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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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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Recovering from Wokeness


I have written in previous essays of how wokeness has permeated the fabric of Western democracies. In many ways it has impacted on our sense of self with its promotion of identity politics and its denigration of our history and traditional culture. Consequently we are encouraged by the left to view ourselves very differently to […]

February 10, 2025

The Waning of Woke?


Whilst in my younger years I was much more progressive in my political point of view, as often seems to be the trend (we can only hope for the same with Greta Thunberg!), But as I’ve grown older I must confess I have become more conservative in my thinking (in case you haven’t noticed). My […]

January 28, 2025

Some More Thoughts on Knowing, Consciousness and Time


In 2009 I published a little book of parables which was titled Augustus Finds Serenity. In the introduction to the book, I outlined the reason why I had sought to use the medium of metaphor and parable to outline the concepts that I thought were useful in helping people live more fulfilled lives. I started […]

January 18, 2025

In the Beginning


In the Beginning In The Sound of Music, Julie Andrews sang: Nothing comes from nothing, nothing ever could.. (Lyrics from Something Good.) I suspect she wasn’t trying to make a philosophical statement but in fact she made a very profound statement. When we study cosmology we try to understand how the universe began. Science suggests […]

January 5, 2025

Albanese’s Blind Spots


Albanese’s Blind Spots It is amazing how much the political world has changed in my lifetime. My father was a staunch Labor supporter. He had even been elected to the local council on the Labor ticket and served a couple of terms as a Labor alderman. Although he actually had many skills and was a […]

December 13, 2024

Unclear on Nuclear


The Albanese government has gotten us into a diabolical hole with its energy policy. Let me try to explain. Firstly you would have to concede that understanding our electricity system and the electricity market is quite a complex undertaking. I spent most of my professional career working as a manager in the electricity industry. Whilst […]

November 27, 2024

Our Woke Defence


I was astounded the other day to learn how the Government has set net zero emission targets for our defence forces. Our defence services are currently undermanned.(probably a politically incorrect word) and under provisioned. The government seems determined to hobble our defence capability. In an extraordinary display of wokeness it seems to believe it will […]

November 17, 2024

Diversity and the Decline of the West


Post-modernism has thrown up considerable challenges for Western societies. More and more it demands that minorities are given voices which is undoubtedly, usually, a good thing. But we continually have to mediate between listening to minorities and maintaining the welfare of the majority, for after all in a liberal democracy decisions should be made on […]

November 10, 2024

On Being Especially Ordinary


When I was a young power station manager I had an American engineer from Tennessee as my deputy. He told me a story about Abraham Lincoln. I can’t count for its veracity but I will repeat it just the same. At a function Lincoln was approached by a woman who gushed, “Mr Lincoln it is […]

October 29, 2024

Let’s Stand with Israel


It is now twelve months since Hamas terrorists perpetrated a huge atrocity against the people of Israel. The scale and the barbarity of this incursion is beyond the imagination of most civilised people. The abhorrent nature of the Islamist extremist perpetrators is highlighted at the joy they expressed at the killing of innocent citizens in […]

October 16, 2024