Yen’s White Lie: Charles Gerard and the Secrets of Old Saigon: The Best of 2020. A Sense of Place Magazine, 31 December, 2020.

By John Stapleton Yen’s White Lie details a complicated lover’s tryst in Old Saigon. But the city itself is as much of a character as the denizens that haunt the atmospheric alleyways and cafes of the past. When author Charles Gerard first came to live in Saigon in the mid-1990s, the former capital of South […]

Australian Medical Association’s Reputation Destroyed in Covid Chaos: The Best Of 2020. A Sense of Place Magazine, 29 December, 2020.

By John Stapleton Do No harm. So goes the most basic maxim of medical practice. Yet many hundreds of Australian practitioners have done exactly that, with senior health bureaucrats standing side by side with the nation’s grandstanding politicians as they impose draconian, counterproductive lockdowns. On 5 October, The Australian’s economics editor Adam Creighton wrote: “In […]

The Carlisle Hotel: Extract from Hideout in the Apocalypse: The Best Of 2020. A Sense of Place Magazine, 29 December, 2020.

By John Stapleton. Photography by Dean Sewell. The Carlisle Hotel in the back streets of Newtown in Sydney’s inner-west is one of the few places left in Sydney where the wowsers have not won; an old-fashioned pub in an increasingly strictured, shuttered country. Hotels and beer gardens across Australia are now largely empty, barren places, […]

Scott Morrison: The World’s Only Pentecostal Leader. The Best of 2020. A Sense of Place Magazine, 28 December, 2020.

 By John Stapleton The End Is Nigh As the shutdown of Australia continues apace, there’s one very legitimate question to ask: How is the Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s avowed belief that we are living through The End of Days influence his decision making? How does his belief in prosperity theology, that God rewards the righteous […]

The Future History of Publishing: The Best of 2020, A Sense of Place Magazine, 27 December, 2020.

By John Stapleton Since the beginning of literature technologies have shaped the written word. And thereby publishing technologies have shaped history, culture, politics and war. The adage history is written by the victors has transposed in this truly astonishing era into something else. In fact, in our current time, history is being written by the […]

Betrayal of the People: Australia’s Political Class Spirals into Chaos: The Best of 2020, A Sense of Place Magazine, 26 December, 2020.

By John Stapleton Desperate to distract attention from his spectacular mismanagement of the Covid crisis, the destruction of the national economy and the devastation his idiotic policies have wrecked on the lives of millions of people, this week Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison ramped up his attacks on China. The hypocrisy is truly astounding. Scott […]

Australian Sues The Emir of Dubai, A Sense of Place Magazine, 15 November, 2020.

By John Stapleton Australian Sues The Emir of Dubai Well that’s not a headline you see everyday. But that’s exactly what one Australian has been doing. The story is a complicated one, made more complicated by the passing of time and a long history of legal maneuvering. But it begins spectacularly against, as suits the […]

Shearers: The Photography of Russell Shakespeare, A Sense of Place Magazine, 14 November, 2020.

By John Stapleton Award winning photographer Russell Shakespeare explains the obsession: I’ve photographed shearers a lot over the years for a number of different publications. They’re an important and easily understood symbol for one of Australia’s most important industries; and there is a good deal of romance associated with them, historically and to the present […]

Lives, Livelihoods and Liberties: Lost, A Sense of Place Magazine, 8 November, 2020.

By John Stapleton The arrest of 404 people protesting outside Parliament House in Melbourne’s central business district, and the issuing of 395 very punitive fines, has crystallised Australia’s descent into authoritarianism. It is now a simple statement of fact that Australia’s police are being misused to suspend the democratic right to protest. While the adversarial […]

Reignite Democracy Australia, A Sense of Place Magazine, 27 October 2020.

By John Stapleton The group Reignite Democracy Australia has been busily documenting the many government abuses swelling out of Victoria under the most draconian and abusive lockdowns in the world. After weeks of mounting criticisms, all of a sudden Premier of Victoria Daniel Andrews is being given rave reviews for supposedly having seen off the […]

Peta Credlin Goes Feral: Daniel Andrews Dissolves, A Sense of Place Magazine, 12 October, 2020.

By John Stapleton For more than 100 days in a row Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has held lengthy press conferences where he details the latest Covid stats and answers questions from a tame media pack. This daily piece of theatre, where young and inexperienced journalists have acted as little more than channels for the state […]

Australian Medical Association’s Reputation Destroyed in Covid Chaos, A Sense of Place Magazine, 11 October, 2020.

By John Stapleton Do No harm. So goes the most basic maxim of medical practice. Yet many hundreds of Australian practitioners have done exactly that, with senior health bureaucrats standing side by side with the nation’s grandstanding politicians as they impose draconian, counterproductive lockdowns. On 5 October, The Australian’s economics editor Adam Creighton wrote: “In […]

Lumbini: Buddha’s Birthplace, A Sense of Place Magazine, 1 October, 2020.

Extract: Hideout in the Apocalypse. By John Stapleton. “You must heal yourself, no one else can, no one else should,” reads one of the placards posted around Buddha’s birthplace, Lumbini in Nepal, where he had spent several months not so long before. Of all the sayings of the Buddha, that one meant the most to […]

Australia’s Virus Story Collapses: Sky News Goes Feral, A Sense of Place Magazine, 14 September, 2020.

By John Stapleton With police blanketing the streets of Melbourne, citizens being assaulted by thugs in uniform, doors being broken down, a woman being dragged screaming from her car while millions in Melbourne remain shut down in the world’s most draconian and irrational lockdowns, the Australian government has lost control of the very Covid narrative […]

Police Arrest Pregnant Woman for Facebook Post, A Sense of Place Magazine, 4 September, 2020.

By John Stapleton Every lie has a trigger point when it unravels. In Australia, it is the arrest of a pregnant woman in front of her two children because she had dared to put up a Facebook post in support of lockdown protests. The arrest took place in her own home as she was getting […]

Alarming Expat Experiences in Thailand’s Prisons, A Sense of Place Magazine, 20 August, 2020.

By John Stapleton Many books by foreigners about Thailand include romantic or dissolute tales of alcoholism or substance abuse in the enervating heat; accompanied by a colourful caste of local prostitutes, gangsters and police, with virtually all the characters on the take in one way or another. Others affectionately record the characteristic slippery collisions of […]

Australia’s Lockdown Sceptics Go Mainstream, A Sense of Place Magazine, 19 August, 2020.

By John Stapleton The debate over Australia’s harsh lockdowns has turned. From the beginning the cognoscenti, if you wish to call them that, did not climb on board, much less rally behind the flag. But the masses thought otherwise. Anyone who didn’t agree with the lockdowns soon learnt to keep their mouth shut. The public […]

Australian Federation of Islamic Councils President Dr Rateb Jneid, A Sense of Place Magazine, 9 August, 2020.

The Interview: By John Stapleton Only a few short years ago the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, the country’s leading Sunni Muslim organisation, was drenched in controversy, day after dismal day.  The Federation, reported to be sitting on more than $60 million in assets, became a household name for all the wrong reasons, a byword […]

Thailand: The Varieties of Expatriate Experience. The Tartan Pimpernel. A Sense of Place Magazine, 8 July, 2020.

By John Stapleton Walter ‘Whacky’ Douglas looked like he was having a fine old time when he was arrested and deported from Thailand in 2014. Douglas, known as “The Tartan Pimpernel” and once described as one of Britain’s ten wealthiest drugs traffickers, disappeared from official view in the late 1990s after a career linked to […]

The Rise of Gab, A Sense of Place Magazine, 29 June, 2020.

