James Morrow 
Get fracked!
Brisbane-based Linc Energy’s media release last week suggesting there could be in the order of $20 trillion worth of shale oil sitting under Coober Pedy set markets a-flutter and, for… Read more
Resistance is futile
Wouldn’t it be nice to wake up at the start of the year to a bunch of newspaper articles about freedoms restored and taxes lowered? Yeah, I know, keep dreaming.… Read more
Radio daze
It is a bizarre world we live in where Julian Assange can be hailed as a hero for exposing military secrets and putting Western soldiers in danger, but a couple… Read more
Rondo à la Turkey
Ah, spring. That magical time of year when the clocks change, the leaves return, and the cranks come out to complain about Halloween. Close readers of the broadsheet letters pages… Read more
Urban grillers
Remember when anti-Americanism was cool? Ten years ago, the broadsheet press and the ABC had not yet decided it ought to be illegal to make fun of the Prime Minister,… Read more
Lost in the smoke
Imagine, for a moment, you were in charge of cutting Australia’s already quite low smoking rate. Would you a) spend a vast amount of time and treasure attacking the packaging… Read more
The crying games
Australia, it can safely be said, has some issues to sort out when it comes to self-image. While thinking of ourselves as rugged and individualistic, we accept that being surveilled… Read more
All choked up
In 1961, as word filtered back to the White House that the CIA-backed attempt to overthrow the new dictator of Cuba, Fidel Castro, had turned into a bloody and embarrassing… Read more
Backyard blitz
Forget the Murray River carp, the feral cat or the Queensland cane toad. These days, the most despised species in Australia — if the newspapers are to be believed —… Read more
Say no to Nanny
First they came for the smokers, and I did not speak out because, with the exception of the occasional Montecristo at somebody’s bucks night, I was not a smoker. Then… Read more
Bully for you
By any normal ordering of things, a state government which swept into office with one of the largest Parliamentary majorities in Australian history, and whose predecessors were so decadent by… Read more
Happy meals
Australia’s army of amateur food writers have a chance to show up the professionals How long has it been since you opened up your local newspaper, turned to the food… Read more
Hubris, meet Nemesis
The PM’s tactical victories are leading it to strategic defeat, as the Peter Slipper disaster shows Pride goeth before a fall, counsels the Book of Proverbs. Hamlet spoke of being… Read more
Brave old world
Worried about your carbon footprint? Concerned that even after sitting around a candle-lit organic restaurant eating mung beans donated by the local community garden collective to mark Earth Hour you… Read more
Cherchez l’argent
Monday night is the night Australia’s chattering classes get their marching orders. After a good warm up with the evening news and 7:30, there’s Australian Story, Four Corners, Q&A and,… Read more
Let’s get out of this hellhole
It is a peculiar feature of history that acts of lone madmen should have the power to change the course of events, because they explode the comforting myth that rational… Read more
Shut up, they explained
The Finkelstein inquiry isn’t about protecting the truth – it’s about silencing dissent Back in what was to them the bad old days of the Howard government, the Australian Left… Read more
Hearts and minds
Rather than weakening it, regular conscience votes could strengthen the two-party system – and Australian democracy Australians, let us be frank, do not hold their politicians in high regard. Whatever… Read more
The trail goes cold
The Met Office has given climate sceptics some powerful arguments – not that you’d hear about it in the local press Armchair philosophers of old used to ask whether, if… Read more
Latest blogs
- Obama’s Berlin speech was a damp squib Freddy Gray
- PMQs sketch: In which Labour join the coalition Lloyd Evans
- Michael Gove kindly warns Stephen Twigg: people think you’re weak Isabel Hardman
- ‘Jihad!’ Douglas Murray
- The Tories are still flummoxed by social media Isabel Hardman
- The Supreme Court Mothballs the British Army Alex Massie
- Ed Miliband’s negative approach at PMQs looks set to become the norm James Forsyth
