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Noel Turnbull

Noel Turnbull

Pearls and Irritations

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What the insurance experts say about Queensland’s climate plans

The new Queensland Premier, David Crisafulli, has made some moderately progressive comments about climate and nuclear energy but they are, when...

sunday 10

Pearls and Irritations

Noel Turnbull

Bezos sullies Washington Post’s history

Journalists around the world were once inspired by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein to commit to significant investigative journalism. The pair,...

29.10.2024 10

Pearls and Irritations

Noel Turnbull

Could it happen here?

Inauguration Day for the new President in 2025 will mark the 90th anniversary of the publication of Sinclair Lewis’  It Can’t Happen Here. ...

22.10.2024 9

Pearls and Irritations

Noel Turnbull

A life of achievement in politics

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away there were purposeful, progressive and committed Labor Governments. The recent biography of Race Mathews,...

15.10.2024 10

Pearls and Irritations

Noel Turnbull

Dependency or protectorate?

It is understandable that people around the world obsess about US elections given the cultural and political impact the country has on the rest of us....

18.09.2024 10

Pearls and Irritations

Noel Turnbull

Guess what? Tony Abbott got it wrong

15.09.2024 7

Pearls and Irritations

Noel Turnbull

Is a new American civil war possible? Probably not, but…

It is sometimes difficult to believe that the US is not headed irretrievably towards a new civil war. But recent research suggests that among the...

06.09.2024 10

Pearls and Irritations

Noel Turnbull

Another dumbed down Australian promotion

Australia has come up with some absolute shockers when advertising agencies have been tasked with promoting the country around the world. Lara...

11.08.2024 7

Pearls and Irritations

Noel Turnbull

Armed conflict and multimedia at the Australian War Memorial

There is no doubt that multimedia technology can tell stories dramatically. These stories particularly resonate with a generation raised on video...

09.08.2024 5

Pearls and Irritations

Noel Turnbull

What’s the point of the Albanese Government?

The Albanese government is arguably the most timid Labor Government in our history. What’s the point of the Albanese Government? You might argue...

02.08.2024 8

Pearls and Irritations

Noel Turnbull

Bad news for the media

The latest Reuters Institute and University of Oxford report on media in Australia and the world has been published – and it’s bad news for almost...

31.07.2024 10

Pearls and Irritations

Noel Turnbull

UK water industry still about investors and not consumers

One oft-proven way to make money is to pick up a few gems among a pile of discarded mining rubble. In the case of the UK, an investment fund is...

18.07.2024 10

Pearls and Irritations

Noel Turnbull

“The Sun has won”: exponentially growing solar destroys nuclear, fossil fuels on price

It’s not known if Peter Dutton reads The Economist but if he does, he must probably think from time to time that it is sometimes dangerously left...

10.07.2024 7

Pearls and Irritations

Noel Turnbull

Meta and media minnows

It is hard to know whether the bleatings of the major media outlets about losing the Meta $70 million payments under the media bargaining code are...

25.06.2024 10

Pearls and Irritations

Noel Turnbull

How Dutton’s HALEU nuclear power could lead to nuclear weapons

If a future Prime Minister Dutton was able to get the fuel for a HALEU power station, would you be absolutely confident that he might not want to also...

19.06.2024 10

Pearls and Irritations

Noel Turnbull

Who prepared Dutton’s report on nuclear power?

The Canberra Press Gallery is not a homogenous group although its members do seem to suffer from a fair amount of groupthink; preference for gotchas...

12.06.2024 8

Pearls and Irritations

Noel Turnbull

“We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality…”

“Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty....

01.06.2024 20

Pearls and Irritations

Noel Turnbull

Dutton’s nuclear dream

30.05.2024 20

Pearls and Irritations

Noel Turnbull

What’s wrong with the media?

20.05.2024 30

Pearls and Irritations

Noel Turnbull

Banned books, manifestos and a better way of reading

At last weekend’s Victorian Writers Festival three authors – two of them also bookshop owners and one of them an author and enthusiastic supporter...

17.05.2024 30

Pearls and Irritations

Noel Turnbull

Australia: the land of lost revenue

07.05.2024 10

Pearls and Irritations

Noel Turnbull

The UK’s Thames Water and Macquarie Group rip off

The UK’s Thames Water – infamous for pumping raw sewage into waterways – parent company has now defaulted on its debt. Why should the failure...

30.04.2024 40

Pearls and Irritations

Noel Turnbull

The age of eco-anxiety

Back in 1947 the W.H. Auden poem, The Age of Anxiety, was published a year after he renounced his British citizenship for US citizenship. Today the...

27.04.2024 7

Pearls and Irritations

Noel Turnbull

Focus research beat ups

In journalism and politics there are beat ups every day of the week. But some are so outrageous that they make a zephyr breeze look like a tornado. ...

12.04.2024 5

Pearls and Irritations

Noel Turnbull

Dutton’s new form of climate denial

When Twiggy Forrest, Private Eye, The Financial Times and Bloomberg all describe why nuclear power is not the answer you have to wonder why Peter...

05.03.2024 9

Pearls and Irritations

Noel Turnbull

Weathering the storm: support for multiculturalism resists politicians’ frenzied divisiveness

Reading the latest Scanlon Foundation social cohesion report makes you aware that there are two quite distinct images of Australia. One – totally...

15.02.2024 9

Pearls and Irritations

Noel Turnbull

Genocidal wars dominate US history

US politicians and others are always boasting about the US being the greatest in just about any category you can think of – from the record for...

11.02.2024 10

Pearls and Irritations

Noel Turnbull

Spruiking armaments manufacturers at Last Post ceremony: beyond the pale

If anyone ever imagined that commemoration of our war dead was not an opportunity to make political points look no further than the Daily Last Post...

10.02.2024 7

Pearls and Irritations

Noel Turnbull

Three Nos at the Memorial make no sense at all

Divisions on the Australian War Memorial Council and political pressure are putting Memorial staff in a difficult position over the depiction of...

26.01.2024 10

Pearls and Irritations

Noel Turnbull

Who leaked sensitive legal material to a Murdoch columnist?

In the 20th century a series of UK investigations, including the Leveson Inquiry, demonstrated that Murdoch newspapers had engaged in phone hacking,...

24.01.2024 30

Pearls and Irritations

Noel Turnbull

Can Dutton wage culture wars and chew gum at the same time?

As Australia Day looms it’s not surprising that Peter Dutton has yet again found another culture war to prosecute – this time against...

23.01.2024 9

Pearls and Irritations

Noel Turnbull

Jacinta Nampijinpa Price among most trusted politicians

The latest Roy Morgan Most Trusted & Distrusted Leaders research has bad news for Anthony Albanese but worse news for Peter Dutton. … and the...

02.01.2024 6

Pearls and Irritations

Noel Turnbull

What does climate denialist Abbott think of the monarchy now?

Now what on earth will those staunch monarchists and climate denialists – John Howard and Tony Abbott – say about their new king, Charles III, and...

09.12.2023 20

Pearls and Irritations

Noel Turnbull

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