By John Stapleton The role of the Silicon Valley tech companies in manipulating public opinion during the Corona lockdowns has thrown a harsh light straight back on their own conduct. The creation of at scale emotional contagion and high levels of compliance in populations, all at the behest of governments and their intelligence agencies, will […]

By Australia’s Mehi River, A Sense of Place Magazine, 25 May, 2020.

The Craft and Art of Jupuul Mari Mehi means girl in the gamilaraay dialect Miyaay. Moree is Mari and Mari means man. That is just the way whitefellas take our language and put it in their phonetic context. Because our language is not written, it is only spoken. They misconstrue our meaning of words by […]

Australia’s Flying Kangaroo Flies Straight Into Trouble, A Sense of Place Magazine, 20 May, 2020.

By John Stapleton Australia’s Transport Workers’ Union is calling on the Federal Government to implement a national plan to lower the risk of infection and spread of COVID-19 in aviation as Qantas announces changes which the union claims fall short of measures of keeping workers and passengers safe. Ironically, only last year Qantas won the […]

A Race Against Time

By John Stapleton Maintain radio silence. There is a Rat. While the rest of us have been waiting for this. Entropy in decaying forms made the mission, well this mission, urgent. From a parallel world. Everything became possible. To be in two places at once. To travel in the blink of an eye, as the […]

The Least Expected Consequence of Hyper-Connectivity

By John Stapleton It was the least expected consequence of hyper-connectivity. I need you to do something for me. No one could have predicted any of it. There had always been the rumours. They had always walked amongst us. Down the millennia, spilling across the ages. Some exposed themselves. Some tried to lift up the […]

The Future has Arrived: Surveillance in Australia

By John Stapleton This week ten people were arrested in Melbourne for attending a protest against self-isolating, social distancing and tracking apps, the only real political protest in the country since climate demonstrations earlier in the year. The government perpetrated scare on terror, however real or otherwise its basis, has morphed into Covid-19. Whether it […]

Who’s Watching the Watchers? Surveillance in Australia

By John Stapleton With Australia’s economy tilting into collapse and numerous questions now arising over the government’s management of the Covid-19 response, the question of surveillance of whistle blowers, journalists and dissidents is now front and centre of the debate. The government is urging all Australians to download the Covid tracing app to their phones. […]

Thailand: World’s Centre for Fake Passports

By John Stapleton Visitors to Thailand are not warned by travel agents, airlines or their own governments that their passports are highly prized in Thailand, and stand a very good chance of being stolen. Depending on the nationality, a passport can fetch thousands of dollars on the black market, several months pay for many Thais. […]

World Experts Warn: Stop the Lockdowns, A Sense of Place Magazine, 15 April, 2020.

By John Stapleton Panicked and irresponsible responses to Covid-19 are destroying the very societies they purport to protect, some of the world’s leading experts claim. The scientific community is increasingly coming out to condemn the societal wide shutdowns ordered by numerous, increasingly authoritarian governments around the world. State of the art epidemiological research suggests that […]

How Australia Got Covid-19 Completely and Totally Wrong: Experts Warn Against Authoritarian Madness, A Sense of Place Magazine, 13 March, 2020.

By John Stapleton None of it makes any sense. The streets are spookily quiet. The economy has been killed stone dead. People are being fined for going about their normal lives, even for being outside their homes without good reason. Those who are self-isolating in their holiday homes are being ordered to go back to […]

The Biggest Bungle Of Them: All How It All Ends Part III, A Sense of Place Magazine, 11 April, 2020.

Oak Flats is a working class suburb south of Wollongong on Australia’s east coast. Its demographic of tradies, electricians, plumbers, tilers, truck drivers, school teachers and nurses do not like or trust the nation’s politicians and to a man and woman pay more or less no attention to the media. It is this demographic which […]

How Did It Get So Bad? The Square and the Tower, A Sense of Place Magazine, 9 April, 2020.

The lockdown of Australia continues apace. A man has been fined $1600 for driving to a park near his house with the intention of going for a bike ride. Breaching no distancing rules, he apparently had no good excuse for being outside his home. But the government is telling people that exercise is a legitimate […]

Shutting Down Australia: How It All Ends Part II, A Sense of Place Magazine, 8 April, 2020.

“The world’s gone mad,” the old reporter said as he passed people on his morning walk. “Didn’t make any sense anyway,” comes the response. Australia is shutting down. Extreme measures introduced purportedly to stop the spread of Covid-19 are requiring extreme policing measures to force a sceptical population, accustomed to being lied to by their […]

Crushing Information Flows: Manufacturing Ignorance, A Sense of Place Magazine, 7 April, 2020.

By John Stapleton Adishonest government is a paranoid government, and the excessive legislation and manipulation of Australian media is already backfiring on the operatives behind it. The deliberately engineered bland-out of Australian media creates an illusion of consensus; as exemplified by the latest polling suggesting a surge in popularity for Prime Minister Scott Morrison, despite […]

Stasi Australia, A Sense of Place Magazine, 6 April, 2020.

By John Stapleton An overwhelmed and distrusting Australian population, repeatedly betrayed by their own government, is now being fined and threatened with jail if they gather in public in groups of more than two people. Covid-19 has provided the perfect cover for the introduction of martial law. All the fiats, storms of regulation and expansions […]

Lost Worlds: Australia How It All Ends, A Sense of Place Magazine, 5 April, 2020.

For years the biggest story in the country has been the slow motion collapse of the Australia of old. Now, with the country in lockdown and what is essentially martial law introduced under the cover of Covid-19, it has all come to pass, seemingly in an instant. The three books I have written on this […]

Morrison Government Wreathed In Scandal, A Sense of Place Magazine, 31 March, 2020.

The sorry Covid-19 saga says a lot about Australia and the churn at the top of the pile, the Prime Minister Scott Morrison. None of it complimentary. We have seen in the past few days the deliberate creation of panic in the broader population, a compliant mainstream media becoming handmaidens in support of the demolition […]

Deliberately Destroying the Economy: Fiscal Stimulus on Steroids, A Sense of Place Magazine, 31 March, 2020.

By John Stapleton The government which brought the nation some of the most expensive electricity in the world, worst, read truly abysmal internet, plummeting educational outcomes, highest household debt and soaring costs of living is in the act of throwing millions of Australians onto the dole queues. And delivering billions of dollars to their corporate […]

Welcome to Australia: The World’s Newest Totalitarian State, A Sense of Place Magazine, 30 March, 2020.

By John Stapleton Noone with two neurones to rub together trusts the Australian government. Their actions during the pandemic are being wildly and widely condemned. Australians have been suffering a slow death of democracy for years. A sclerotic bureaucracy and a greedy, dismally inept political class ensures a once optimistic country is optimistic no longer. […]

Covid-19 Plays Out in Australia An Unfolding Catastrophe, A Sense of Place Magazine, 29 March, 2020.

By John Stapleton The coverage has been excoriating. And so it should be. Australians have been abandoned by the political establishment. In a time of crisis, they’ve been doubly abandoned. There has been a catastrophic loss of faith in democracy, and all their malfeasance has come floating to the surface, plain for everyone to see. […]

How to Destroy a Nation, A Sense of Place Magazine, 28 March, 2020.

By John Stapleton All politics is local. An adage Australia’s inept government forgot long ago. It is what is happening in people’s lounge rooms that matters the most. Now almost everyone is hunkered down in their own lounge rooms, told not to go outside unless absolutely necessary. It’s 2020, and Australians have endured extremely poor […]

Scott Morrison: The World’s Only Pentecostal Leader, The End is Nigh, A Sense of Place Magazine, 27 March, 2019.

