This Month
Trump-loving cable network Newsmax to launch in Australia
ADH TV, launched by former broadcaster Alan Jones, will bring the right-wing news channel by expanding under the Newsmax Australia brand.
- Kylar Loussikian
- Opinion
- Governance
Corporate advocacy isn’t passing the pub test
Controversy over business hand-wringing about Australia Day shows why taking public stances is fraught.
- Patrick Langrell
November
- Analysis
- Antisemitism
The meaning of Amsterdam’s ‘Jew Hunt’
Recent street violence in Amsterdam reveals profound changes in how the left and right deal with antisemitism. For European Jews, it’s a strange new world.
- Hans van Leeuwen
World braces for Trump’s ‘clown show’ defence chief
The Iraq and Afghanistan veteran and Fox News host gained notoriety by blaming “wokeness” for US military failures. Now he is set to be in charge.
- Mehul Srivastava, John Paul Rathbone and Lucy Fisher
Jamie Oliver’s editors should have seen this scandal coming
British publishers are scratching their heads as to how Penguin Random House UK could have left the celebrity chef’s kids’ book exposed to an A-grade furore.
- Hans van Leeuwen
- Opinion
- US Votes 2024
Democrats learnt the hard way that woke is broke
Democrats don’t understand why they turned off so many working-class voters over the decades, and why they developed such disdain towards their once loyal base.
- Maureen Dowd
Britain’s first black party leader is an anti-woke warrior
Kemi Badenoch won the protracted Conservative Party leadership contest, and has until 2029 to craft a pitch to defeat Labour.
- Hans van Leeuwen
October
Guilt-mongers and hedonists: Jordan Peterson rails against society
Jordan Peterson delivered his speech via video link and did not attend a high-powered dinner on Monday night at the Opera House.
- Maxim Shanahan
September
- Opinion
- Opinion
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.
- John Roskam
August
- Analysis
- Paris 2024
Khelif gets her fairytale ending. The controversy’s far from over
‘I am a strong woman,’ says the Algerian boxer. The trouble is, not everyone agrees, and the fracas has now turned into an Olympic-level culture war.
- Updated
- Hans van Leeuwen
June
- Analysis
- ABC wars
In Australia, Tucker Carlson finds a new enemy: the ABC
The right-wing commentator wrongly accused the ABC of criticising him, in another example of how on society’s fringe the market for alternate realities runs strong.
- Aaron Patrick
What triggered the PM to say he opposes ‘cancel culture’ in the arts
The prime minister has used the opening of a major exhibition in Canberra to defend the problematic legacy of French post-impressionist Paul Gauguin.
- Tom McIlroy
The man who foresaw the rise of campus antisemitism
Melbourne philosopher Frank Knopfelmacher was a world-class critic of totalitarianism who watched the left turn on Israel.
- John Carroll
- Opinion
- Opinion
Britain’s arts sector learns the cost of being too pure for finance
A bank and asset manager have withdrawn their sponsorship of music and book festivals in the UK after activists called for boycotts.
- Celia Walden
- Opinion
- Opinion
The educated elite is destroying America
Progressive culture has spread from the universities to national life, triggering a backlash that benefits political populists such as Donald Trump.
- David Brooks
April
Captain Cook’s first Australian souvenir returned to Indigenous owners
Cambridge University has surrendered a set of spears taken the momentous day when Sydney’s Indigenous people first set eyes on their eventual colonisers.
- Hans van Leeuwen
- Opinion
- The AFR View
Forensic judgment proves rape, debunks political cover-up
Justice Lee’s factual pushback at some of the unthinking cultural warfare that has overwhelmed politics and media in recent times has performed a great service.
- The AFR View
- Opinion
- Review
JK Rowling is too rich and popular to silence on hate crime mania
The children’s author is irrepressible, which is why her opposition to free speech restrictions in Britain is so important.
- Michael Deacon
January
Bill Ackman brings activist playbook to the culture wars
The investor fashioned a place for himself as an arbiter of how public companies should behave. He’s now using similar tactics to dictate terms far beyond business.
- Annie Massa, Katherine Burton and Amanda Gordon
‘Veggies with a side of morality’: Liberals back Woolies war
Liberal MPs have backed in Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s call for a Woolworths boycott, saying Australians want companies to stay out of politics.
- Gus McCubbing