Why I can’t possibly vote for Bill Shorten As Australians draw nearer to a general election – it must held before May next year but can be called any time sooner – I am frequently asked whether I will be voting Labor. The answer is “No”. ALP leader Bill Shorten is congenitally weak-kneed; if ever…
Graphic designer, photographer, collector and writer David King dedicated most of his adult life to celebrating the Russian Revolution of 1917. He produced books, curated exhibitions and organised seminars to present the Bolshevik-led revolution with primary-sourced accuracy and captivating images. While bourgeois art moved inexorably towards commercialism, the cult of celebrity and modish post-modern fantasia,…
Twelve months ago the Tweeters and Facebookers were in full cry demanding the bombing of Damascus and the public execution of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. They were also howling for the arrest of Russian President Vladimir Putin on war crimes charges following the downing of Malayasia Airlines Flight MH17 over Ukraine. At the same time,…
In the early 1990s I asked Gough Whitlam for the greatest crime that the Hawke-Keating government had committed against his legacy. “HECS,” he replied unhesitatingly. I said that the Treasury argument was that the cost was growing exponentially as more people sought higher education and university budgets ballooned. Gough then delivered a short, sharp utterly…
In London, Baron Green of Hurstpierpoint is the British Government’s Minister for Trade and Investment. Between 2003 and 2010 he was CEO and chairman of HSBC, the bank that laundered billions of dollars for drug cartels, terrorists and pariah states. He is also an ordained minister of the Church of England who wrote the 1996…
