Opinion
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Health July 2, 2022
John Hewson
Preparing for future crises
Controversial English historian Arnold Toynbee, having reviewed and analysed the rise and fall of more than 20 civilisations, concluded that “civilisations are not murdered, they commit suicide by not meeting their challenges”. This raises some …
Politics July 2, 2022
Judith Brett
Can the Liberals stay relevant?
The greatest challenge facing the defeated federal Liberal Party is not whether to move to the right or the left, nor whether to court voters in the outer suburbs or try to win back its once blue-ribbon seats. It is how to stay relevant and it’s a challenge …
Politics July 2, 2022
Chris Wallace
A world away from Morrison
The de-ScoMofication of Australia on the world stage took a leap forward this week as the Albanese government consolidated its international relations edge over an enfeebled opposition in a series of high-level meetings in Europe. In just over a month, …
Media June 25, 2022
Kevin Rudd
What Murdoch does to new governments
As Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s new ministers settle in to their portfolios, efforts are already under way by the Murdoch media to undermine the government. Take, for example, their complete beat-up about Tanya Plibersek being “sidelined” …
Politics June 18, 2022
John Hewson
A matter of integrity commission
In December 2018, 34 former judges wrote a letter to the prime minister expressing their support for the establishment of a national integrity commission with the power to hold public hearings. Apparently, it was not Scott Morrison’s “job” to take …
Politics June 25, 2022
John Hewson
The Peter Dutton principle
While it is still early days, it is becoming clear that the Coalition and their media sycophants didn’t believe they would lose the election. They seem unprepared to move on. Beyond the immediate disappointment – both individually, for those who …
Environment June 18, 2022
Scott Ludlam
Why nuclear energy won’t work in Australia
There is something almost comical about the Liberals and Nationals throwing the forlorn spectre of nuclear power back into national energy debates, right after their loss in the 2022 “climate election”. The incoming Energy minister, Chris Bowen, …
paul bongiorno
Politics June 25, 2022
Thirty-four is the number and it has turned federal parliamentary politics on its head. After an agonising month of counting and distributing preferences for both houses of the parliament, the Australian Electoral Commission has tabulated the biggest …
Economy June 18, 2022
The week the energy crisis hit home
This week, the need for the new Albanese government to fix the mess it has inherited became personal for millions of Australians at the mercy of a failed energy market. The threat of blackouts and of freezing in their homes in the middle of one of the …
Politics June 11, 2022
Albanese finds his balance on a bamboo bike
Visual stunts – or picture opportunities, as they are called in the trade – are nothing new in contemporary politics. Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo is just as addicted as any of the practitioners. On Tuesday, he provided the visual metaphor …
editorial
Editorial July 2, 2022
The indictment against Julian Assange runs to 37 pages. It was signed on May 23, 2019. It details Assange’s interactions with Chelsea Manning, how he encouraged her to access secret files and helped her with password-breaking.
Editorial June 25, 2022
According to protesters, the two men were armed and dressed in full camouflage. They did not identify themselves as police. When confronted near a camp in the Colo Valley outside Sydney, the only words they said were: ‘We’ve been compromised.’
Editorial June 18, 2022
Angus Taylor knew what he was doing. Despite all evidence to the contrary, he is a bright man. He understands accounting tricks. He knew there was a crisis and he preferred to wait for it.
gadfly

Gadfly August 14, 2021
It seems there’s very little that humanity cannot achieve when we put our mind to it. In the past 100 years we’ve landed on the moon, created a global information superhighway, and crossbred poodles with every animal we could get our hands on. Our greatest achievement yet, however, may be the dedication we have shown to destroying our planet.
Gadfly August 7, 2021
It’s remarkably hard to get banned from YouTube. The platform hosts more than 500 hours of fresh videos a minute. That’s more content than even the most dedicated teenager in Sydney fighting lockdown boredom can watch in a lifetime. Almost all of that video – 720,000 hours’ worth a day – is of children unboxing toys or biting each other. The remainder is video of Alan Jones being sceptical about vaccines on Sky News.
Gadfly July 31, 2021
We in Australia love gold more than a Saudi prince’s interior decorator. We’re the gold standard in botched vaccine rollouts and the gold standard in failing to suppress the Delta variant. Fortunately, we’re also the gold standard in women’s swimming at the Olympics, and the gold standard in enthusiastic coaches humping barrier walls.
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letters
Letters July 2, 2022
Mike Seccombe’s excellent article (“Energy crisis: The truth behind the price surge”, June 25–July 1) exposes the complete failure of successive governments through what most of us would call corruption rather than Mike’s more restrained “political …
Letters June 25, 2022
There has always been pushback when traditional owners exercise their rights to Country and Culture but, after so many generations of this experience, it should no longer be such a point of conflict (Kath Wilson, “Wombat forest fight”, June 18-24). …
Letters June 18, 2022
Rick Morton’s “‘Negligent in the extreme’: Labor inherits crises across portfolios” (June 11-17) had me contemplating an unlikely possibility – the coming national integrity commission policing election promises. The example of there being …