Opinion

The city of Santa Fe sits 2200 metres above sea level, my new friend – an older, established writer who has lived here for decades – tells me as we drive along the highway, the Rio Grande a flashing blue knife on one side, ragged sloping bush …

On February 13, 2008, the First Nations people of Australia received something for which we had waited decades. Kevin Rudd, having been prime minister for a little over two months, followed through on an election promise and apologised to the Stolen Generations. …

Indigenous people are viewed as a problem in this country. We are a problem that is met by the powerful with “solutions” brandished like weapons to beat us down – from historical solutions such as murder, massacre, sexualised violence …

The more Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce dug in to save his job, the bigger the hole he created for the government. The saga of Joyce’s conflicted private life  morphed into a full-blown crisis for the Turnbull government this week, culminating …

The Turnbull government’s much-hyped better start to 2018 hit a brick wall this week, or more accurately a barn door with Barnaby Joyce’s face painted on it. The deputy prime minister has spectacularly exposed what is wrong with the Coalition …

One of the prime minister’s closest allies, Senator George Brandis, was upbeat as he bid farewell to his colleagues in the joint party room on Tuesday. He reminded them that everyone had written off the Howard government in the run-up to the 2001 …

Peter Dutton is a moral void. His actions as a minister have debased this parliament. He is a cartoon of overreach and indifference, the proud jailer of innocent refugees. It is a grotesque spectacle that this man now seeks to interfere in the education of children, that he is willing to use children to start a sly war over nationalistic values.

When it’s all over, Barnaby Joyce’s clearest contribution to Australian public life will likely be a rule that says ministers cannot have sex with their staff. The second most senior member of this government – the deputy prime minister – is a politician whose talents add up to a total of nothing.

When Malcolm Turnbull walked out on the release of a new report into Indigenous disadvantage this week, he walked out on a decade of failures. He walked out on the appalling disparity between black and white Australia, on education, employment and health. He walked out on a report that found First Australians had been “effectively abandoned” and that targets for betterment had been destroyed by budget cuts and political myopia.

Richard Ackland Sad to see alt-right exhibitionist and bore Milo Yiannopoulos pulling out of his $US10 million breach of contract litigation against Simon & Schuster. This was a case where neither side was covered in glory. One thing it did throw up were the notes on the draft from editor Mitchell Ivers, including morsels such as: “Throughout the book, your best points seem to be lost in a sea of self-aggrandisement and scattershot thinking.”

Richard Ackland Archbishop Anthony Fisher must have been exhausted from all the fire and fury he recently poured down on the head of wretched LGBTQI sinners. But he’s picked himself up from the floor of the pulpit to tear off an epistle to Fairfax Media in response to the story about the billions of dollars of loot in the vaults of the Catholic Church in Australia.

Richard Ackland Another little beetroot-bundle is a treat for a treat-starved nation. Thank God family values are on the up and up. The odds are great that a Christian politician of the calibre of the deputy prime minister, who enthuses on the sanctity of family values, will have more than one family

“And that makes him not very different to many of his colleagues.” In reference to the capability and ethical radar of the leader of the junior Coalition partner of the Australian government, thus concludes last Saturday’s editorial, …

A major function of the proposed new national security legislation on “espionage and foreign interference” is to “introduce new offences relating to foreign interference with Australia’s political, governmental or democratic processes” …

Thanks to Karen Middleton for “Flesh and drones” (January 27–February 2), and to Greg Hogan for his letter (“Drones create new dilemmas”, February 3–9).  Professor John Blaxland says, “We used to carpet-bomb …