Goodbye to Steve Waugh, and a nicely timed exit at that. Still near the top of his game, not keeping some deserving young batsman out of the team, and as canny a captain as ever. But his batting was going downhill, and he was right to go. Steve Waugh embodied how Australians like to think […]

On my way into work every day I am confronted by a billboard. This morning it carried an ad, quite a clever one, from Castlemaine Perkins, the brewers of Fourex Beer. Ray Weekes, the Chair of the Brisbane Institute (one of our major sponsors), habitually describes the beer as “our beloved brew”. 27 years ago […]

Steve Irwin, the world famous “Croc Hunter”, is in trouble. He held his one month son Bob in the crook of his arm while he fed a whole chicken to a four metre crocodile named Murray as part of a feeding display at his Australia Zoo. As concern that he might accidentally feed Bob to […]

Without question, the biggest issue facing humanity in this century is how to deal with global climate change. Anyone who does not acknowledge this stark fact is simply in denial. If the moderate predictions are correct and we see temperature rises of even two or three degrees on average this century, then we face the […]

Does the international public really think that Kurt Nilsen was the best singer in the World Idol competition? I suspect not. The real winner in terms of being the best singer and performer is probably Kelly Clarkson. In my previous post I suggested that Clarkson was the stand-out performer but would suffer from anti-American sentiment […]

The release of cabinet papers from 1973 gives us a chance to review those dramatic years of the Whitlam government. It is hard to overestimate the importance of that first Labor government after 23 years of stultifying conservative rule. Australia was in dire need of social reform, if only to keep pace with changes occurring […]

The continued predicament of Aboriginal people in Australia is a festering sore that sooner or later must be healed. There appears to be a growing contingent of mostly right/conservative people that wants to deal with this issue by completely discounting the Aboriginal experience in the past and therefore now because it alleviates white guilt. Aboriginal […]

Oh what a year it promises to be! The world becomes more and more unstable in almost every way, and there are crucial elections in the US and Australia. Will things turn around in 2004? In 2003 hopes that the world and its problems could be managed by a increasingly rational system of sustained negotiations […]

Some of the more important events of 2003 had an air of inevitability about them. President Bush II was always going to invade Iraq and Simon Crean was always going to get knocked off as ALP leader. Looking back, the intent of the US under the leadership of George W Bush and his coterie of […]

What is Newspoll up to? According to the Sunday Mail today 66 percent of people favour banning tobacco smoking in pubs and clubs, and 77 percent believe that the number of poker machines should be reduced.
Both figures are probably true, and elicit a “So-what?” response from me.