Soloist with the Canberra Symphony Orchestra, cellist Umberto Clerici, an Australian-Italian who teaches at the Sydney Conservatorium discusses on ABC Canberra his reasons for basing himself in Sydney as a professional classical musician. Australia, he explained is a place where you are free to innovate…
Reinstated in todays 2017-18 funding announcement by the Federal Government is $170m to conduct a plebiscite on same-sex marriage – but only as a contingency, that is, a risk of unexpected expenditure, if for some reason, it came back onto the boil after being rejected…
When the rest of the royal story might be about to fail, even on account of old age, there’s always a reliable fallback in Diana. We note the uptick in media attention in the lead-up to the 20th anniversary of her…
Continuing the media’s fixation with our head of state’s health and longevity (see News Update of 1 January 2017), there is intense media speculation in Britain, picked up in the colonies, that a very big announcement was about to be made – the Queen…
Sydney columnist and Howard favourite Miranda Devine suggests in the Daily Telegraph that ex PM Tony Abbott should be appointed the next Governor-General. This is a totally unsuitable job for Abbott and would only give rise to slumbering but dangerously volatile sympathies not far…
The Athenians 500 to 400 BCE recognised that the way they did democracy had both limits and risks. In particular, they had come to realise that “expressive voting” – where there is only one vote held on a proposition – could and, sometimes, did result in the ‘wrong’…
An illuminating summary of the history of Anzac Day by Carolyn Holbrook from Deakin University. WfaAR comment: In the absence of a Republic, Anzac Day survives and is consistently redefined by all manner of politicians and causes because there is no…
We’re all agog. Is Prince Andrew really dating our Kylie? Of course, an Australian presence on the balcony and a real Aussie link to our first family are just what we need. This is more than enough evidence that we need a Republic, a royals…
Leigh Sales interviews Quentin Bryce, Governor-General 2008-2014, on 7.30 (ABC TV). Neither in her introduction to the program, nor during the interview, did Sales once refer to the former G-G as “Dame Quentin”, the title bestowed on her, as she neared the end of her term, by our Head of State…
British PM Theresa May’s sudden call for a general election on 8 June is widely reported to be the end of Nicola Sturgeon’s attempt to force a second Scottish independence referendum that had already been rejected in London. Sturgeon had been about to announce a timetable for…
