Will Australia’s social media ban work?

Will Australia’s social media ban work?

It’s all too easy to get hooked by the online world, to fall headlong into it, to spend hour upon hour immersed in it. Cyberspace has its good, but also much bad. Staying in control of their social media lives is difficult enough for many adults, but for children it can be an especially dangerous world in which to dwell. Too often children are glued to ...
CIS Nanny State Awards for 2025

CIS Nanny State Awards for 2025

Each year, CIS gathers the most ridiculous examples of intrusion into our lives, to find the winners of our annual Nanny State Awards. And the 2025 Nannies were difficult to judge, with a shortlist of very strong contenders. Oddly, this year’s crop showed an overriding concern with what we put in our mouths … and for stopping us from enjoying it at all ...
A preventable loss of life?

A preventable loss of life?

At times like these, the worst instinct in Australian public life comes out to play. As fires broke across the country, the usual brigade on Twitter arrived in ambulance-chaser formation, posting triumphalist warnings that this is what happens when a nation refuses to act on climate. It is a consoling fantasy. It reassures the faithful that natural ...
The middle class is being managed, not supported

The middle class is being managed, not supported

Walk into any supermarket in Australia and you’ll find the country’s mood on full display. Not in the specials bin or the bakery aisle, but in front of the cereal wall. A vast, shimmering landscape of muesli, protein puffs, low-GI loops, and sugar-coated virtue. If you earn a respectable income but still hover in front of a $7 box thinking, ‘Maybe not ...
Harry Potter doesn’t need a trigger warning

Harry Potter doesn’t need a trigger warning

Take my advice and steer clear of your local university. It is not just the flu that’s spreading on campus. Last month, an outbreak of trigger warnings occurred at the University of Essex. Up they popped, warning literature students about ‘violence, slavery, racism, and suicide’ in Hamlet, A Clockwork Orange and Nineteen Eighty-Four. Those infected ...

Will Australia’s social media ban work?

Will Australia’s social media ban work?
It’s all too easy to get hooked by the online world, to fall headlong into it, to spend hour upon hour immersed in it. Cyberspace has its good, but also much bad. Staying in control of their social media lives is difficult enough for many adults, but for children it can be an especially dangerous world in which to dwell. Too often children are glued to ...

CIS Nanny State Awards for 2025

CIS Nanny State Awards for 2025
Each year, CIS gathers the most ridiculous examples of intrusion into our lives, to find the winners of our annual Nanny State Awards. And the 2025 Nannies were difficult to judge, with a shortlist of very strong contenders. Oddly, this year’s crop showed an overriding concern with what we put in our mouths … and for stopping us from enjoying it at all ...

A preventable loss of life?

A preventable loss of life?
At times like these, the worst instinct in Australian public life comes out to play. As fires broke across the country, the usual brigade on Twitter arrived in ambulance-chaser formation, posting triumphalist warnings that this is what happens when a nation refuses to act on climate. It is a consoling fantasy. It reassures the faithful that natural ...

The middle class is being managed, not supported

The middle class is being managed, not supported
Walk into any supermarket in Australia and you’ll find the country’s mood on full display. Not in the specials bin or the bakery aisle, but in front of the cereal wall. A vast, shimmering landscape of muesli, protein puffs, low-GI loops, and sugar-coated virtue. If you earn a respectable income but still hover in front of a $7 box thinking, ‘Maybe not ...

Harry Potter doesn’t need a trigger warning

Harry Potter doesn’t need a trigger warning
Take my advice and steer clear of your local university. It is not just the flu that’s spreading on campus. Last month, an outbreak of trigger warnings occurred at the University of Essex. Up they popped, warning literature students about ‘violence, slavery, racism, and suicide’ in Hamlet, A Clockwork Orange and Nineteen Eighty-Four. Those infected ...