Category: Columns

  • Birdshit and Batshit – a history of refugees

    Detaining refugees on Nauru makes no sense when you first look at it, writes Brendan Byron, but when you search deeper, you find that yeah no to be honest it still makes no sense at all. Nauru is a famous place these days, through ten years of offshore detention that, at its peak, involved twice […]

  • The Hirst Report: Government soft on crime

    The Hirst Report: Government soft on crime

    Ned Hirst (Note to journalists: This is a template; make minor adjustments according to particular circumstances; use especially in election years.) The government’s soft stance on crime has led to increased rates of violence in the community, a person has said. Concerns have been expressed that a staggering 100 per cent of criminals are released […]

  • The Hirst Report – The 2014 Budget

    Ned Hirst The 2014 budget is an act of bastardry. I deliberately avoid the familiar trope “political bastardry” because I think it’s worse than that. It is sheer, old-fashioned interpersonal nastiness. There are arguments to be had about its fiscal prudence, but this government is the anti-Robin Hood. They’ve burnt down Sherwood Forest and redistributed […]

  • Noodle House Yarns – Arc Board Elections

    By David Bailey-Mckay I write this article during Arc Board and university council elections. At the same time, the Bunyip Aristocracy has handed down a budget worthy of Ancien Régime. This article, however, will not be lambasting the federal Coalition – read SRC OB reports for that. Instead, I’ll focus on why people who have […]

  • Noodle House Yarn

    I remember the first time someone tapped me. It was in was in the spring of 2011, I was young and naive and someone wanted me to be a club president. At the time I was a bit over-whelmed, someone had more confidence in me than I did. However soon I too would learn the […]

  • The Hirst Report: Friends in high places

    I have always been one who is reluctant to name-drop my more celebrated company for fear of sounding pretentious. Nevertheless, the witticisms encountered at one recent event prove simply too amusing not to recount. I was invited to a luncheon for all the greatest leaders throughout history. They were all there, Julius Caesar, Winston Churchill, […]