Where are Australia’s civil libertarians when you need them most? In the modern era, the human rights of all Australians have been most adversely affected during World War II and in the current pandemic. In the 1920s and into the 1940s, the civil libertarian with the highest profile was probably Herbert Vere Evatt. A former [...]
As a continent that interacts with the rest of the world, Australia cannot escape depressions, recessions or pandemics. However, colonial (before 1901), state and federal governments can make such disasters worse than should be the case. The depression of the early 1890s, the Great Depression of the 1930s, the recession of the early 90s and [...]
Last week there was a question in Melbourne. And this week, across the Pacific, came an answer from San Francisco. On August 28, inner-city Melbourne-based ABC presenter Jonathan Green put out the following tweet towards the end of the Republican National Convention: “Watching trump — louche, glib, a shambling slob, slumped at the lectern, mouthing [...]
Perhaps it’s the advent of social media with the abundance of emojis and the like. Or maybe we live at a time so contemporary that there is scant historical awareness. Whatever the reason, communism and its past and present followers receive a relatively good media, with the exception of today’s Chinese Communist Party. And fascism [...]
When the Australian Labor Party splits it does so over policy — not personalities. So bitter are these disputes that those who have left, or been expelled from, Labor are invariably labelled “rats”. On Thursday, The Australian broke the news that Labor frontbencher Joel Fitzgibbon had told the Blenheim Partners podcast that Labor could divide in much [...]
Around two months ago I walked up a one-way street in the Sydney CBD. A young man, wearing a mask approached me and asked, firmly but courteously, if I would use the opposite footpath. I did so. On looking around, I noticed two parked police cars and a bus. After passing the bus I looked [...]
Last weekend was a relatively quiet one in so far as news goes. Apart from the pandemic, that is. And an unexpected discussion about supply-side economics. On Friday July 24, Josh Frydenberg addressed the National Press Club in Canberra following the release, the previous day, of the Economic and Fiscal Update. Initially he focused on [...]
It’s out with philosophers John Stuart Mill, John Locke and Isaiah Berlin and it’s in with “the internet, social media and trolling”. According to the majority judgment of the Federal Court of Australia in James Cook University v Ridd handed down on Wednesday, that is. Peter Ridd was employed by James Cook University for 27 years [...]
When it comes to promoting conspiracy theories in Australia, the left intelligentsia is tops. Remember the claim that the anti-communist Robert Menzies’ Coalition government organised the 1954 defection of diplomats Vladimir and Evdokia Petrov from the Soviet Union’s embassy in Canberra to discredit Labor leader Bert Evatt in the lead-up to the election that year? [...]
Perhaps the wisest teaching of the Christian faith turns on the doctrine of the fall — sometimes referred to as original sin. Namely, the notion that we are born imperfect and will die imperfect. This is said to be a consequence of the original sin of Adam when he disobeyed God’s commandment — but it’s [...]