The Perversity of Transgender Politics

It is such a strange phenomenon, Transgender Politics. It is built on the fantasy that human beings can voluntarily choose their gender. Many other aspects of our biological endowment are not challenged in such a way. I haven’t heard for example of brown-eyed people demanding that they should be called blue-eyed or short people demanding […]

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The Death of Charlie Kirk and the Erosion of Democracy.

Charlie Kirk died in a mindless, murderous attack that reflects a growing assault on our democracy. Democracy is built on the foundation of free speech and the vigorous intellectual competition of ideas. In democracies we shouldn’t seek to silence those who disagree with us. We should listen respectfully to their ideas and if we disagree, […]

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Remembering My Father

Mother’s Day and Father’s Day are largely occasions created for commercial reasons to make us feel compelled to buy presents and increase retail sales. They are cynical manipulations of our inherent feelings (normally) of affection for our parents. I must confess that I was blessed with the parents I had. I loved and admired them […]

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The Existential Threat of Radical Islamism

It is a strange quirk of the human condition that we almost universally romanticise the past. T H White captured the sentiment in his lovely book The Once and Future King. The myth of King Arthur and Camelot reflect our desire to reclaim an idealised past. As in many such myths (including the Christian one) […]

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Biting the Hand That Feeds You


What I am about to write, I am sure, is going to cause some offense to the champions of identity politics, the proponents of “wokeness” and those that indigenous researcher Anthony Dillon calls the “blacktivists”. Well that is unfortunate but such confected offense should not stop the truth being told. Again I will take up […]

October 23, 2020

The Scourge of Catastrophism


It was probably when I was studying economics that I first heard about Thomas Robert Malthus. In 1796 Malthus wrote an essay on The Principle of Population wherein he postulated that the availability of food would inevitably limit human population growth and that populations would inexorably expand until the dwindling of food supplies thwarted human […]

October 5, 2020

A Little More on Indigenous Disadvantage


It is difficult to get a handle on the progress of indigenous Australians. We know that judging by the “Closing the Gap” targets indigenous progress has ostensibly stalled. And indeed, if we look specifically at remote indigenous communities we might throw our hands up in despair and conclude that resolving issues of indigenous disadvantage is […]

August 26, 2020

All Lives Matter


We came into this world never choosing our history. A sexual union of our parents brought us into physical existence. We had no choice in the matter. Some of us are blessed to be brought into the world with love and are fortunate to be a part of a household that loves us unconditionally. The […]

August 8, 2020

Guarding Our Freedom


Those of us who value our freedom have had a real roller-coaster ride in recent times. (I suspect that we all value freedom. But it is like the air we breathe – many of us take it for granted until it is taken away from us. Any drowning person will immediately recognise the importance of […]

July 17, 2020

Some Thoughts About Policing


Ah, When constabulary duty’s to be done, to be done, A policeman’s lot is not a happy one.   Gilbert & Sullivan, The Pirates of Penzance When I was a young manager in the 1970’s, I lived in a small regional community and I knew the sergeant of police quite well. He was a very […]

June 28, 2020

On Coronavirus and Black Activism


As I write, I sit here in my little office largely immune from the trials the world (or perhaps mainly the Western world) is currently facing. But out there, beyond the azaleas, roses and salvia that my small office window overlooks there are momentous things happening. We not only have a coronavirus pandemic but also […]

June 12, 2020

Religion and Spirituality


When I first embarked on my career as an executive coach, I was approached by the bishop of a regional Anglican diocese to work with an executive that had responsibility for leading one of their welfare arms. It is an unfortunate fact of executive coaching that quite a few of your assignments result from poorly […]

May 24, 2020

The Tao of Coronavirus


I have often quoted M Scott Peck who started his book, A Road Less Travelled thus: Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult-once we truly understand and […]

May 9, 2020

A Plague on all Our Houses!


In Shakespeare’s play, Romeo and Juliet, a central theme is the feud between two families, the Capulets and the Montagues. The two lovers are from opposing families – Romeo being a Montague and Juliet a Capulet. In the third act Juliet’s cousin, Tybalt fatally stabs Romeo’s friend Mercutio. As he dies Mercutio utters the curse, […]

April 23, 2020