By John Stapleton As the shutdown of Australia continues apace, there’s one very legitimate question to ask: How is the Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s avowed belief that we are living through The End of Days influence his decision making? How does his belief in prosperity theology, that God rewards the righteous and destroys the unbeliever, […]

Covid-19: Pundits Queue to Criticise the Prime Minister, A Sense of Place Magazine, 26 March, 2020.

By John Stapleton Experts have long warned that with the extremely poor qualiy of government which has characterised the last decade in Australia, the country was rapidly becoming ungovernable. Now the future has arrived. Normally in times of of war or crisis the media rally behind the flag. Not this time around. Lie to the […]

Welcomed Everywhere: Until He Wasn’t, A Sense of Place Magazine, 20 March, 2019.

This is an extract from the upcoming book Dark Dark Policing, by veteran Australian journalist John Stapleton. The book will be published next month. They weren’t so wrong, those who had painted the world as a battle between good and evil. For everything, now, stood at a precipice. Step over the ledge. You can see […]

Mosul: The Great City Malcolm Turnbull and Australia’s Bombs, A Sense of Place Magazine, 11 March, 2020.

By John Stapleton FROM Malcolm Turnbull’s first day as Prime Minister in 2015 the bombings on Iraq increased. That is, not to put too fine a point on things, he was responsible for killing more Muslims than any other prime minister in Australian history. For years, putrid skeletons were being dug out of the rubble. […]

Betrayal of the People: Extract from Dark Dark Policing, A Sense of Place Magazine, 3 March, 2020.

By John Stapleton Everyone felt like a stranger now. The announcement came, the legendary Kidman properties, spanning three states and the Northern Territory, reportedly some 2.6 per cent of the nation’s land area, 101,000 square kilometres, was being sold to a Chinese consortium with Australia’s richest woman, Gina Rinehart, as the local figurehead. Then Treasurer […]

Yen’s White Lie: Charles Gerard and the Secrets of Old Saigon, 27 February, 2020.

By John Stapleton Yen’s White Lie details a complicated lover’s tryst in Old Saigon. But the city itself is as much of a character as the denizens that haunt the atmospheric alleyways and cafes of the past. When author Charles Gerard first came to live in Saigon in the mid-1990s, the former capital of South […]

The Worst of the Worst: Guantanamo Bay and A Bigger Picture, A Sense of Place Magazine, 16 February, 2020.

By John Stapleton The publicity blurb for the shortly to be released book A Bigger Picture by former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull makes the claim that he “stood up to Donald Trump”. Really??? But thereby hangs a tale. And a story about Australia, Turnbull, Trump, secretive refugee deals and Guantanamo Bay inmates that I as […]

The Intoxicating Fall of Malcolm Turnbull, A Sense of Place Magazine, 12 February, 2020.

By John Stapleton EVERY DOG has its day. And the most disappointing Prime Minister in Australian history certainly had his. The intoxicating fall of Malcolm Turnbull was a transfixing, delightful spectacle; a Shakespearean tragedy played out in the Antipodes. And no, the good guys did not win. There were no good guys, so collapsed the […]

And then there were the spooks: Dark Dark Policing, A Sense of Place Magazine, 8 February, 2020.

By John Stapleton Image Courtesy Long Wallpapers THE CAR ROSE SLOWLY from the fetid plains. For days, in tormented dreams, he had been a soldier going around a battlefield killing the wounded, firing shot after shot after shot. Most of the victims were already dead and his bullets thudded into corpses beginning to rot in […]

The Intoxicating Fall of Malcolm Turnbull, Michael West Media, 25 December, 2019.

Former gun reporter and star of ‘Dads on Air‘, John Stapleton, with alter ego, old Alex, looks back on the Turnbull era as the critical turning point in our country’s self-immolation. EVERY DOG has its day. And the most disappointing Prime Minister in Australian history certainly had his.  The intoxicating fall of Malcolm Turnbull was a transfixing, delightful […]

Australia now a surveillance state with journalists as POIs under ASIO Act, Michael West, 21 November, 2019.

Will future historians see the Abbott/Turnbull/Morrison era as the period of governance when totalitarian instincts were unleashed? The targeting of journalists is just the beginning of a much greater disaster, writes journalist and author, John Stapleton. The #RighttoKnow movement barely touches on the intensity of media manipulation by the conservatives since they regained power in 2013; […]

The Carlisle: Extract from Hideout in the Apocalypse, A Sense of Place Magazine, 6 November, 2019.

By John Stapleton The Carlisle Hotel in the back streets of Newtown in Sydney’s inner-west is one of the few places left in Sydney where the wowsers have not won; an old-fashioned pub in an increasingly strictured, shuttered country. Hotels and beer gardens across Australia are now largely empty, barren places, the victim of grotesque […]

Grafton: Extract from the upcoming book Dark Dark Policing, A Sense of Place Magazine, 31 October, 2019.

By John Stapleton. Photography by Dean Sewell. NOTHING could be more volatile. Some stories are long in the cooking. Some turn on a single day. Some are erupting moments of long internal struggle. Arguably one of the worst consequences of the widespread disillusionment in government that has flowed from the Abbott/Turnbull/Morrison era has been the […]

Donation to NSW State Library of material on Sandor Berger and Vicki Viidikas from 1989 and 1990.

RELATED ON SANDOR BERGER https://thejournalismofjohnstapleton.blogspot.com/2012/09/sandor-berger-telegraph-poles-talk-for.html https://thejournalismofjohnstapleton.blogspot.com/1989/11/telegraph-poles-talk-for-sandor-loner.html https://thejournalismofjohnstapleton.blogspot.com/1989/11/on-job-pix-sandor-berger-sydney-morning.html https://medium.com/a-sense-of-place/sandor-berger-84ba5bd509ff?source=friends_link&sk=8d4d654f0924561f6fa0c5d1e495d068 ON VICKI VIIDIKAS  https://thejournalismofjohnstapleton.blogspot.com/1999/03/where-final-price-is-high-indeed_24.html https://randomstrikesrawmaterial.blogspot.com/1987/06/a-note-from-poet-vicki-vidikas-1987.html https://randomstrikesrawmaterial.blogspot.com/1990/03/letter-from-poet-vicki-viidikas-27.html

The Glories of Caitlin Johnstone: The Internet Transforms Journalism, A Sense of Place Magazine, 3 September, 2019

With John Stapleton Talent works hard. Genius is compelled. Caitlin Johnstone is compelled. There are more than ten million blog posts published every single day. According to Hosting Tribunal there are 70 million new blog posts each month on WordPress alone. How can anyone make sense of all this? But out of this flood Caitlin […]

Australia Is In Dire Straits: Crony Capitalism and the Collapse of Democracy, A Sense of Place Magazine, 2 September, 2019.

By John Stapleton Quiet Australians, so-called. They’ve become an article of faith for a victorious Coalition government. Against the odds, surprising pundits, pollsters and even themselves, the conservatives have just won government once again despite a history of internal division and public scandal. After his May victory Prime Minister Scott Morrison was fulsome in his […]

It’s Snowing in Australia, The Photography of Dean Sewell, A Sense of Place Magazine, 19 August, 2019.

By John Stapleton Better known for its strikingly beautiful desert landscapes and the harsh heat of the inland, it has been snowing in parts of Australia that haven’t seen snow in decades. The lingering and unusually cold winter is continuing, with snowfalls and arctic conditions expected in the eastern states of Victoria and parts of […]

Dental Tourism in Vietnam, A Sense of Place Magazine, 12 August, 2019

By John Stapleton Australia’s major dental associations have all issued dire warnings about the dangers of travelling to Asia in an attempt to save money on dental work. The Australian Dental Association has produced a number of fact sheets about dental tourism, warning of potential complications, poor training and lack of recourse if things go […]

Shearers: The Photography of Russell Shakespeare, A Sense of Place Magazine, 15 July, 2019.

