A Few More Thoughts about Leadership

As you undoubtedly would know by now, the person who had the biggest influence on my career as an executive was the late Dr Pill Harker. Whilst Phil helped me understand the basic psychology of human beings, he was sometimes naïve about the politics of organisations. Nevertheless I will be eternally grateful to him for […]

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The Dualism Quandary

Having studied physics, chemistry and mathematics, I have always been intrigued by what is the nature of the natural world. Conventional science would have us believe that science is about “discovering” the Laws of Nature that have governed the Universe since its creation. If you are religious you probably believe that God laid down these […]

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Guarding Our National Values

I am now in my eightieth year and remain a loyal and grateful Australian. As others have rightfully said, “To be born Australian is akin to winning the Lotto”. But being Australian has become more problematic in recent decades. As a young man, I and my peers were unabashedly patriotic. Sometimes our beliefs might have […]

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How the Middle East Succumbed to the Enigmatic Donald Trump!

As I write, Hamas seems to have agreed to a peace deal brokered by Donald Trump. This is a great achievement for Trump and, although many things could still go wrong in prosecuting the peace plan, we should give credit where credit is due. The struggle between Israel and Hamas was a seemingly intransigent problem […]

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Countering the Jihadists


Last week we saw another Jihadist manufacture slaughter and mayhem, this time principally of young women and girls, in Manchester. Manchester has been a particularly troubled area. It has experienced riots, is replete with street gangs and has been home for a number of other Jihadists who have perpetrated atrocities. I have recently written about […]

June 3, 2017

The Future of Work


The study of the world of work has always held its fascinations for me. My management career revolved about changing workplaces, and I was always keen to have an understanding of the evolving nature of work to inform my management practices. To better understand where the world of work was going, I visited as many […]

May 27, 2017

Fifth Wave Jihadis


Over the decades we have seen a vast change in the nature of jihadism. In a recent piece, writer and commentator, Kenan Malik, identified the following five iterations of jihadism. The first wave of jihadis were the mujahedeen who were marshalled to fight the Soviet forces in Afghanistan. The second wave were elite Muslims from […]

May 20, 2017

Time and Again


My friend and I were having one of our chats over a glass of wine as we have done for some years. We were discussing some material written by the good Dr Phil. It was a testing hypothesis involving spirituality and quantum physics. It is amazing what a rich recursive tapestry such considerations weave. In […]

May 13, 2017

Gender Politics and Responsible Parenting


There has been some discussion in recent weeks about the censoring of the screening of The Red Pill which reportedly is a documentary produced by Cassie Jay. Jay, who has been an active feminist, decided to document the workings of the Men’s Rights Movement. She has conceded that as her investigations progressed she began to […]

April 29, 2017

In Search of Our Valuables


Some of you would be aware that I have written extensively on Buddhism and have authored books and a series of parables revolving around one of my fictitious characters, the young master, Augustus.  Let me share one of those parables with you. Augustus was the guest of the Lord Tchun-si. Tchun-si was a wealthy Governor […]

April 22, 2017

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