Comment

If our super system were a country, it would be the eighth largest economy ... it has also contributed to more democratic control of capital and a more even spread of wealth than in most places on Earth.

The chair of the recent Senate inquiry into the quality of governance at Australia’s universities, Tony Sheldon, can describe the situation in a single word: rotten. While not employing the same colourful language, the Senate’s interim report, recently released, is no less damning.

Of several possible birthday options, the Liberals observe October 13, 1944, the date on which a conference of anti-Labor parties called by founder Robert Menzies began in a Masonic hall near Parliament House in Canberra. Menzies would likely be rolling his eyes at the party’s antics this week.

There should be little doubt that Andrew Hastie is already running for the Liberal leadership.

The Voice we had hoped for was set out in the bill, and even if it applies only within the borders of Victoria, with no effect on federal matters, it is nevertheless the archetype of a vehicle for self-determination aspired to throughout the country by the greater majority of Aboriginal people.

Colleagues say the thumping election win has given the prime minister … an air of sure-footedness and vindication in the way he goes about his job. That belief will surely be tested when he meets Donald Trump in the Oval Office in a little over two weeks’ time.

The federal government is on the cusp of two significant moments regarding Australia’s climate ambition. If this nation is to chart a course to becoming a clean energy and green exports superpower over the coming decade and beyond, it must be prepared to seize both opportunities.

Occasionally something happens that turns our collective minds to history. That happened this week when Nazis dominated Australian headlines for possibly the first time since the end of World War II. Australia’s Nazis are rattling the cage, trying to transform themselves from a secretive, mask-wearing sect into a political movement that influences our political ideas and controls the streets through violence.

Australia’s multicultural affairs minister, Anne Aly, has no doubt the March for Australia rallies that dominated much of the political debate during the week were organised by Nazis with the main purpose of protesting ‘immigration from countries that have brown people’ … The politics of race and immigration is a dangerously combustible commodity, which helps to explain not only the tenor of the prime minister’s response but also the government’s handling of the announcement of a $400 million deal to deport former migrant detainees to Nauru.

One of the soft indulgences of my life is to spend time browsing in a bookstore, preferably one with a healthy second-hand section, better if it has timber shelves and a ladder, with jazz or classical music playing quietly. One such store is Henry Pordes Books on Charing Cross Road in London.