By John Stapleton Award winning photographer Russell Shakespeare explains the obsession: I’ve photographed shearers a lot over the years for a number of different publications. They’re an important and easily understood symbol for one of Australia’s most important industries; and there is a good deal of romance associated with them, historically and to the present […]

Whatever Happened to Earl Black? A Sense of Place Magazine. 8 July, 2019.

By John Stapleton Stories from the rollercoaster of his life flow out of Frank Earl. By his early twenties he was an internationally renowned wrestler with a villainous reputation performing around the world, England, Canada, Japan, Australia. Here’s just one story: The King and I: In 1969, Thailand was virgin territory for wrestling.The country had […]

Adrift on the World: The Art of David Tees, A Sense of Place Magazine, 26 June, 2019.

By John Stapleton David Tees has been drawing almost every day for the past 40 years, in a journey which has traversed continents and judicial systems. He was born in London, southern Ontario, in 1972 and moved to Vancouver cresting twenty. I was always drawing. If you play music you play guitar all your life. […]

Allies Drive Opium Trade To New Heights, A Sense of Place Magazine, 20 June, 2019.

By John Stapleton The failure of the Afghanistan war in which Australia, as a loyal ally of America, has been a major contributor has fuelled opium and heroin production in the region to unprecedented levels, the world’s leading expert on global drug trafficking has warned. A tiny, landlocked, poverty-stricken nation has brought the combined military […]

Australia’s Vicious Assault on Freedom of Speech, Pearls and Irritations, 11 June, 2019.

By John Stapleton World’s most secretive democracy. Absurd overreach of power. Secretive, ruthless and vindictive executive government. The scandal over the Australian Federal Police raids on journalists has deepened ever since their execution last week. But the scandal has been years in the making. First to recount: News Corp political editor Annika Smethurst had her […]

In the Realm of the Mongolian Kasakhs, A Sense of Place Magazine, 8 June, 2019.

By John Stapleton Every year their numbers drift inexorably towards zero. Deep in the wilds of far western Mongolia are the last remaining Kazakh eagle hunters. The burkitshi, as they are known in Kazakh, are proud men whose faces echo the harshness of the beautiful, barren landscape they call home. They have a remarkable bond […]

Twitch: The Evolution of Connectivity, A Sense of Place Magazine, 3 June, 2019.

By John Stapleton Humans spontaneously form villages and have an inherent desire to tell stories. Wherever and however people gather, others are sniffing around for money. And predators abound. Twitch is well on the way to becoming the world’s dominant streaming platform; a quick scan of its history showing phenomenal growth. Transformative is now an […]

Commute: The Black and White Photography of Russell Shakespeare, A Sense of Place Magazine, 25 May, 2019.

By John Stapleton Russell Shakespeare is a multi-award winning Australian photographer. His professional work, while at times a fascinating high pressure roller coaster ride, has its decided restrictions. This series explores the artistic side of one of Australia’s most accomplished lensmen. The Commute series of photographs have been captured on his phone. In my working […]

The Voices of Dickson: The Essay, A Sense of Place Publishing, 16 May, 2019.

John Stapleton May 16 The sprawling electorate of Dickson in Northern Brisbane is Ground Zero for the coming election; pivotal for the future of the country. Every major media organisation has sent journalists to the seat; almost all of them with an agenda to discredit and if possible help unseat the sitting Member — Home Affairs Minister […]

Someone to Lead, The Voices of Dickson Part III, A Sense of Place Publishing, 15 May, 2019.

By John Stapleton CLICK TO PLAY Like many areas in a rapidly changing Australia, the seat of Dickson in the north of Brisbane straddles many divides. It is also a fulcrum seat which holds a key to the future of the country. It is the electorate of Peter Dutton, the man who by running against then […]

Dark side of Sky at night, The New Daily, 15 May, 2019.

https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/election-2019/2019/05/14/andrew-bolt-sky-news-labor/ Dark side of Sky at night: Analysis of Murdoch TV network reveals extent of anti-Labor comments Research conducted by The New Daily confirms perceptions of anti-Labor bias amongst conservative commentators, while the Liberal Party and Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party were the subject of glowing commentary. Sky, previously available only on subscription, became a much more […]

Running to Stand Still, The Voices of Dickson Part Two, A Sense of Place Magazine, 10 May, 2019.

Click Here To Play Australia, despite all the official prattle about diversity, has never been more divided. And the same holds true of Dickson, which hangs by a knife-edge. Sitting conservative member Peter Dutton holds the seat by a tiny 1.6 percent and opposition parties are throwing everything they can at him. Statistically Dickson is Middle […]

What They Say In The Pubs of Australia’s Most Controversial Electorate, The Voices of Dickson Part One, A Sense of Place Magazine, 8 May, 2019.

By John Stapleton Less than two more weeks to go in what is being condemned as the most turgid, dull, boring election campaign in Australia’s history. Daily politicians on both sides announce this, that and the other, all their various empty schemes backed with eye popping price tags in the billions. Nobody believes them. Nobody […]

Australia’s Underworld Versus A Celebrity Muslim Refugee Doctor, A Sense of Place Publishing, 5 May, 2019.

By John Stapleton Once upon a time there was nothing the Australian media liked more than a good gangster story. Now there’s nothing Australia’s media like more than a celebrity refugee. Crime stories require resources and insider knowledge; feel good refugee stories fit easily into the government’s propaganda machine and require no skills at all. […]

Australia’s Genius Son: Julian Assange, A Sense of Place Magazine, 17 April, 2019.

By John Stapleton Which master government strategists planned this? With all their resources, money, power and operational capacities, who on Earth dreamed up the idea of making the intelligence community’s Number One nemesis front page news around the world? And ensuring the story is dramatic enough that it will stay there in the coming months […]

Brexit in the Springtime, A Sense of Place Magazine, 10 April, 2019.

The daffodils are out. The cherry blossoms are in bloom. England’s famous meadows are looking their absolute best. And the headlines are all diabolical. It’s spring in the UK and the papers scream “Death of democracy”, “Cabinet in crisis”. Day after day. Three long years the British people have put up with this eternal, surreal […]

The Rise of Ultranationalism in Australia: Facebook and the Sites of Discontent, A Sense of Place Magazine. 23 March, 2019.

By John Stapleton Nothing could be more volatile. The live streaming of the Christchurch massacre to Facebook, perpetrated by an Australian citizen, broke new ground in online slaughter. Politicians and members of the public of all persuasions have used the event to peddle their own interests and display tolerance, progressiveness or prejudice. This is a […]

The Myth of Black Opal: Lightning Ridge and the Guardians of Fiery Love, A Sense of Place Magazine, 15 March, 2019.

The picture above was taken in 1909, at the height of what was known as the Three Mile Rush. The bicycle polisher rigged up in the centre of this picture was being used to rub down opal. The commercial potential of black opal, said to be the world’s rarest and arguably the most beautiful of […]

Empire, A Sense of Place Magazine, 10 March, 2019.

By John Stapleton The library at Burnham Beeches, a decaying mansion in the Dandenong Ranges east of Melbourne, looks nothing like it did in its hay day in the 1930s. Now it sits inside a glass case flooded with inky water. Melbourne artist, known by the name of Rone, has transformed deserted Art Deco mansion […]

Finding Tom in the Philipinnes, Life as an Adventure Vlogger, A Sense of Place Magazine, 3 March, 2019.

