The same-sex marriage lobby is planning bills for state and territory legislatures, while pressing both the federal Labor Party and Coalition to change their policies on the issue. A New South Wales upper-house inquiry is preparing the way for a state bill. Despite the defeat of such a bill in the Tasmanian upper house, there are plans for an inquiry to find a…

Tony Abbott and abortion Sir, Victorian DLP Senator John Madigan, in his recent speech at the Sydney Institute, misunderstands Tony Abbott’s statement on abortion (News Weekly, March 16, 2013). Following Abbott’s speech at Adelaide University several years ago about the “unutterable shame” of Australia’s high number of abortions, the femocrats from both sides of politics retaliated. They successfully moved a federal bill that…

Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, an American-German action-horror-fantasy movie, filmed in 3D and rated MA15+, is reviewed by Symeon Thompson. Critics tend not to like popular works that seemingly exist solely for escapism and entertainment. It comes as no surprise, then, that the response to Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters has been one of derision and contempt. But, in so doing, they’ve missed…

  THE DREAM OF THE CELT: A Novel by Mario Vargas Llosa (London: Faber) Paperback: 400 pages ISBN: 9780571275724 RRP: AUD$29.95   Reviewed by Michael E. Daniel   Perhaps one of the most fascinating and enigmatic characters in British and Irish 20th-century history is Roger Casement, the subject of a recent historical novel by Mario Vargas Llosa, a Peruvian-Spanish writer who in 2010…