Terry Barnes is a Melbourne-based contributor for The Spectator and The Spectator Australia.
After an eight-week trial followed avidly around Australia and the world, and a week’s jury deliberation, Australia’s answer to Lucrezia Borgia today has been found guilty of murdering three of her dinner party guests and attempting to murder the fourth. The jury of five women and seven men decided, beyond reasonable doubt, that the presence
America’s policy undersecretary of defence, Elbridge Colby, is one of the brightest brains in Donald Trump’s administration. Having served in the first Trump presidency, Colby has an outstanding reputation as a defence and strategic thinker. He is also, however, very much aligned with Trump’s America First thinking in respect of foreign policy, and the United States’
Since its general election a month ago, Australia’s politics have endured their biggest upheaval in fifty years. Its Labor government was re-elected by a massive majority, when just months ago it was in danger of being tossed out, and the conservative opposition parties are in existential turmoil and even briefly severed their coalition. Erin Patterson
Tonight, Australia voted decisively for continuity. The Labor government of prime minister Anthony Albanese has not merely been re-elected. It has absolutely thumped the conservative Liberal-National party coalition, headed by Liberal leader Peter Dutton. At the close of counting tonight, Labor achieved a majority in the 150-seat parliament, winning 77 seats and leading in another
Australia goes to the polls today, pitting the first-term Labor government of prime minister Anthony Albanese against the Liberal-National party coalition headed by Liberal leader Peter Dutton. As the election campaign for the federal election entered its final week, the agenda-setting Newspoll in the Australian newspaper asked voters whether Albanese’s government deserves re-election. Damningly, less
Today is Anzac Day, arguably the most solemnly sacred day in the Australian calendar. At dawn on this day in 1915, as part of an Anglo-French operation, men of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps landed on a rocky beach on Turkey’s Gallipoli peninsula in the face of murderous fire from Turkish defenders. Many
Since Australia’s general election was called by Labor prime minister Anthony Albanese at the end of March, the contest for the 3 May poll has been an uninspiring one. Voters must choose between a mediocre Labor government that overpromised and woefully underdelivered since coming to office in 2022, and an underprepared and underpowered conservative opposition.
Early this morning, even before dawn broke, Australia’s Labor party prime minister, Anthony Albanese, asked the country’s governor-general to call a general election for Saturday 3 May. Albanese’s short drive to Government House in Canberra capped a week when his government brought down a budget, in response to which Liberal opposition leader Peter Dutton set
In late January, Australians were convulsed out of their summer holiday torpor by what appeared to be an elaborate anti-Semitic terror plot. Following a series of vandalism and firebomb attacks on synagogues, and cars and private property in suburbs with significant Jewish populations, details of the New South Wales police’s discovery of a caravan laden
Imagine Screaming Lord Sutch with hundreds of millions of pounds to spend. That probably best sums up the flamboyant Australian mining billionaire and serial election candidate, Clive Palmer. Palmer is best known internationally as the entrepreneur who promised to build the ‘Titanic II’– a full-scale replica of the original Titanic. That project was launched ten years
Just when it seemed Australia’s anti-Semitism crisis couldn’t worsen, it has. This week, it was disclosed that a caravan loaded with plastic explosive was found in Sydney’s rural fringe. The explosives are of a type commonly used in mining operations and, along with the explosives, papers were discovered that named a Sydney synagogue – reportedly
Australia’s national day, which falls today, has two purposes. It is an opportunity for Australians to celebrate who they are and how fortunate we are to live in a stable democracy, thousands of miles from terror, strife and conflict. But it also marks the end of Australia’s languid summer when it’s time to get back
Australia is supposed to be a nation of tolerance and acceptance – the one place in a troubled world where people of different ethnicities, cultures and faiths can get along. That no longer feels like the case. Since the Hamas atrocities of 7 October 2023, and the conflict in Gaza and Israel, Australia has been exposed
On his record, Novak Djokovic deserves to be rated as the greatest singles tennis player of the last 50 years. Twenty-four Grand Slam titles. An Olympic gold medal. Ninety-nine tournament wins overall. Goodness knows how many finals appearances. Some say he’s the greatest of all time: the Goat. Contrast that with Tony Jones. A veteran
I was a late starter at everything. After drifting through my youth, and numerous false starts in life and work, I only found a committed relationship in my thirties and married in my forties. Even my second career as a writer waited until my fifties. So, too, did my unexpected third career, as a parent.
As the hot Australia summer rolls on, so too do the summer silly season stories. The latest is a Sydney council imposing bans on G-string bathing costumes at its public swimming pools. When it comes to swimwear, Australia has had a long tradition of community standards conflicting with personal freedom. In the early years of
Another Australian Open tennis tournament, another Novak Djokovic media sensation. As play gets under way at Melbourne Park, Djokovic the showman has been working the Australian media, as well as doing a glossy spread for the upmarket US magazine, GQ. The common thread of his media commentary is his experience coming to the 2022 Australian
At a time when Donald Trump threatens to annex Greenland and the Panama Canal, China is flexing its military and economic muscles, Britain is in a state of seemingly permanent political crisis, Los Angeles tragically burns, and murderous conflicts still ravage Ukraine and the Middle East, here in Australia just one issue dominates public debate
As Christmas comes around again, we will discover that Australia is no longer a Christian country. According to the most recent census in 2021, Christianity is not a majority faith here and, of its denominations, none has declined more rapidly than Anglicanism – which has lost more than a third of its declared adherents since
The celebrity cook Jamie Oliver has a sideline as an author. Not all his books are about cooking and food: Oliver has written two children’s books as well, Billy and the Great Giant Adventure and its sequel, Billy and the Epic Escape. Oliver’s books sell very well, thank you, and have presumably made a fortune for him and
