump’s strategic shift towards Pakistan; What’s next after Nepal’s 8 September massacre; Thailand gets its first minority government; Why India has the world’s biggest diaspora. (more…)
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Best of 2025 – If we want to win the Pacific, we must first listen – and stop blaming China for everything
A 9 September editorial in The Sydney Morning Herald, titled China and Australia in a high-speed race to win control of the Pacific, offered a vivid picture of the daily contest for influence in the region. (more…)
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Best of 2025 – Rupert Murdoch’s greatest scoop
On Wednesday 25 February 1976, The Australian published a sensational front page story headlined “Iraq promises $US500,000 to pay Labor’s debts/Whitlam in secret Arab election deal”. (more…)
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Best of 2025 – Climate change risk to our coastal cities
Confronting the nation’s coastal urban cities as it approaches 2055, 30 years on, will be both higher sea levels and air and water temperatures. (more…)