I have often written about my dismay about indigenous disadvantage. Despite the fact that many indigenous people are prospering and contributing positively to Australian society, there is still a significant cohort experiencing undue hardship including domestic violence, poor educational outcomes, significant health issues and high levels of incarceration. An emblematic issue for indigenous people has […]

The news these last few weeks has been dominated by various sexual indiscretions allegedly committed by politicians and those close to politics in Canberra. There are many decent men and women in politics and being a politician is a demanding and testing career for both men and women. And it is easy, but wrong, to […]

Live Not By Lies Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was a famous Russian dissident and author. His Gulag Archipelago exposed the depravity of Soviet totalitarianism and made him a global hero. The Russians finally expelled Solzhenitsyn and he took up residence in the United States. On the eve of his forced exile he published a final message to […]

Risk management is a relatively recent field of study. The boards of most major companies now have risk management committees charged with the responsibility of ensuring organisations are not exposed to risks that might be fatal to the company or at the very least seriously impede the company’s operation. Our propensity to deal with risk […]

Human beings always have contradictory aspirations: their will to assert their individuality conflicts with their desire to belong. And both tendencies bring inherent problems. Those who seek to emphasise their individuality and specialness develop conflated egos that hinder their ability to relate to others. The Vedantic sages understood this human flaw millennia ago. They differentiated […]

After his inauguration as US President Joe Biden took little time to signal a reversal of many of Donald Trump’s policies. There has been a virtual hurricane of activity to affirm the left-wing policies of the Democrats. As I write the incoming President has already signed off on fifty executive orders to signal his opposition […]

A major stage of human development is the passage from childhood to adulthood. In many traditions this important transition is celebrated by significant rites of passage that signify that the child has matured and must now take on the responsibility of adulthood. In modern Western societies those rites of passage are no longer, or at […]

Much is being made of the Government’s decision to change the words of the national anthem to appease the loud voices of black victimhood. Like much else that has occurred in this space, this is a politically correct gesture which will have no impact on improving the lot of disadvantaged indigenous people, Will it help […]

In recent weeks we have seen a controversy initiated by the ABC’s investigation into the private affairs of two cabinet members of the Morrison coalition government. The most frequent criticism of the public broadcaster has been that it seems to have singled out members of the government for moral scrutiny but has not applied similar […]

No doubt many of my readers view me as a reactionary, old troglodyte (and probably with some justification) but I still cling to this old-fashion notion of the dignity of work. As I have written in many previous essays how work provides a sense of meaning and purpose for many of us. Consequently being out […]