“But we are just a transit country.”

I wonder what the Australian Asylum Seeker Enablers have to say about this in relation to recent statements by various countries: "But we are just a transit country". This latest statement was from Serbia...

Common words and their actual meanings

The meaning of words can be confusing at times, especially in our present post modern era. In the olden days, “bigot” just meant bigot – a person who is intolerant towards those holding different...

Sorry, Silences, and C-3PO

I've lost my courage. Which is a big deal when you write for a news website. I recently prepared a short comic piece on poverty. While I enjoyed making the comic, the text was hastily written,...

Eric the Social Media Nazi

The XYZ has a friend called Eric. That is not his real name. Eric is a contradiction - a freedom of expression grammar Nazi. He is a quite adept troll, defending the ABC and...

XYZ poll reveals world will not come to an end if ABC is privatised

The latest XYZ Viewer Poll has determined that well over half of our readers believe that privatising the ABC will not trigger Armageddon. In response to the question, "Will the world come to an end...

Speaking as a Woman, Don’t Ditch Manhood – Teach It!

  Today I came across an article to which I couldn't help responding. It was titled, Masculinity Is Killing Men: The Roots of Men and Trauma. While I knew it would most likely leave me...

Dire Straights: Money for Nothing

You have just got to love rising housing prices. Governments get vast revenues that shore up budgets, banks make slim margins on rapidly increasing volumes of loaned moneys, owner occupiers and investors alike can...

Labor and the Greens have blood on their hands

Amid the predictable uproar today from those on the left clambering over each other to lay claim to the moral high ground, a few key facts are worth considering. When the ALP won power in...

Meet the Greens

Its 2022, and after years of struggle, the Greens have finally come to power in Australia. Mines are heavily taxed or shut down. Welfare flows to the needy. The rich are taxed an appopriate but...

Give me back my shoe Jew!

Twitter can be so cruel. From behind anonymous handles and malicious hashtags, the Twittersphere cruelled well meaning British activist Ashgar Bukhari. The story, in its sordid fullness, is here. I don’t know Mr Bukhari, but...

Well frankly, I find that offensive

If you happen to express an opinion which reflects the current state of Australian law, you run the risk of having your view dismissed and branded as “extremely hurtful.” The Victorian Nationals Senator Bridget McKenzie...

Weekend In-Depth: The Poor Old ABC’s blindness on Martin Place.

Today on Weekend In-Depth we look back at the events surrounding the Martin Place siege in December 2014, and the ABC's inability to call it for what it was: The poor old ABC. Its multiple...

De-construct me

I was born in to a very middle class, very ordinary, family, in Australia, forty something years ago. Both of my parents are of white Anglo-Saxon heritage, and descended from families that inhabited some...

Weekend Arts: Bass, the forgotten instrument in rock

I'm an avid 80's music fan and as I've been listening over the last couple of months, it has occurred to me that the bass is the forgotten instrument in Rock. The bass player doesn't...

Would Isaac Newton be employable in 2015?

A storm over gender politics has been whipped up in the wake of Professor Tim Hunt's remarks about women in the lab. The Nobel laureate's off-hand comments have been roundly condemned by commentators and...

Science fiction and the battle of futurology

Futurism in science fiction is what makes the genre both exciting and relevant, as it provides parables for how life could be organised here on Earth, and inspiration for where we could aim to...

Falling out of love with Professor Tim Hunt

Is there something wrong with this world when one of our most gifted scientists is forced to resign from his work – work that could significantly benefit humanity – because he said something stupid...

Borrowing From OUR Future (a follow-up to “Are we luring migrants to their deaths?”)

Recently, my fellow contributor David Hiscox wrote about the link between the expansion of social services and increasing national debt. As I read over his article linking paying for social services with deficit spending, and...

Quote of the Day, 10/6/2015.

Wednesday's Quote of the Day belongs to the Australian Treasurer, Joe Hockey. The XYZ is quoting his full response to two questions from a journalist yesterday, regarding housing affordability in Sydney, courtesy of Chris...

Australian aid and the radicalisation of Aceh

Following the devastating 2004 Boxing Day tsunami which killed more than 170,000 alone in Aceh province, the Australian Government pledged $1 billion towards the recovery and rebuilding operation. Since 2005, a radical form of Islam...