By John Stapleton Thomas Kuegler is just having way too much fun. All the while attracting millions of followers and fulfilling a Millennial’s ultimate dream — to make a living out of social media. Tom, 25, has become famous largely by simply being himself, infectiously funny, wildly enthusiastic, smart, with a dose of self-deprecating humor thrown in. […]

The Birth of Dads On The Air, A Sense of Place Magazine, 19 February, 2019.

By John Stapleton When Dads On The Air, now the world’s longest running fathers’ show, began in 2000 we had no idea we were part of a worldwide trend protesting the treatment of fathers in separated families. We were a small group of disgruntled, occasionally disheveled separated dads who had no experience of radio and […]

What is Wrong With This Picture? A Sense of Place Magazine. 16 February, 2019.

By John Stapleton The truth is military authorities have no idea how many civilians have been killed by American and Australian bombs in the medieval streets of Iraq and Syria. Millennials obsess and blog endlessly about how they can be better, more socially responsible individuals. But at the same time as they genuflect before the […]

Hakeem, the Australian Federal Police and a Truly Desperate Government, Pearls and Irritations, 14 February, 2019.

Just how many own goals can one government make and still survive? As Prime Minister Scott Morrison leads his shambolic government to electoral wipeout, he is now embroiled in yet another controversy. Are the Australian authorities, including the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Border Force, to blame for the diplomatic fracas that erupted over […]

Acknowledged Civilian Casualties Only Beginning of Defence Scandal, Pearls and Irritations, 8 February, 2019.

The truth is military authorities have no idea how many civilians have been killed by Australian bombs in the medieval streets of Iraq and Syria. The latest news, that the Defence Department has officially admitted that Australia may have been implicated in the deaths of up to 18 civilians in the Iraqi city of Mosul […]

RAAF bombs obliterated enemies, civilians and truth in Iraq, The New Daily, 2 February, 2019.

By John Stapleton The truth is military authorities have no idea how many civilians have been killed by Australian bombs in the rubble-strewn streets of Iraq. The latest news, that the Defence Department has officially admitted that Australia may have been implicated in the deaths of up to 18 civilians in the ISIS-occupied Iraqi city […]

The Ecological and Environmental Catastrophe Visited Upon Australia’s Inland River System, A Sense of Place Magazine, 29 January, 2019.

By John Stapleton. Photography by Dean Sewell. They blame climate change. They blame the drought. They blame everyone and everything but themselves. The stench of millions of dead fish, the rotting corpses of kangaroos and sheep, the missing bird life, the farmers who can no longer farm, devastated indigenous peoples, an ancient, desecrated landscape, internationally […]

Phfen Shock: Yearning for the Chasm, A Sense of Place Magazine, 22 January, 2019.

Phfen Shock. The words kept repeating through his head, although he could find no definition, no logical reason. That was the sensation, he discovered, when you arrived at a new place expecting welcome, the village beyond the veil, only to discover as you lay awake in the horror hours, that your mind was picking across […]

World Press Photographer Jailed in Chinese Crackdown: The Photography of Lu Guang, A Sense of Place Magazine, 16 January, 2019.

By John Stapleton Lu Guang picked up a camera for the first time in 1980, still a teenager. He was a factory worker in his hometown of Yongkang in China’s Zhejiang Province. After studying in Beijing he became a freelance photographer in 1993, primarily focusing on documentary projects in China. From humble beginnings, as a […]

Australia’s Only Celebrity Jihadist Creates Diplomatic Chaos: The Life of Neil Prakash, A Sense of Place Magazine, 12 January, 2019.

By John Stapleton Since October of 2016 Neil Prakash has been in a prison near Turkey’s southern border, accused of being a supporter of Islamic State. As he appeared front and centre of some of the terror group’s most powerful and widely distributed propaganda, there isn’t too much doubt about the veracity of the allegations. […]

Bob Hawke and the Demon Drink, A Tale from Hunting the Famous, A Sense of Place Magazine, 8 January, 2019.

By John Stapleton At 89, former Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke has declared himself in miserable health and unlikely to last much longer. While he expects the Labor Party, which he led for many years, to win the next election, due by May of 2019, he does not expect to be around to see it. […]

A Homage to Warren Clarke Photo-Journalist, Inveterate Traveler, A Sense of Place Magazine, 4 January, 2019.

Written By John Stapleton with Russell Shakespeare, Michael Amendolia Warren Clarke was known for his high adventurism. Whether on assignment or not, he trekked to places no other photographer wanted to go. In recent years he had become fascinated by India; where he did some of his greatest work. In November of 2017, unable to […]

The Currumbin Valley Rock Pools: The Photography of Russell Shakespeare, A Sense of Place Magazine, 30 December, 2018.

The Voice of Russell Shakespeare written and Transcribed by John Stapleton “For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and there you will long to return.” Leonardo da Vinci The Currumbin Valley Rock Pools are about five minutes from where I live. […]

The Daughter of Siberian Shamans: The Coldest Inhabited Place on Earth, A Sense of Place Magazine, 26 December, 2019.

By John Stapleton Yakutsk is the coldest place on Earth. Winter temperatures plunge below minus 50 degrees Centigrade. Courtesy Sohu. Unlicensed Image. The town of Oymyakom, in the East Siberian Depression, has recorded temperatures well below of minus 60. The indigenous tribes of this most hostile of environments include the Yukighir, the Eveni, the Evenki […]

From Little Things Big Things Grow, Interview with Dads On The Air, 13 December, 2018.

From Little Things Big Things Grow THURSDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2018 AT 9:00AM With special guest: John Stapleton … in conversation with Bill Kable John Stapleton is a legend at Dads on the Air. In the year 2000 while working as a journalist he became involved with a number of fathers who struggled to see their own […]

Salman Rushdie, A Sense of Place Magazine, 12 December, 2018.

Serious breaches were breaking through the fabric of things. Back in London in the 1980s, I was using my new found status as a freelance journalist to pursue literary idols. The interview with Salman Rushdie took place in the same room where he had written Midnight’s Children. He was already world famous, having won Britain’s […]

The Triumph of Death. A Sense of Place Magazine. 5 December, 2018.

By John Stapleton Death triumphs over the mundane. An army of skeletons raze the Earth. All life is extinguished. The background is a barren landscape in which scenes of destruction are still taking place. In the foreground, Death leads his armies from his reddish horse, destroying the world of the living. The latter are led […]

Anthropocene. A Sense of Place Magazine. 1 December, 2018.

By John Stapleton The Anthropocene Project is a multidisciplinary body of work by photographer Edward Burtynsky, filmmaker Jennifer Baichwal and cinematographer Nicholas de Pencier. The project’s starting point is the research of the Anthropocene Working Group, an international body of scientists who argue that the Holocene epoch ended around 1950, and that we have officially […]

India’s Festival of Colours: The Black and White Photography of Russell Shakespeare, 25 November, 2018.

By John Stapleton India’s Holi Festival celebrates the triumph of good over evil. It lasts for a night and a day and erupts in vivid display of colours across the villages, towns and cities of India, spreading into Nepal. At its core, people throw brightly colored powder over each other in a violent eruption of […]

The Future History of Publishing, A Sense of Place Magazine, 20 November, 2018.

By John Stapleton Since the beginning of literature technologies have shaped the written word. And thereby publishing technologies have shaped history, culture, politics and war. The adage history is written by the victors has transposed in this truly astonishing era into something else. In fact, in our current time, history is being written by the […]

Lunch With Joseph Heller, A Sense of Place Magazine, 14 November, 2018.

