John Birmingham
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...
The only reason we watch the Sydney to Hobart yacht race
All cultures have their mysteries. Ghost stories, like the Roanoke Colony of early America. Mute artefacts like the silent stone guardians of...
This government plan is fraught with danger. Here’s why
Allowing wealthy passengers to buy a 'premium' service is a step towards ruin.
Moonshots and money pits: this is politics in 2016
As parliament resumes to start an election year, novelist John Birmingham looks at what we want from our politicians in 2016, and...