What’s a bit of political interference among friends?
The ABC boardroom is starting to look a little like a Liberal cabinet meeting, and not just because it’s been plagued by a series of coups, counter-coups and press leaks. Also like a Liberal cabinet, the ABC’s board is stacked with friends of big business: former representatives for News C...CONTINUE READING
Robert Manne’s self-important puffery
At the risk of making him sound more interesting than he is, emeritus professor Robert Manne reminds me of one of Dostoyevsky’s liberals. In the distant past, he wrote something (who can remember what) which won him a literary reputation. Then, in the 1980s, Manne found it necessary to dem...CONTINUE READING
Behrouz Boochani’s writings from Manus prison demand to be read
“I have always despised waiting. Waiting is a mechanism of torture used in the dungeon of time. I am a captive in the clutches of some overbearing power.” Powerful words. Even more so when you realise their author has been waiting indefinitely in an Australian prison on Manus Island for th...CONTINUE READING
Remembering Adrian Mitchell, the socialist poet laureate
Ten years have gone by since the death of Adrian Mitchell (1932-2008), for much of his life a sort of unofficial socialist poet laureate, today most widely known as the lyricist of the song “Victor Jara” recorded by Arlo Guthrie – a homage to the martyred Chilean left wing writer and music...CONTINUE READING
The Liberal Party is a cabal of bullies
The Liberal Party is a cabal of bullies. They subject a long list of victims to continual harassment and abuse, and escalate their attacks at every opportunity. One frequent target is the trade union movement. Last year, then employment minister Michaelia Cash ordered the federal police to...CONTINUE READING
Rioting refugees should be defended
A riot in Yongah Hill in Western Australia has again highlighted the appalling conditions in asylum seeker detention centres. A suicide attempt by a 22-year-old Iraqi refugee, Saruuan Aljhelie, on 2 September resulted in protests and the burning of mattresses. Several days later, Saruuan d...CONTINUE READING
Bannon gets kid glove treatment on the ABC
The ABC’s Sarah Ferguson delivered one of the most pathetic interviews of the year on Monday night. The Four Corners presenter gave US far right figure Steve Bannon free rein to outline his reactionary ideology, and failed to challenge almost any of his lies. The first of these was Bannon’...CONTINUE READING
What’s behind the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation?
University of Sydney vice-chancellor Michael Spence has spent many months in negotiations with the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation, causing a great stir on campus and in the national media. The $3 billion centre – established with a bequest from private healthcare tycoon and greates...CONTINUE READING
Kids getting together to watch a fight is an Australian tradition
The media are absolutely relentless when it comes to demonising the “un-Australian” behaviour of Sudanese youth. The latest threat to the very fabric of white Western civilisation occurred in the outer Melbourne suburb of Taylors Hill, when a crowd of 50 or so South Sudanese teenagers gath...CONTINUE READING