Note to Xiao Qian: No
Ambassador Xiao Qian represents a totalitarian regime. Australians are under no obligation to treat his propaganda as diplomatic exchange.
To say what is obviously true, and what serious people would do about it.
Thermostat politics and the fever of the modern Liberal Party
The voters leaving aren't rejecting Liberal values - they're looking for an institution who still holds them.
Show trials, then and now
From Solzhenitsyn's engineers to modern professional regulation: the structural features of the show trial
Duty culls
Serious societies accept unpleasant duties.
How not to think about Australia Day
The Australia Day debate persists not because the question is complex, but because it is rarely stated honestly.
A neutralised Taiwan is still a strategic defeat for Australia
The absence of war does not make a Taiwan submission benign. It makes the method transferable.
Australia’s holiday from seriousness ends
Like failed New Year's resolutions, Australia has treated strategic seriousness as aspirational rather than binding. The Constitution doesn't. Section 51(vi) creates defence obligations that expand as threats grow—and the threats are growing.
Serious organisations do not do this
The City of Albany shut down a grain operation mid-harvest, two days before Christmas, then went on holiday. The directive was rescinded within 24 hours. This is not how serious organisations behave.
On the selective silence of leaders
Leaders who speak readily on image but fall silent on principle are declining to lead and will lead to decline.
When belief becomes optional
Institutions decay in a familiar pattern: when values are treated as optional, the serious people move on.