More than 60 per cent of Australians live in our largest 5 cities of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth. In comparison, less than 10 per cent of Americans live in their largest 5 cities of New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and Phoenix. The concentration of our population in such a small number of places over a vast continent creates congestion, pushes up house prices and makes it harder to deliver basic infrastructure. Despite having more land per person than any continent outside of Antarctica, we have some of the highest property prices in the world. Read more

As a politician you get a little tired and sometimes frustrated during election campaigns. During the 2019 election I was going through Facebook, to distract myself from a tough day, and noticed a post from Joel Fitzgibbon, the Labor Member for Hunter. He said, “People still ask me why we can’t build a new coal-fired power station. The answer is we can, but no one wants to.” Read more

Last week was our flag’s birthday. On 3 September, 1901, the Australian flag was flown for the first time, over the Royal Exhibition Building in Melbourne. Thus beginning the great Australian tradition of denigrating our flag. As The Bulletin magazine then described it: “... a staled rechauffe of the British flag, with no artistic virtue, no national significance... Australia is still Britain’s little boy. What more natural than that he should accept his father’s cut-down garments ... That bastard flag is a true symbol of the bastard state of Australian opinion.“ Read more

Covid zero died this week, although many will continue to conduct eulogies for sometime. It would be better to have zero Covid than some Covid. Coronavirus is a serious disease and Australia has been fortunate to escape significant outbreaks here compared to almost any other country in the world. Read more

Congratulations to all involved in organising Rockhampton’s first NRL game. It was a huge success for rugby league and great marketing for Central Queensland. I have been stuck in Canberra while Parliament is sitting given the COVID border closures so I missed the game. But it looked fantastic on TV. The shots of the Fitzroy, and Mount Archer looming over Browne Park, looked picturesque, and watching it from freezing Canberra made me more homesick for the CQ Tropicalwinter weather. Read more

Just three months ago, 30 current and former defence personnel formed an Australian Security Leaders Climate Group. At the time, the former Chief of Defence, Admiral Chris Barrie, claimed that climate change was one of the two ‘existential’ threats that keep him awake at night. The other was nuclear war. There was no mention of Afghanistan, or the South China Sea or China’s increasingly bellicose statements over Taiwan. No, these very serious people, claimed seriously, that climate change was the national security risk we needed to focus on right now. Read more

The other day someone sent me a photo from the movie Groundhog Day. Bill Murray was pictured reporting on the weather as he was condemned to do for the entire movie. On the top of the picture were the words, “Well it’s day 272 of 15 days to flatten the curve.” Read more

People born in inner-city Sydney have a life expectancy five years greater than people born in central Queensland, where I live. No doubt a big part of this is the inferior health services we have, especially in rural areas. As a Nationals senator, I think we should spend more on health services in the bush, but I do not think that we should spend an infinite amount. I live in the real world, and I realise that the health services available in Sydney (a town of 5 million people) will always be better than in a country town. Read more

Before the Fairbairn Dam was built in 1972, the town of Emerald had a population of just 650. In the same year the town of Collinsville had a population of 2000. Read more

In 1996, the Chicago Public School system introduced tough penalties for schools whose students achieved low reading scores. Schools with low scores would be placed on probation and threatened with being shut down. Test scores did increase but unfortunately so did cheating by teachers. Putting so much pressure on one measure caused poor behaviour in other areas. A few years later some teachers were sacked. Read more