It’s not every day you get to interview one of the world’s most famous authors, someone who created an expression which entered the English language. Catch 22. The Oxford dictionary defines a Catch 22 as: A dilemma or difficult circumstance from which there is no escape because of mutually conflicting or dependent conditions. as modifier ‘a […]

Sydney: Song Before Sunrise, The Photography of Tim Ritchie, A Sense of Place Magazine, 10 November, 2018.

By John Stapleton Crisis turns into salvation at every step. For Tim Ritchie it was literally true. “I am a diabetic and eight years ago my doctor told me to walk 10,000 steps a day, but even then my blood sugar levels were still crappy,” he recalls. “So I decided to take up bike riding. […]

Brain Pickings: A Celebration of Genius, A Sense of Place Magazine, 7 November, 2018.

By John Stapleton Luminously intelligent, gifted with a great eye and a startling, incandescent love of beauty, the already celebrated Maria Popova is finally putting out a book, Figuring, due on the shelves in February. For twelve years now Popova’s weekly newsletter Brain Pickings has dazzled, delighted, diverted and intrigued its followers. Carson Ellis. Featured in […]

The Kashi Vishwanath Express, The Photography of Russell Shakespeare, A Sense of Place Magazine, 4 November, 2018.

By John Stapleton Apart from walking, one of the slowest ways to travel the 794 kilometres from New Delhi in the state of Uttar Pradesh to Varanasi on the Ganges is the Kashi Vishwanath Express. Multi-award winning Australian news photographer Russell Shakespeare first caught the train in 1987 as a young, wide-eyed twenty something who […]

My First Ever Front Page Story, A Sense of Place Magazine, 31 October, 2018.

    Everything came in torrents from the past; always disturbed, always flung to the four winds, good times non-existent. The world had become a flat, monochromatic place, leaden grey, terrifying. There was no coherent, single personality. The grey was all that I knew, all it seemed I had known for years. Comfort came from […]

Could There Be a Greater Betrayal? Pearls and Irritations, 27 October, 2018.

By John Stapleton So it is done. The Coalition government has admitted defeat. Scott Morrison is not there to save the furniture. He’s there to steer his party direct to electoral oblivion. The ineptitude of the Wentworth by-election put on display just how deeply the rot and incompetence of this ineffectual government runs. They have […]

Could There Be a Greater Betrayal? Australian Politics. A Sense of Place Magazine, 27 October, 2018.

By John Stapleton So it is done. The Coalition government has admitted defeat. Current Prime Minister Scott Morrison is not there to save the furniture. He’s there to steer his party to electoral oblivion. The ineptitude of the recent Wentworth by-election for the vacated seat of former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull put on display just […]

The fiasco of Australia’s telecommunications, Pearls and Irritations, 23 October, 2018.

By John Stapleton Complaints against the troubled broadband network have risen yet again with the latest Telecommunications Ombudsman’s Report, released this week, showing significant increases in complaints over the last year. As the government prepares to sell the NBN, levels of dissatisfaction against what critics describe as the worst infrastructure project in Australian history are […]

Publishing the Book: Children of the State, A Sense of Place Magazine, 22 October, 2018.

By John Stapleton Let’s face it: this is a tough sell. In the beginning was the Word. Well, there was a radio show called Dads On The Air. We were a small group of that most unfashionable of all people. Separated, sad, angry, overwhelmed fathers. But unlike most such creatures we had an outlet. Australia is […]

Richard Trevaskis Meets Malcolm McLaren, A Sense of Place Magazine, 18 October, 2018.

By John Stapleton “Malcolm McLaren is dead. Cancer.” The mother of my children relayed the news in 2010. We were lounging in the muggy heat by a Phnom Penh pool. We were behind 20 foot high mansion walls; the chaos of potholes and beggars that characterised the nearby streets entirely lost on her. “Can you […]

Optus named ‘worst performing telco’ as NBN complaints surge: Report, The New Daily, 17 October, 2018.

Optus named ‘worst performing telco’ as NBN complaints surge: Report John Stapleton SHARE TWEETSHAREREDDITPINEMAILCOMMENT Complaints against the troubled National Broadband Network have risen again with the latest Telecommunications Ombudsman’s Report, released on Wednesday, showing significant increases in complaints over the past year. As the government prepares to sell the NBN, levels of dissatisfaction against what […]

The Burning Ghats of Varanasi, with Russell Shakespeare, A Sense of Place Magazine, 13 October, 2018.

By John Stapleton People crawl across India to die in Varanasi for one reason: according to the Hindu faith if you die there, on the edge of the sacred Ganges River, you will not be reincarnated. The cycle of life, and therefore of suffering, is over. Accomplished Australian photographer Russell Shakespeare’s connection with India, and […]

Gilligan’s Island, Sydney. Extract From Terror in Australia: Workers’ Paradise Lost. A Sense of Place Magazine, 8 October, 2018.

Australian democracy is in collapse. A country once proud of its own story, of its tough convict origins and rough as guts bush legends, a prosperous country which held its head high in the world with a brazen, laissez faire anti-establishment attitude, has been in retreat for years. Now it has reached the Dead Zone. […]

Jac Vidgen and the RAT Parties, A Sense of Place Magazine, 25 September, 2018.

By John Stapleton Farewell Old Friend Jac Vidgen became both famous and infamous for one thing: his parties. They grew from his lounge rooms in Elizabeth Bay in central Sydney in the 1970s, where I was a frequent visitor, to become truly massive affairs, attended by thousands, literally the biggest ever held in Australia. The […]

The Laughing Lama: On Meeting a Buddhist Master, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. A Sense of Place Magazine, 6 September, 2017.

By John Stapleton “Spiritual truth is not something elaborate and esoteric, it is in fact profound common sense. When you realize the nature of mind, layers of confusion peel away. You don’t actually “become” a buddha, you simply cease, slowly, to be deluded. And being a buddha is not being some omnipotent spiritual superman, but […]

Bridget Lafferty Leaves Redfern, A Sense of Place Magazine, 2 September, 2018.

Images, paintings and recollections from Bridget Lafferty. By John Stapleton. Editors Note: This story, written way back in 2018, was pivotal in the evolution of A Sense of Place Magazine, because it was at this very point that we realised and came to understand the potential of the new publishing technologies. Bridget Lafferty was an old neighbour […]

Murder on Lower Fort Street, A Sense of Place Magazine, 4 September, 2018.

Written by John Stapleton. Photography by Tim Ritchie. There is no more historic, more superbly located or visually rich part of Sydney than The Rocks. Tucked in under the southern flank of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, from the earliest days of the colony it was known as a slum, for its gambling dens, drinking houses, […]

The Demise of Malcolm Turnbull, The Series, A Sense of Place Magazine, 27 August, 2018.

This is the series which begins just days before the excruciating fall of Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. The story ends with him disgraced, at war with his own Party and dismissed by the public; in virtual exile inside inside his own wealth, destroyed by his own ambition. It is a Shakespearean yarn of the […]

Coup Capital of the World: Australia, The Demise of Malcolm Turnbull, A Sense of Place Magazine, 26 August, 2018.

Homepage By John Stapleton I am a vengeful god The Lord is a jealous and avenging God; the Lord takes vengeance and is filled with wrath. The Lord takes vengeance on his foes and vents his wrath against his enemies. Nathum 1:2. In the end, the oligarchs who seize power are judged not by the way […]

We Come Not to Praise But to Bury, The Legacy of Malcolm Turnbull, A Sense of Place Magazine, 24 August, 2018.

