This Month
- Opinion
- Middle East tensions
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
- Opinion
- Australian economy
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.
- Opinion
- Culture wars
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
- Opinion
- Immigration
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?
- Opinion
- Immigration
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
- Opinion
- US election
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.
- Opinion
- Immigration
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
- Opinion
- Nuclear energy
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.
- Opinion
- Energy transition
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
- Opinion
- Governance
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.
- Opinion
- Federal budget
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.
- Opinion
- University
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
- Opinion
- Lehrmann trial
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.
- Opinion
- Political leadership
A governor-general from the Chairman’s Lounge
The PM is truer than he knows when he says Sam Mostyn represents modern Australia. It’s a nation of talkers, not doers.
March
- Opinion
- GST
Loser Victoria shouldn’t be a GST winner
Any federal government that’s serious about reforming Commonwealth-state relations would stop rewarding Victoria’s disastrous financial mismanagement.
February
- Opinion
- Liberal Party
Dunkley is the Liberal Party’s chance to advance on Morrison
The timing of the former PM’s departure with the byelection is coincidental but symbolic of potentially a new form of politics on the centre-right that’s democratising democracy.
- Opinion
- Liberal Party
Dutton needs his own version of Fightback
As the Coalition tries to work out a way forward on tax, the focus should be on how it won some of the big policy debates of the past.
- Opinion
- Federal election
Tax cuts reveal Albanese is brazen and cynical
After this, the suggestion that now is a good time to start a discussion about the development of a broad agenda for tax reform is naive.
January
- Opinion
- Liberal Party
Enter the Liberal Party, working-class heroes
The Liberals have won over the battlers before. Now they have a new cause in voters’ fears that their children will never be able to afford a home.
- Opinion
- Culture wars
Existential panic at the ivory tower
The Claudine Gay fiasco at Harvard has triggered a US debate about the purpose of higher education that Australia seems determined not to have.