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John Roskam

This Month

Whether Zuckerberg made his decision because he wants to placate the incoming Trump administration or from a genuine commitment to free expression, we’ll never know.

Fact is, Meta’s following Musk’s populist’s vibe

Whether Mark Zuckerberg made his decision to placate Trump or from a commitment to free speech, it’s a victory for freedom of expression.

December 2024

Reagan aspires to be the ‘definitive’ biography. It’s too polemical to achieve that objective,

Biography looking for a proto-Trump is blind to Reagan’s vision

Reagan’s accomplishments as president are nitpicked into insignificance in a book that seems more intent on ransacking his administration for clues to explain the ascension of Donald Trump.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton during a press conference in July, flanked by the Australian flag.

Dutton should be ‘comfortable and relaxed’ about flag stance

The opposition leader knows the better path to social cohesion in an increasingly diverse community is to find what Australians have in common.

November 2024

The school principals and teachers barracking for the ban because they claim to care for young people are the same people who said almost nothing about the years of lost learning and missed experiences students suffered when schools were shut during COVID-19.

Australia’s social media ban is a joke

Media-manufactured moral panics come and go. That so many Labor and Coalition politicians have succumbed to this latest one, so unthinkingly, is frightening.

No Australian politician would dare do a three-hour interview.

Why the Libs can’t do a Trump

The lesson for Peter Dutton is not to copy the Donald – which in an Australian context would be impossible anyway. What he must be, though, is authentic.

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October 2024

Former Victorian premier Daniel Andrews has been appointed chairman of Melbourne-based youth mental health research body Orygen.

COVID-19 bullies could get away with it again

During the pandemic, few Australians were brave enough to say “stop”. We can hope for a different future, but there’s no sign things will be different next time.

King Charles III will make his first visit to Australia as its crowned head of state.

Charles III will find republicans who missed their best chance

The vibrant republican sentiment of the 1980s has been replaced by a dour, downbeat guilt-ridden version in the 2020s.

The Middle East conflict has strained social cohesion here in Australia.

For the Liberals, Israel is a rare moment of cultural unity

Even multicultural societies need some shared values. The Liberals feel confident they are defending them.

September 2024

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese arrives at the Business Council of Australia Annual Dinner at the Hyatt Regency with BCA president Geoff Culbert and CEO Bran Black.

CEOs who spend less time trying to be liked are heard more often

When company bosses spent less time trying to be liked, they got listened to more often.

The MSO is not a safe haven for everyone.

The MSO brought this row on itself

Young self-absorbed artists and old complacent arts organisations like the MSO don’t understand that great art is powerful because it transcends politics.

August 2024

In Parliament this week, the prime minister reduced to complaining that Peter Dutton was asking him questions about visas for Palestinians rather than about the cost of living.

Albanese should trust Australians by answering Gaza visa questions

Does the prime minister agree with the ASIO that ‘rhetorical’ support for Hamas shouldn’t automatically disqualify anyone from coming to Australia?

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and ASIO director-general Mike Burgess.

Albanese should call out the Greens on antisemitism

The PM is correct that “words matter”. So he should stop talking in code about the elevated terror threat.

July 2024

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaking at a campaign rally in Charlotte, his first since Joe Biden dropped out of the race.

If Trump and Vance are ‘populist’, there should be more of it

Trump and Vance make the media uncomfortable by saying things about issues like free speech and the family the Democrats would never dare to.

Fatima Payman will set on the Senate crossbench.

New sectarianism has Albanese in a multicultural muddle

A commitment to multiculturalism doesn’t answer why “Muslim Votes Matter” sits so uneasily with Australia’s liberal democracy.

June 2024

If Peter Dutton had been in the market for unambiguously popular policies he would have picked a different topic.

Nuclear should fire Coalition’s Fightback!

Finding the same combination of politics and principle on other policies might be the start of a strategy to win, not necessarily the next election – but the one after that.

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The glee with which the government greeted Peter Dutton’s remark that the Coalition wouldn’t commit to emissions reduction targets by 2030 was a little forced.

No truth in claim Dutton needs net zero to win teal seats

When the reality of the energy transition dawns on the Australian public, the Coalition will be able to get away with leaving the Paris Agreement.

May 2024

In this year’s annual JPMorgan Chase address, Jamie Dimon focused on wars, geopolitics, technology and AI, with climate change only mentioned during question and answers.

Business has bigger worries than ESG

One explanation for the seeming decline in discussion about ESG is that it’s something that goes in and out of fashion according to economic conditions.

Applause from colleagues, but it’s really an ominous message.

Australia’s new course is to be managed decline

The budget is our politics writ small: too lacking in confidence and optimism to seek out new growth.

At Mark Scott’s own campus, Sydney University, primary school students on a “kids’ excursion” chanted “5,6,7,8 Israel is a terrorist state”.

No safe spaces for Jewish students at universities

Vice chancellors say what’s happening on campuses here is a million miles away from what’s happening in the US. That’s a statement of wishful thinking – not reality.

April 2024

No matter what mistakes Scott Morrison made as prime minister, he answered truthfully when asked in parliament by Anthony Albanese how the Coalition government had responded to the allegation of a sexual assault in the defence minister’s office in March 2019,

Higgins ‘cover-up’ no Watergate. It was another ‘Russsiagate’

Journalists won “glittering prizes” for the stories that were misinformation, but there’s no sign of anyone giving back their awards.

Original URL: https://www.afr.com/by/john-roskam-j7gdt