First published in The Spectator Australia, 1 March 2019 Britain, we’re led to be believe, is heading for the worst catastrophe in its history. Officialdom is warning that a no-deal Brexit would mean trucks backed up for miles at Dover, chaos at airports, a special poverty fund to cope with the fallout and — horror! — a…
First published in The Sydney Morning Herald, 8 December 2018 The Liberal Party is convinced that free markets are by far the best way to generate wealth and thinks that allowing people to do what’s in their best commercial interests will usually maximise society’s economic well-being. But that doesn’t mean “anything goes”. The party has never believed…
First published in The Australian, 8 December 2018 To live in Australia is to have won the lottery of life — unless you happen to be one of those whose ancestors have been here for tens of thousands of years. That’s the Australian paradox. Vast numbers of people from around the world would risk death to be…
Back when prime minister, I used to observe, that to live in Australia is to have won the lottery of life – and that’s true – unless you happen to be, one-of-those whose ancestors had been here for tens of thousands of years. That’s the Australian paradox. Vast numbers of people from around the world…
First published in The Australian, 5 December 2018 When the Labor Party does good work, sensible Liberals give credit where it’s due. Back in 2008, working closely with Cape York leader Noel Pearson, the then minister for indigenous affairs, Jenny Macklin, and then Queensland premier Anna Bligh set up the Family Responsibilities Commission. Thereafter, there was always…
First published in Quadrant December 2018 Edition This is the age of disruption, in politics as much as in business, and political parties must respond or fail. In France and Italy the long-established big parties, of the Left and of the Right, have largely been swept away. In Germany, the main parties, of the Right…
First published in the Australian Financial Review, 22 November 2018 This is the age of disruption, in politics as much as in business, and political parties must respond or fail. Both in France and in Italy, the long-established big parties, of the left and of the right, have largely been swept away. In Germany, the…
First published in The Australian, 29 October 2018 Any political party that hopes to win a democratic election in its own right is inevitably a coalition of people with different interests and values. That’s been true both of the Labor Party and of the Liberal-National Coalition that between them have formed every government since 1949….
First published in The Spectator UK, 27 October 2018 It’s pretty hard for Britain’s friends, here in Australia, to make sense of the mess that’s being made of Brexit. The referendum result was perhaps the biggest-ever vote of confidence in the United Kingdom, its past and its future. But the British establishment doesn’t seem to…
When I was about your age, older people were good enough to take me under their wing. One of them was John Howard – Australia’s second longest serving prime minister, in whose government I later served. Another was BA Santamaria, whose movement had helped to keep my side of politics in office for 23 years,…