Could it be that ABC television’s 7.30 presenter Sarah Ferguson has two personas? It would seem so – according to ABC ombudsman Fiona Cameron. But first some background. On April 8, Ferguson interviewed Israel Defence Forces spokesman Lt Col Peter Lerner. The discussion took place in the aftermath of an attack on a World Central [...]
It is a little-known fact that Anzac Day has a special meaning for the Australian Army. On this day it commemorates – along with others – the landing of the First Australian Imperial Force in Gallipoli on April 25, 1915. And also the final day of the Battle of Kapyong in the Korean War – [...]
In the previous century in Australia and some other Western nations, it was common to hear the cry: religion and politics should not be mixed. This warning was directed particularly at Catholics, many of whom were of Irish heritage. During the 1917 plebiscite, on whether there should be conscription for overseas service during the First [...]
What’s frequently missing from the Australian political debate is a sense of historical perspective. Look at it this way. No federal government in Australia has been defeated after serving only one term in office in nearly a century. And that was at a most unusual time. In December 1928, James Scullin led the Australian Labor [...]
Once upon a time, the term sectarianism was used in Australia to describe hostility to the Catholic Church in general and Catholics in particular. Anti-Catholic sectarianism has never gone away, but it has diminished dramatically from around half a century ago. It has been replaced by a more general form of sectarianism directed at religion [...]
The prevalence of moral equivalence in the debate over the Israel-Hamas war was evident on the ABC Radio National Breakfast program on Wednesday. Presenter Patricia Karvelas interviewed opposition Senate leader Simon Birmingham on a range of issues. Karvelas put this proposition to Birmingham: “Anti-Semitism is on the rise, Islamophobia is on the rise, in the [...]
It’s a tale of two interviews. On Tuesday, Sarah Ferguson interviewed opposition climate change and energy spokesman Ted O’Brien on ABC TV’s 7.30. The following morning former Liberal Party prime minister Malcolm Turnbull was interviewed on ABC Radio National Breakfast by Patricia Karvelas. Turnbull seems to have a particular relationship with RN Breakfast. It is [...]
In politics, as in war, morale matters. A high level of morale does not necessarily result in victory – but it is difficult to win without it. What was notable about the aftermath of the by-election last Saturday in Dunkley, in southern Melbourne, turned on the morale evident among Liberal Party supporters. Sure, Labor won [...]
Come autumn, come the season of literary festivals starting with the Adelaide Writers’ Week on Saturday and followed by similar events in Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra, and more later in the year. In contemporary Australia, literary festivals are best defined as occasions when a group of leftist or left-of-centre public servants get bucketloads of taxpayer money [...]
The term cancel culture is relatively new in so far as constant word usage is concerned. It was preceded by deplatforming. However, there is nothing fresh about the concept with respect to both terms. We’re talking censorship, or attempted censorship, of the political kind. Two recent examples illustrate the reality of cancel culture in contemporary [...]