John Birmingham
Unlike the climate emergency, coronavirus left us with no time for politics
We owe the Black Death a drink or two. The plague which killed nearly half of Europe in the 14th Century broke...
Why Australia is the un-cool cousin when it comes to national holidays
Those Luxembourgers have the right idea. Their national day, known as the Grand Duke’s Official Birthday, is celebrated on June 23 every...
Why we should leave this Australia buried in the ashes of the bushfire crisis
One of the enduring lies of climate change deniers is the lie of futility, or pointlessness. In its simplest form it relies...
John Birmingham: The nation-builders we constantly fail to recognise
If it’s late enough in summer that we’ve grown exhausted of complaining about the weather, it must be time to have a...
Anthem controversy: Little Harper Nielsen’s plea for empathy shamed those who lack it most
A predictable rage-quake shook up Vegemiteland this week, or at least that part of our big, brown, wide, wonderful yeast extract of...
John Birmingham: How Sky News became Australia’s Fox News
Who would have thought that if you unleashed three jabbering trolls with throbbing persecution complexes inside a television studio and let them...
Booze and the Bicentennial: How we came to mark Australia Day on January 26
I have no childhood memories of Australia Day. In the 1970s it just wasn’t that important. There might be a holiday, or...
Your guide to surviving a grand final party this weekend
The AFL and the NRL seasons draw to a close this weekend, meaning ‘grand final parties’ are on the cards for hundreds...
The AFL’s China Syndrome: this meltdown is beyond a joke
I wonder if the AFL realises they aren’t the first sporting code to take their game overseas. I don’t really follow the...
The offensive mistake everyone in sport just keeps making
Keith Miller, champion cricketer and a RAAF fighter-bomber pilot in the big match against Adolf Hitler, knew how to handle stupid questions...