Opinion Articles

All Aboard the Transition

THERE is one thing Australian governments have become genuinely world-class at: shutting industries down. When it comes to building what comes next, however, the record is far less impressive. The live sheep export ban is shaping up to be the latest – and perhaps clearest – example of this pattern. The Commonwealth has proven highly competent at ending a trade. What it has shown near-total incompetence at, is replacing that trade with anything functional, funded or operational

Trevor Whittington February 5, 2026

Opinion Articles

Reflex politics crushing WA

Out on a country road, when something jumps out in front of you, the worst thing you can do is panic and yank the wheel. Anyone who has spent time behind the wheel outside the suburbs knows you don’t swerve wildly left or right every time the road throws up a surprise. That’s how you turn a problem into a wreck. Yet that, increasingly, is how the Albanese Government governs. When political pressure mounts, it

Trevor Whittington January 2, 2026

Opinion Articles

Gun laws are not a substitute for courage

Every time Australia is struck by an act of mass violence, the political reflex is immediate and reassuringly familiar. Governments reach for gun law reform. It looks decisive. It sounds compassionate. It creates the impression that something concrete is being done. What it rarely does is confront the deeper causes of violence — the ones that require moral clarity, hard policing and political courage. Firearms reform is attractive politics because it is administratively complex but

Trevor Whittington December 22, 2025

Opinion Articles

The parallels between the Roaring 1920s and the Turbulent 2020s

“History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.” Mark Twain A century divides the Roaring Twenties from today’s so-called Turbulent Twenties, yet the distance feels strangely compressed. As we limp toward the midpoint of our own decade, the parallels grow sharper and harder to ignore — reminders that our present upheavals are rarely as unique as we like to believe. Historians are rightly suspicious of neat analogies, but here the similarities are too blunt to

Trevor Whittington December 4, 2025

Opinion Articles

How the Net-Zero dream mugged agriculture

There’s a rule in politics as old as the wheatbelt: never sign anything you wouldn’t be willing to enforce yourself. Unfortunately, the Australian agricultural sector didn’t get the memo. A decade ago, farm lobby groups, industry councils, commodity groups and agribusiness roundtables lined up like schoolkids at assembly to clap along to the great net-zero revival meeting. Many signed a pledge, waved the flag, posed for the photo and strutted back to the paddock believing they’d

Trevor Whittington November 20, 2025

Anthony Albanese

The parallels between the Roaring 1920s and the Turbulent 2020s

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