Fire at Will

Australiana is now Fire at Will - your safe space for dangerous conversations.2024 is the biggest election year in history. Countries with more than half the world’s population – over four billion people – will go to the polls. You’d think the more elections the better, right? Dr Nic Cheeseman would urge caution. In fact, he argues that the greatest political paradox of our time is that there are more elections than ever before, and yet the world is becoming less democratic. Nic is the Professor of Democracy at the University of Birmingham and the co-author of the book, ‘How to Rig an Election’.Follow Australiana on social media here.Subscribe to The Spectator Australia here.Follow Nic on Twitter / X here.

The most astute social commentators on the present are the people who have the deepest understanding of the past. As Mark Twain famously said, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.” Historians are best placed to hear the rhymes of history in the news of the day.There are few historians who have demonstrated such an aptitude and insight for understanding modern politics and culture as Dr Victor Davis Hanson. Victor is the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He has written or edited twenty-five books, the latest of which is ‘The Dying Citizen: How Progressive Elites, Tribalism, and Globalization Are Destroying the Idea of America’.Follow Australiana on social media here.Subscribe to The Spectator Australia here.

It’s perhaps never been harder to speak the truth than it is in the West today. In fact, many people now implicitly question the value of the truth itself. That’s why it’s so important to recognise and champion people with the intellectual capacity and moral courage to speak the truth, no matter how uncomfortable it may be.Few people in the public discourse can speak deep truths with such simplicity and power as Zuby. Zuby is a rapper, author, podcast host, public speaker and creative entrepreneur, not to mention Elon Musk’s dream presidential candidate…Follow Australiana on social media here.Subscribe to The Spectator Australia here.Subscribe to Real Talk with Zuby here.

Few people called for sanity as the world lost its collective mind during the COVID pandemic, but Jay Bhattacharya was certainly one of them. Jay is a Professor of Health Policy at Stanford University, a Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, and one of the three authors of The Great Barrington Declaration.In this wide-ranging conversation with Will, Jay discusses the litany of institutional failures that marred the pandemic response, and what we must do to avoid making the same mistakes again.Follow Australiana on social media here.Subscribe to The Spectator Australia here.

The overwhelming majority of academic articles come and go with little fanfare. There may be the odd admiring nod from a professor, or a few lively debates in university tutorial rooms. But that’s normally about it.Unless you are Professor Bruce Gilley. In 2017, Bruce authored a watershed paper titled, ‘The Case for Colonialism.’ It sparked a global furore. Far from cowered, Bruce has just released a new book, also titled ‘The Case for Colonialism’, that doubles down on his argument: colonialism was, on balance, good for the colonised, and good for the world.Follow Australiana on social media here.Subscribe to The Spectator Australia here.Buy 'The Case for Colonialism' here.

It’s that time of the year when many of us will sit down and write. It could be resolutions. It could be reflections. It could be that book that everyone has inside them. There's just one problem. It's really hard.To crack the code of writing, Will is joined by one of the most successful crime fiction authors of all time, Jeffery Deaver. Jeffery has sold over 50 million novels in 25 languages, won numerous awards and counts Ian Rankin, Harlan Coben and Lee Child among his fans. His latest novel, The Watchmaker’s Hand, has just been released.Follow Australiana on social media here.Subscribe to The Spectator Australia here.Buy 'The Watchmaker's  Hand' here.

It's hard not to see America as a country in decline. Foreign policy attention is stretched, political debate is toxic, the national debt is eye-watering, and the institutions have been ideologically captured. However, America has been written off before. It's geographic, demographic, economic and military advantages remain the envy of the world.To discuss American politics as we enter a defining year in the country's history, Will is joined by best-selling author, host of The Gorka Reality Check, and former Deputy Assistant to President Trump, Sebastian Gorka.Follow Australiana on social media here.Subscribe to The Spectator Australia here.Follow Seb here.

As we approach the end of 2023, it’s easy to become despondent about the fate of the West. War rages in Ukraine and the Middle East, as China eyes off Taiwan. The cost of living crisis is becoming unbearable for average families. Illiberal ‘wokeism’ continues to infect our institutions. And the Anglosphere leaders elected to guide us out of this mess appear woefully ill-equipped to do so.To discuss the state of the world, and the small matter of the future of western civilisation, Will is joined by the Executive Director of the Centre for Independent Studies, and former Editor of The Spectator Australia, Tom Switzer.Follow Australiana on social media here.Subscribe to The Spectator Australia here.Learn more about The Centre for Independent Studies here.

Australiana is now Fire at Will - your safe space for dangerous conversations.For over 30 years, Naomi Wolf was lauded as a feminist icon, a bestselling author and a darling of liberal America. Her investigative journalism during the COVID pandemic led to those labels being replaced overnight with pejoratives like 'conspiracy theorist' and 'anti-vaxxer'. Unbowed and unbroken, Naomi continues to stand against tyranny in the finest tradition of classical liberalism. Her new book is titled 'Facing the Beast: Courage, Faith, and Resistance in a New Dark Age'. Follow Australiana on social media here.Subscribe to The Spectator Australia here.Buy 'Facing the Beast' here.

Satire is one of the most important ingredients of a healthy public discourse. But it is under threat across the west. Comedy, once the most subversive of artforms, has caved to the woke mob. Misinformation laws threaten to curtail free speech even further. And perhaps some of us have lost the ability to laugh at the irreverent and the politically incorrect.Joel Berry is not one of those people. Joel is the Managing Editor of the Babylon Bee, one of (if not the) most popular satirical websites on the planet. Millions of people read the Bee’s content every month.Follow Australiana on social media here.Subscribe to The Spectator Australia here.Read The Babylon Bee here.