By John Stapleton Those Whom the Gods Would Destroy The Coverage Malcolm Turnbull’s Day of Reckoning has arrived. He could have left with dignity ten days ago; doctors advice, spend more time with his grandchildren. But this hapless Prime Minister, with his Party Room in revolt, cannot even manage his own political death. A very bad […]

Australia’s Assault on Freedom of Speech: The Terrible Legacy of Malcolm Turnbull, A Sense of Place Magazine, 23 August, 2018.

By John Stapleton Let Slip the Dogs of War: Coverage The word “crisis” is bandied about a lot in discussing Australian politics right this minute. Nothing the present batch of oligarchs could do to manipulate, suppress or control the media has worked. Except when it comes down to warfare. The media hunt in packs, they […]

Betraying the Future: The Worst Internet in the World, The Legacy of Malcolm Turnbull, A Sense of Place Magazine, 22 August, 2018.

The First Harpoon Strikes the Flank In the petri dish of Australian politics, the Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull thrashes in a blood soaked sea. The first leadership spill, on Tuesday 21st August, 2018, precipitated by the powerful Minister for Home Affairs Peter Dutton, has left Turnbull mortally wounded. The first harpoon has hit the flank: 48–35. […]

War Crimes: Malcolm Turnbull’s Terrible Legacy, A Sense of Place Magazine, 20 August, 2018.

By John Stapleton America’s Wars, Australia’s hypocrisy With his fate set and Malcolm Turnbull’s Prime Ministership in its death throes, it is time to look back across the wasteland of his leadership. The ritual lies of political combat: The Prime Minister has my full support. Laugh Out Loud. Versus: I’m focused on delivering for the […]

The Many Lows of Malcolm Turnbull’s Prime Ministership, A Sense of Place Magazine, 19 August, 2018.

By John Stapleton Australia’s Failing Democracracy The Foundation Lie The frenetic efforts of a failing Prime Minister have curled into a frustrated ball of fury. And arguably the worst government in Australian history faces electoral wipeout. The slow motion trainwreck of Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership has been so excruciatingly long and played out on so many […]

From Out of the Maelstrom: A Very Australian Two Horse Race, A Sense of Place Magazine, 17 August, 2018.

By John Stapleton The Fight Is On At the centre of the maelstrom which has overtaken Australian politics this weekend lies one man: the departing Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. Disliked by the public, disliked by his own party, disliked by the public service, Australia’s 29th Prime Minister is mortally wounded. His days are not just numbered, […]

Mr Harbourside Mansion: A House of Cards Collapses, A Sense of Place Magazine, 16 August, 2018.

By John Stapleton A House of Cards Collapses “Mr Harbourside Mansion” was a pejorative term coined by critics within Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s own party. The insult stuck. Indeed it is Turnbull’s often boasted about wealth which has been his undoing. A tactic that worked to establish dominance in his social whirl of wealthy […]

The Demise of Malcolm Turnbull, Pearls and Irritations, 16 August, 2018.

The leadership is in play.  Diabolical polling ensures that. But how Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership devolved to the current disaster is a complicated yarn, like the man himself. So let’s begin at the beginning. Rob Hirst, drummer for Midnight Oil, recalls the future Prime Minister from the early 1970s when both were schoolboys at the elite private […]

No Breakfast with Anthony Burgess, A Sense of Place Magazine, 15 August, 2018.

By John Stapleton A TRULY VICIOUS HANGOVER fogged every sense, the morning I interviewed Anthony Burgess in London back in the 1980s. There was no better place to be than the English capital, which was spinning through a centrifugal moment of cultural incandescence. Or so it seemed to a wide-eyed young journalist from Beyond the […]

The Quagmire Collapses: The Demise of Malcolm Turnbull, A Sense of Place Magazine, 15 August, 2018.

By John Stapleton The leadership is in play. Diabolical polling ensures that. But how Malcolm Turnbull’s prime ministership devolved to the current disaster is a complicated yarn, like the man himself. So let’s begin at the beginning. Rob Hirst, drummer for Midnight Oil, recalls the future Prime Minister of Australia from the early 1970s when […]

Gore Vidal at Claridges, A Sense of Place Magazine, August 11, 2018.

LIVING IN LONDON in the 1980s, by the time I got to Gore Vidal I was a bit blasé about interviewing famous people. I had interviewed Norman Mailer, Anthony Burgess, Dirk Bogarde, Salman Rushdie, the founder of the Sex Pistols, you name it; and while Gore Vidal might have been one of the most celebrated […]

Thailand: The Varieties of Expatriate Experience, A Sense of Place Magazine,10 August, 2018.

By John Stapleton The Tartan Pimpernel Walter ‘Whacky’ Douglas looked like he was having a fine old time when he was arrested and deported from Thailand in 2014. Douglas, known as “The Tartan Pimpernel” and once described as one of Britain’s ten wealthiest drugs traffickers, disappeared from official view in the late 1990s after a […]

Falun Dafa and the End of Days: Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance: A Sense of Place Magazine, 8 August, 2018.

“When two truths meet the most courageous one wins.” Chinese proverb. In the years since Falun Gong was launched in 1992 it has attracted millions of followers in more than 60 different countries. As evidenced by the crackdown of the Chinese Communist Party, the spiritual practice posed a serious threat to the government of the […]

Paul Bowles and the Sheltering Sky, A Sense of Place Magazine, August 7, 2018.

Paul Bowles and the Sheltering Sky. By John Stapleton. Paul Bowles with Jane Bowles, Truman Capote and others Courtesy of Corflammae ONE BELONGS TO THE WHOLE WORLD, not just one part of it, Paul Bowles once told an interviewer. Gifted annually with a round-the-world free ticket courtesy of my father’s job as a Captain on […]

The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, A Sense of Place Magazine, 23 July, 2018.

By John Stapleton One of the most truly brilliant and profound texts of the age, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, written by Buddhist master Sogyal Rinpoche, immediately assumed, upon first publication in the 1990s, its rightful place as a great spiritual masterpiece. It has now been republished with a Forward by the Dalai Lama. With […]

Hideout in the Apocalypse gets a mention in Independent Australia, 20 June, 2018.

The original article can be seen here. Australia, 2018: Lies, cover-ups and suppression of free speech  Alison Broinowski 20 June 2018, 8:00am Propaganda about an endless “war on terror” and a succession of enemies has led to the slow creep of suppression of inquiry, writes former diplomat Dr Alison Broinowski. GEORGE ORWELL could have been describing today, not the […]

Surveillance in Australia; Part Three. Pearls and Irritations, 1 June, 2018.

JOHN STAPLETON. The democratic contract is broken. The freedom of Australians to go about their daily lives without being watched by their government has vanished with barely a whisper of protest. Professor of Law at UNSW George Williams argues that the war on terror has recast the relationship between governments and individuals. The rushed nature […]

Surveillance in Australia, Part Two: A Parallel Secret Police Force, Pearls and Irritations, 31 May, 2018.

JOHN STAPLETON This is a government run on announceables. Even without the Budget blizzard, so far in 2018 we have had major announcements on everything from the so-called Gonski 2.0 education reforms, the establishment of an Australian arms industry to compete internationally, and an investigation into the practices of the Public Service. They cost millions, […]

Surveillance in Australia; Part One: Who’s Watching the Watchers? Pearls and Irritations, 30 May, 2018.

JOHN STAPLETON Beyond the daily media coverage of the frenetic efforts of a failing Prime Minister, the biggest unexplored story in Australia of Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership has been the massive expansion of state surveillance under his watch. It is a story which goes straight to the heart of Australia’s failing democracy, the dangerous gifting of […]

Abbott and Turnbull’s Assault on Freedom of Speech, Pearls & Irritations, 20 April, 2018.

