Here I feature on ABC’s Between the Lines with Tom Switzer.

It has become something of a cliché tagging historical events to personal experience.  ‘Where were you when Kennedy was shot?’ offered an entire generation sombre reflection and a point in time.  ‘Where were you on 911?’ is the catch cry for mine – or at least for some of us taking stock to ponder, reflect or ‘think hard’ about the trade-offs and competing interests of the past two decades in Afghanistan and Iraq.  I’ll never forget arriving to school – Australian-time – the following day, buzzing from an early morning paper delivery round, entering the school gates and revealing the […]

Here I feature on the Robert Menzies Institute’s podcast with Georgina Downer.

Published at The Menzies Research Centre This month marks 50 years since the first Indigenous Australian – the late Senator for Queensland Neville Bonner – sat in the nation’s parliament. This was a triumphant achievement from Bonner, serving as a Liberal Senator from 1971 to 1983. Yet most Australians won’t quite be able to pinpoint what makes Bonner a truly ground-breaking Australian – his centre-right disposition at a time of overbearing radical politics, a denial of cynicism despite a tough life, the unique blend of Indigenous culture with character. Indeed, his story reveals not just a great Indigenous Australian but […]

Like many of my era, I came of age politically in the shadow of 911. Donald Rumsfeld was a key figure in this period. To ‘get a grip’ on things, I read as much as I could from someone who, as twice-US Secretary of Defense, and a former Congressman, could impart a great deal. Remembered exclusively by some as the sole ‘architect’ of the Iraq War, or the puzzled source of ‘unknown knowns’ – an easily dismissed but highly philosophical point – I found Rumsfeld offered a great deal more. There are three things that stood out to me, which […]

Prince Philip once said that his job – first, second and last – was ‘to never let the Queen down’. The Duke of Edinburgh passed away peacefully this morning at Windsor Castle. Born on 10 June 1921, in Corfu, Greece, it was likely that a life of perennial devotion to the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland – Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith – wasn’t the ‘job description’ a young Philip had aspired to. Evacuated from Greece, literally, in a fruit box, Philip was educated in France, England and Scotland, before taking […]

Tim Wilson, The New Social Contract: Renewing the Liberal Vision for Australia (Connor Court, 2020) Small ‘l’ liberals can be as clear on the things they do say as they don’t say. Federal Liberal MP Tim Wilson, in The New Social Contract: Renewing the Liberal Vision for Australia (Connor Court, 2020), offers readers a keen example of this, while also casting light on the policy and philosophical tensions within the modern Liberal Party. Wilson does well to highlight the traditions of Australian liberalism. He is entirely accurate on the need for reducing concentrations of power, a framework for individuals to […]

A recent Ipsos poll showing Australia’s support for a republic has ‘steadily declined’ to its lowest levels will no doubt alarm republican lobbyists. In response to the question ‘Should Australia become a republic?’ only 34 percent of respondents said ‘yes’ with 40 percent against – the lowest support recorded by both the Ipsos and Nielsen polls. Most troubling for republicans is that support among 18- to 24-year-old Australians is now the lowest supporting cohort. Only 26 per cent are in favour compared to 34 per cent in all other age groups. Republican claims The Australian Republic Movement (ARM) has always […]

“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more,” said the sixth US President John Quincy Adams, “you are a leader.”  It is not typical that we look to politics – especially now, nor as Australians – for ‘inspirational leaders’.  “Politicians aren’t fashionable in Australia,” declared Julia Gillard when stepping down as prime minister in 2013.  As Australians we tend to look to sports stars, philanthropists, great inventors, pioneers and others as providing the inspirational leadership we both understand and respect.  And I sense this is fair enough.  We don’t expect politics – the […]

Leaving school can be a great time for many young people. Some will go into trades, others to university, while others will go straight into jobs or even the defence force. As I reflect on my time leaving school, and taking thirteen attempts to get into university, I didn’t have an exceptional start – at least not to the same level as many of my peers at the time. But on reflection I noticed the patterns that enabled me to stay dreaming, continue to straighten myself out and literally, a decade on, reach every single goal – personal and professional […]