Archived publication for 2008
Recent publications
The covert return of the Industrial Relations Club
One of the few positive results of the Howard government's WorkChoices reforms was that the old ‘Industrial Relations Club'-the Australian Industrial Relations Commission (AIRC), Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), Australian Chamber...
Has the ALP shifted too much for the Liberal Party?
Let's be blunt: at the state level, it seems like the Liberal Party is achieving little more than self-destruction. Why is this so? The answer can be found in the Australian Labor Party. The ALP has completely transformed itself. Certainly, the...
How humanity outflanked starvation
Sinclair Davidson reviews A Farewell to Alms: A brief history of the world by Gregory Clark Sometime in the last 200 years there was a fundamental shift in the human condition. Our lives changed from being somewhat ‘nasty, brutish and short'...
I was a teenage revolutionary
Scott Hargreaves reviews Young Stalin. Young Stalin is in the best Hollywood tradition of the prequel. Written after the highly rated and popular work on Stalin, The Court of the Red Tsar, Young Stalin delves into his early life as a son, student,...
Liberalism after Bruce Smith, but before Bert Kelly
Richard Allsop reviews Steadfast Knight: A life of Sir Hal Colebatch by Hal G.P. Colebatch & Senator Bertie Johnston by John C. Rice The political orientation of Australia's intelligentsia has produced a situation where there have been...
Cathedrals and the birth of freedom
Andrew McIntyre reviews Cathedral by Jon Cannon Enter any one of the great gothic cathedrals of Western Europe and you cannot help but be overwhelmed by their beauty and profound mystery, and also the sheer size, boldness and complexity of their...
How land supply restrictions have locked young people out of the housing market
Adjusted for inflation, the price of houses in Australia has more than doubled (trebled in Sydney and Perth) over the past 30 years. How has this occurred? In a landmark address to the Housing Industry Association in July 2005, the Institute of...
Gordon Ramsay's Worst Recipes
The problem with Gordon Ramsay isn't his swearing. It's his hypocrisy. Gordon Ramsay, Britain's most notorious celebrity chef has demanded ‘stringent laws-licensing laws-to make sure produce is only used in season.' In a BBC interview in...
The Politics of the Olympics
On the March 26 1938, six months after he died, Pierre de Coubertin's corpse was exhumed from its grave in Lausanne, Switzerland. His heart was cut out and transported to Olympia in Greece. The heart of the founder of the modern Olympics was then...
Oppositions need to change before they can win
Liberal oppositions across the country are using an old game plan-where a ‘small target' strategy could pave the way to government. Unless they figure out why this strategy is failing, these oppositions will remain in the political...