Terry Barnes

Terry Barnes is a Melbourne-based contributor for The Spectator and The Spectator Australia.

Australia sees sense on its plan to ditch the monarchy

Australia’s government has been determined to ‘do a Barbados’ and ditch the British monarchy for an Australian republic with an Australian president. But now, it seems, prime minister Anthony Albanese has lost his nerve. In the week that the first Australian coins of Charles III’s reign entered general circulation, and it was confirmed the King

Aussie republicans are fawning over Denmark’s new queen

According to opinion polls, more Australians want to ditch the country’s ties with the British monarchy than retain it. The Labor government of prime minister Anthony Albanese includes an assistant minister for the republic. King Charles is being dropped from Australian banknotes. Most major Australian media outlets, including News Corp’s flagship newspaper the Australian, and

Why is Australia turning its back on Israel?

In the days after the 7 October attack on Israel, Australia vowed to stand with Israel. It appears to have forgotten that pledge. When the United Nations General Assembly voted in October in favour of an immediate humanitarian truce in Gaza, Australia abstained because the motion failed to explicitly mention, let alone condemn, Hamas. James

The crushing defeat of Australia’s divisive Voice referendum

Australia’s Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, urged his fellow Australians to take ‘the opportunity to make history’ today. And they did, but not in the way that Albanese had so fervently hoped. His government’s referendum, which aimed to change the country’s constitution to entrench an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander advisory voice to Australia’s parliament and

Australia’s Voice referendum is tearing the country apart

Almost 250 years after European settlement, many of Australia’s Aborigines still face appalling socio-economic disadvantages compared to fellow Australians: lower life expectancy and school completion but high welfare dependency and incarceration rates, domestic violence, and endemic unemployment, truancy, alcohol and substance abuse. These are sad realities in such a prosperous nation as Australia. Government statistics

Sydney’s cocaine wars are spiralling out of control

The illicit moment of surreal euphoria from snorting a line of cocaine comes at a heavy price of misery and death for so many others – a dreadful toll that is plain to see on the streets of Sydney. The competition between criminal gangs for the city’s drug users has become deadly on a scale

John Howard is right about British colonialism in Australia

Almost sixteen years after he lost office and his own parliamentary seat, former Australian Liberal prime minister John Howard is still an influential political figure. Idolised by the right and demonised by the left, when Howard speaks, Australians still take notice. When Howard spoke to the Australian newspaper to mark his 84th birthday this week,

Australia’s Commonwealth games disgrace

In world sport, the Commonwealth games are a bit of a sideshow. In swimming and athletics, at least, they are seen as something of a mid-cycle training event for the Olympics. Australians, however, love the Commonwealth games. Not just because they are about friendly sporting rivalries and promote goodwill between the nearly 60 nations of

Ben Roberts-Smith and the murky debate over accountability in war

Today in Sydney, Australia’s most decorated soldier, former Special Air Services corporal Ben Roberts-Smith VC, was found by a civil court, on a balance of probabilities, to be a likely war criminal, a murderer, a liar and a bully. Roberts-Smith is a huge man, towering over all around him. When he was presented alongside other

Trudeau’s ‘coronation gift’ is just lip service to the monarchy

Cynically dressed up as a coronation-related gift to the Canadian nation, just days after the coronation, the country’s leader Justin Trudeau has unveiled a Royal Crown of Canada.   Trudeau is paying lip service to the monarchy Canada shares with Britain and the King’s other realms Not a physical gold and jewelled crown, mind you, but a virtual

RIP Barry Humphries

It was not just Barry Humphries who died on Saturday. It was that towering skewerer of pomposity and humbug, and gate-crasher of Royal boxes, Dame Edna Everage. It was Australia’s roving cultural attaché and Australian Minister for the Yartz, Sir Les Patterson. It was pathetic Melbourne suburban pensioner, Sandy Stone. It was colonial hellraiser Barry McKenzie. It was a host

Could Donald Trump tank Aukus?

There are few surprises in the Aukus nuclear-powered submarine programmed announced by Rishi Sunak, his Australian counterpart Anthony Albanese, and US president Joe Biden overnight. Australia will get its fleet of nuclear submarines. The United States will supply Virginia-class boats to Australia for the 2030s; US Virginias and Royal Navy Astute-class boats will be stationed

Is Australia up to the Aukus challenge?

One hundred miles or so south of Sydney, lies tranquil Jervis Bay. On its shores, largely reclaimed by the bush, are the abandoned foundations of a large nuclear power station. When it was built in the late 1960s, it was intended to be the first of a network supplying nuclear-generated electricity to the eastern Australian

Why is Australia’s bank snubbing King Charles?

Traditionally, the reigning monarch has appeared on the lowest denomination of Australia’s banknotes. It is a practice that harks back to the pound notes of pre-decimal days. It was even maintained by the Reserve Bank when the one-dollar note was replaced by a gold coin in the 1980s, and the Queen took the colonial philanthropist

Why Australia can’t forgive Novak Djokovic

So, Novak Djokovic has won the Australian Open tennis tournament – again. Djokovic was never seriously challenged at any stage, beating Stefanos Tsitsipas in straight sets in the final. In winning his 22nd Grand Slam title, drawing level with Spanish maestro Rafael Nadal, Djokovic also had his revenge on Australia – and Australians. Australia is,

Who’s killing Australia Day?

Australia Day was once a big deal Down Under, but in recent years the annual celebration has been somewhat muted. Take the Australian Open, currently running in Melbourne. The organisers have dedicated days throughout the tournament for a range of causes: there has been a Pride day and a day celebrating indigenous art and culture.

Has Scott Morrison become Australia’s Richard Nixon?

In May 1940, Winston Churchill was not only appointed Prime Minister but Minister for Defence. In doing so, Churchill ensured that he, and not the three traditional cabinet secretaries traditionally responsible for the armed services, had ultimate responsibility for Britain’s war effort. This was an open, and very public, move which was welcomed and praised

Why did the new Australian PM insult the Queen?

Timing is everything in politics. This week in Canberra a new junior minister, an obscure Australian Labor Party MP named Matt Thistlethwaite, was sworn in by the Queen’s representative, Governor-General David Hurley. His portfolio: Assistant Minister for the Republic. A minister of the Crown sworn to bring about the demise of the Crown in Australia.

How Scott Morrison was defeated in Australia

‘Scott Morrison is empathetic – without the “em”.’ Those words, spoken on Friday by the Labor party frontbencher Jason Clare, on a national breakfast programme, perfectly encapsulated how Scott Morrison was defeated in the Australian election on Saturday. Morrison wasn’t saved by his economic management (this Friday Australia’s unemployment rate was confirmed as 3.9 per