Opinion

When news broke this week that an independent inquiry at the High Court of Australia found former justice Dyson Heydon had sexually harassed six associates during his decade on the bench, my non-law friends and colleagues were incredulous. To them, the …

On the afternoon of Friday, June 12, the prime minister held his first press conference since the Black Lives Matter protests saw tens of thousands of Australians around the country march for racial justice, and against police brutality. Protesters …

As Black, Brown, Indigenous people and allies in the United States and across the world collectively rise up to end systemic racism and violent police practices, it was necessary for us here in Australia to also rise. This is a global movement, and this …

It took a carefully orchestrated sting lasting 12 months to rid the Australian Labor Party of a strongman few could tolerate any longer. But the fall of factional warlord Adem Somyurek has ramifications well beyond the borders of his Victorian fiefdom. Somyurek …

There’s nothing like the prospect of voters about to mark their ballot papers to focus the minds of politicians. And as parliament resumed this week, the spectre of the Eden-Monaro byelection hung over the place, jolting it out of its brief coronavirus …

As if Scott Morrison hasn’t got enough on his plate, now he has been dragged into the quagmire of Donald Trump’s increasingly ugly campaign to cling to office. The invitation to attend the September summit of G7 world leaders in the United …

“This is a genuine offer,” Anthony Albanese said of his plea to Scott Morrison to join him in ending Australia’s energy wars once and for all. But it’s hard to call it a truce when one side concedes nothing. There’s another word for that kind of deal.

In politics, some things are accidental. Some only start that way. Perhaps when they began designing JobKeeper, the government couldn’t remember what casual work entailed. Perhaps they simply forgot there were migrants here on temporary visas. It is only a million or so people between the two groups.

It could be made no clearer that Australia needs a formal process of truth-telling than when the prime minister says “there was no slavery” in this country. Is it possible that he does not know? Could he truly be ignorant to the legacy of blackbirding, to the fact that Aboriginal people were forced into indentured servitude well into the 20th century? If we respect our history, it is time to tell the truth. But respect for history involves knowing what happened.

Richard Ackland It’s as though the entire conservative cause in our weird nation has been deracinated. The allegations against Dyson Heydon leave much havoc in their wake. His political sponsors, Little Winston Howard and the Mad Monk, look gormless, while he has blotted the escutcheons of luminous institutions from the High Court to the University of Sydney, where he is an emeritus professor.

Richard Ackland After the Mad Monk’s remark that there is no evidence the court system gives Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people a terrible time, it is just as well that his bronzed bust at the Ballarat avenue of prime ministers is now sheathed in protective wrapping. A spray can of red paint also decorated the bust of his beloved spiritual godfather, and another emblem of regressive Australia, Little Winston Howard. Now taped in plastic wrap, both of them have never looked better.

Richard Ackland Hurry. Rush. Lawsons’ online auction of Michael Yabsley’s load of bric-a-brac and tat closes at 7pm on Saturday. The former Nasty Party New South Wales Prisons minister is clearing out his Wombat Hollow playground in the wake of his lifestyle change and move from the Southern Highlands to Darlinghurst.

Paul Bongiorno’s review of Labor’s branch-stacking woes in Victoria (“I don’t know him from Adem”, June 20-26) is helpful but somewhat two-dimensional. He asks “Who can blame the government for enjoying Labor’s …

Mike Seccombe’s article “Who Morrison is looking after” (June 13-19) rightly points out the failed opportunities and inequities of the HomeBuilder scheme. The falling percentages of public housing and young home ownership are damning …

Unfortunately Australians know more about the Holocaust than the history of Aborigines killed whether in past battles or in custody (Amy McQuire, “There cannot be 432 victims and no perpetrators…”, June 6-12). Perhaps this is a failure …