Israel needs and deserves better leadership
I have always abhorred the right-wing political party Likud and its leader, Benjamin Netanyahu. I believe millions of Jews in Israel and the diaspora agree.
Columnists
A girl crush – just when I least expected it
I really wasn’t open for business in the new friend department. I actively retreat from the possibility of new mates. But then her. A fellow writer. Around my age. We got on instantly.
Canberra thinks differently to Australia – that’s a problem
How can a workforce without exposure to the lives of everyday Australians make truly informed decisions about this same community?
Horrors of my horoscope better to remain unknown
Had I read my stars a decade ago, it would have been a horrorscope. Among the surprises ahead? Deafness, heart trouble, cancer. I could add more but you get the picture.
Manual, safe, not too fast: the perfect car for a learner
I decided, cruelly and uncoolly, to teach my son to drive in a manual car. This is just one of the many, many ways in which I am wrong about things, apparently. How did he fare?
Behold the time-travelling magic of overlapping lives
My message to kids is to speak up: ask grandparents whatever you want to know. And to grandparents: your job is to instil endless wonder, curiosity and awe in your stories.
I implore you — don’t become GWM Cannon fodder
I know it’s starting to seem as if I hate all Chinese cars, and it’s fair to ask whether I’m the problem, but in this case everyone else I know despised this giant, gosh-ugly blob of metal too.
You would hardly recognise the world I grew up in
On Grandpa’s farm horses delivered our bread, milk, firewood and ice, and on our tiny farm Blossom pulled both cart and plough.
‘Best’: What your email sign-off says about you
Woe betide those of us whose emails sign-off using old-fashioned phrases like ‘Yours sincerely’ or ‘Yours faithfully’. Showing your age, grandpa. Here’s what you should be saying instead.
Australia has a special relationship with failure
For many, our greatest national failure has been our treatment of the First Australians. And in a dark victory for bigotry and wilful ignorance, we failed to pass the voice.
The referendum highlighted a split in this country
A referendum is a lot like a census. This past one shows us we need to work harder to ensure that we include the opinions and the thinking of Middle Australia going forward.
Pirating my books to train artificial intelligence? This is war
My life project: to explore what it is to be female, in this bewildering, beautiful world. And Big Tech wants to suck the marrow out of my words, for its own profit, and not pay me a cent.
Believe it or not, there are some fast cars I don’t want to drive
All men are self-deluding creatures who engender the phrase, ‘How hard can it be?’ But believe me, driving a Formula One car is something only the super human can do.
Retirement is a nebulous concept … until it happens
You are cruising through life on the late 40s highway – dealing with work, teenagers, mortgage – when it occurs to you that ‘understanding super’ is something maybe you should be across.
You thought wheeled luggage was clever? Wait ’til you hear this…
I’m not here to exult in my past achievements, though, but to announce a completely new product line. Wheeled coffins.
Climate catastrophe makes World War 3 look trivial
The Final Judgement on our human stewardship of this dilapidated planet looms. And it looks like we’ll all be found guilty – and given the death sentence.
Aussie childhood is imprinted on us — and won’t let us go
This geography, this topography, shapes all of us who lived their childhood in this land. The response to nature is collected in our bones and it calls to us all our lives.
Is this the end for skiing in Australia?
A photo of dismal mud at the bottom of a Mount Buller chairlift went viral. Will Australia even have a ski industry in a few decades?
WFH supercharges a worrying trend
This idea of organising work around life rather than life around work has taken off. But remote working has exposed a bigger issue.
Why voting Yes is personal for me
Dorothea Mackellar loved her sunburnt country but, like the unpoetic Constitution, she failed to mention its original inhabitants in her epic poem. Too late for Dorothea, but not for us.
Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/weekend-australian-magazine/columnists/page/12