Make Australia Great Again!

It’s not hard to make the argument that on many fronts Australia has regressed in recent years. Our standard of living in real terms has diminished over the term of the Albanese government. Whilst our GDP, masked by record migration might have increased, our percapita GDP has fallen. We have endured high levels of inflation […]

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Breaking Through the Woke Barrier

Pierre Bourdieu was a French sociologist. In his 1979 book Distinction, Bourdieu introduced the concept of symbolic capital. In contrast with more conventional notions of resources, such as wealth and material assets, Bourdieu argued that symbolic capital is the resource available to an individual on the basis of prestige, celebrity status and public recognition. A […]

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The Palestine Dilemma

On 7 October 2023, Hamas terrorists emerged from Gaza to commit an horrendous atrocity against Israeli civilians. This deadly incursion has been well documented so I won’t elaborate on the gruesome details. Inevitably Israel responded with deadly force in order to deter further aggression and to rescue the civilian hostages that Hamas had kidnapped during […]

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The Downside of a University Education

At the age of eighteen, I left my family home in Charters Towers to start an engineering degree at James Cook University (JCU) in Townsville. In those days it was quite an extraordinary thing to do! In my high school years I can only remember two students in the cohort that I knew ahead of […]

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What’s So Special About Easter?


My favourite definition of religion is “a misinterpretation of mythology”. And the misinterpretation consists precisely in attributing historical references to symbols which properly are spiritual in their reference. Joseph Campbell The populace at large have little understanding of, and perhaps even less interest in, the Easter Myth. As a concession to our Christian heritage, we […]

April 15, 2017

Oh For Another Accord!


My last two blog essays have been about unions and the Labor party. This week I want to enlarge on the theme that the anti-business stance of the both the unions and the Labor party are in the end self-defeating. In the debate about the reduction in company taxes Bill Shorten has railed about reduced […]

April 8, 2017

The Future of the Union Movement


I come from a working class family. And it would be appropriate to emphasise the “class” part of that description. My father, who was a good man, had a social conscience and was always on the side of those he felt were unjustly wronged or oppressed. He was a staunch unionist and participated in local […]

April 1, 2017

Selective Civil Disobedience


Newly appointed ACTU Secretary, Sally McManus, made headlines this week by declaring that unions had the right to break “unjust” laws. Now “unjust” is quite a subjective term and one might wonder what criteria she would use to determine which laws are unjust. It takes little investigation to ascertain that her definition of unjust covers […]

March 25, 2017

Knowing Who You Really Are!


Understanding the Human Condition has probably been the prime focus of my life. The good Dr Phil has sometimes flattered me by saying that I know more about psychology than most of the psychologists he knows. (On reflection I am not sure this is a compliment to me or an insult to psychologists!) The more […]

March 18, 2017

Why Section 18C is Hindering Indigenous Advancement


Well, unfortunately, the parliamentary review into section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act has delivered its findings, but instead of showing leadership has fizzled into a hotchpotch of uncontroversial recommendations leading us to believe that our nation’s politicians are again reluctant to show leadership if there is any likelihood that they might offend minority interests. […]

March 10, 2017

Erosion of Democracy


Some would claim that the slow trajectory towards modern liberal democracy began with a very limited, faltering step which was Magna Carta, the charter agreed to by King John of England at Runnymede, near Windsor, on 15 June 1215. Although it gave little solace to the average citizen, it began the slow erosion of the […]

February 25, 2017

The Futility of Reconciliation


As I write this essay, the annual Closing the Gap report is being presented to parliament by the Prime Minister. The report attempts to quantify progress on a number of health, education and welfare measures where indigenous Australians perform poorly compared to other Australians. As I understand it, improvements were made in only one of […]

February 18, 2017

Political Uncertainty


A failure in democratic processes seems to be affecting Western countries, causing some concern about the integrity of democracy and its ongoing capacity to produce outcomes to the satisfaction of a majority of citizens. I have written in previous essays that I had a concern that our elected representatives have lost touch with ordinary voters. […]

February 12, 2017

Climate Change and Energy Policy


I am concerned that Australia’s lost its way with respect to Climate Change and consequently its energy policy going forward. To understand my position it might be useful if I were to give you some of my history which will put some context about why I think the way I do. To begin with, contrary […]

February 4, 2017