JOHN STAPLETON. The Abbott and Turnbull governments have mounted the greatest attack on freedom of speech in Australian history. Legislation being pushed through by the government earlier this year under the guise of national security, allowing for journalists and whistle-blowers to be jailed for up to 20 years, was just the latest in a string […]

More than the Taliban, opium is the enemy in Afghanistan, The New Daily, 7 April, 2018.

By John Stapleton Even more than the Taliban, opium is the enemy in Afghanistan – and it’s winning The failure of the Afghanistan war in which Australia, as a loyal ally of America, has been a major contributor has fueled opium and heroin production in the region to unprecedented levels, the world’s leading expert on […]

Extracts from Thailand Deadly Destination, A Sense of Place Magazine, 9 March, 2018.

FROM CHAPTER ONE FRUIT FOR THE PICKING The daily robbing, bashing, drugging, extortion and murder of foreign tourists on Thai soil, along with numerous scandals involving unsafe facilities and well established scams, has led to frequent predictions that Thailand’s multi-billion dollar tourist industry will self-destruct. Instead tourist numbers more than doubled in the decade to […]

Quantum physicist named 2018 Australian of the Year, The New Daily, 26 January, 2018.

By John Stapleton Quantum physicist Professor Michelle Yvonne Simmons, described by some as the Marie Curie of Australia and with an almost unparalleled record of achievement, has been named the 2018 Australian of the Year. Professor Simmons leads a research team at the University of NSW, which in 2012 developed the world’s first transistor made […]

Order of Australia: The famous faces and unsung heroes who received the honour, The New Daily, 26 January, 2018.

  By John Stapleton Eighty-year-old Patricia Elliott, who lives on a rural block seven kilometres outside of Katherine in the Northern Territory, had no idea she was even nominated for an Order of Australia until a letter arrived from the Governor-General. Mrs Elliott was one of the 895 recipients to receive the honour from Governor-General […]

Terror law to allow child detention, The New Daily, 31 October, 2017.

By John Stapleton The Prime Minister’s pledge to introduce national legislation to detain people, including children as young as 10 years old, for 14 days without charge is a march towards totalitarianism, civil libertarians have warned. Earlier this month, in what is known in intelligence circles as “security theatre”, Malcolm Turnbull held a special National […]

Federal government appears more than ready to channel its inner bully, The New Daily, 30 October, 2017.

By John Stapleton As the events of the last week have shown, this is a government run by bullies. A year ago, The New Daily broke the story of concerns over cost overruns and security flaws at Malcolm Turnbull’s mansion. We reported that the Prime Minister was potentially endangering the lives of his family, staff, […]

Opinion. A Sense of Place Magazine, 25 October, 2017.

By John Stapleton Useful fools, the Cultural Marxists pouring out of the nation’s universities and into our institutions, got one thing right. It is all about power. At the centre of the circus which has enveloped conservative politics lies one man: Malcolm Turnbull. Turnbull has long had a reputation for bullying his way to the […]

ASIO: The Secret Police Force doing enormous damage to Democracy, The New Daily, 21 October, 2017.

By John Stapleton The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, better known as ASIO, was born out of the anti-Communist hysteria of the post-war era, and has always been closely associated with the conservative side of politics. The unprecedented expansion of its powers and budgets under the Abbott/Turnbull governments has provoked widespread concern among academics, lawyers and […]

Victory over Islamic State, but at great cost of civilian life, The New Daily, 17 October, 2017.

By John Stapleton The ancient, once beautiful city of Raqqa in Syria lies in ruins. The smell of death is everywhere. Victory over Islamic State, which declared the city its capital in 2014, is all but complete and expected to be announced at any time. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance of Kurdish and […]

In a war without end, the events of 9/11 still central, The New Daily, 12 September, 2017.

By John Stapleton Sixteen years on from the fall of the Twin Towers in New York, the ritual laying of flowers in the world’s major cities after another attack has become the norm. In a war without end, it appears the jihadists have won. Tens of thousands of civilians, Islamic State warriors and members of […]

British deaths in Thailand jump 27%. Thailand: Deadly Destination gets a mention. International Investment. 21 August, 2017.

By: Helen Burggraf | 21 Aug 2017 The number of British citizens who died in Thailand last year jumped by more than 27% from the previous year and more than 29% ahead of the average of the two previous years, Foreign & Commonwealth Office data shows, with the most dramatic rise occurring among those 50 […]

Amnesty International accuses Australia of ‘war crimes’ in fight against Islamic State, The New Daily, 12 July, 2017.

By John Stapleton Australia has committed war crimes in Iraq as the second-largest contributor to the US-led coalition fighting Islamic State, according to an Amnesty International report.While Iraq and the United States have claimed victory over IS in Mosul, thousands of bodies still lie in the pulverised ruins. Almost one million people have fled. The […]

Iraq Declares the End of the Islamic State Caliphate, The New Daily, 30 june, 2017.

By John Stapleton The Iraqi government has announced the end of the caliphate after capturing the Al-Nuri Mosque in Western Mosul, the place where Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi announced the formation of the caliphate and unleashed a reign of terror on the world. “Their fictitious state has fallen,” an Iraqi military spokesman, Brigadier […]

Australian War Planes Dropping More bombs on Iraq than ever, The New Daily, 22 June, 2017.

By John Stapleton At the same time as Australia has withdrawn from Syrian airspace under threat of being bombed out of the sky by Russia, the Australian Defence Force is dropping historically high numbers of bombs on Iraq. Australia is the second-largest contributor to the American-led coalition efforts to defeat Islamic State in the increasingly […]

Senior Liberal speaks out against Turnbull: ‘The party will be decimated’, The New Daily, 27 April, 2017.

John Stapleton “The Turnbull government is at war with the people. This is a government which hates their own constituents. The Liberal Party has lost touch with what it stands for and will be decimated unless it changes tack. Across the next electoral cycle the Liberals will lose power federally and in every state with […]

The experts agree, Turnbull’s NBN is ‘a national tragedy’, The New Daily, 10 April, 2017.

By John Stapleton The disastrous rollout of Australia’s NBN is a national tragedy, according to new research by one of the country’s most respected engineers. Professor Rodney Tucker, of Melbourne University, argues that Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s fateful decision as Communications Minister to opt for Fibre to the Node (FTTN), has been an extremely costly […]

Terror fears prompt airlines to provide ‘loaner’ laptops, The New Daily, 5 April, 2017.

By John Stapleton The day may not be that far off when all passengers flying out of Australia will be provided with onboard laptops and iPads, while being prevented from using their own devices. Acting on high-level intelligence reports that Islamic State and al-Qaeda are working to conceal plastic explosives inside laptop battery compartments in […]

Malcolm Turnbull looks to keep the prize seat of Wentworth in the family, The New Daily, 27 February, 2017.

By John Stapleton With the latest dismal Newspoll, Malcolm Turnbull is now facing almost certain political death at the hands of either his own party or those of the electorate. The question has now become not just who will take over the Liberal leadership, but who will take Mr Turnbull’s prized seat of Wentworth. The […]

Benjamin Netanyahu looking to escape political heat in Israel, experts say, The New Daily, 22 February, 2017.

By John Stapleton For all the backslapping over the enduring friendship between Israel and Australia, one thing has been overlooked: on the first visit of a sitting Israeli Prime Minister to Australia, Benjamin Netanyahu appears thoroughly delighted to be away from home. Facing corruption allegations and having recently endured hours of humiliating interrogations by police […]

Why there might actually be method in Donald Trump’s madness, The New Daily, 17 February, 2017.

By John Stapleton There’s something to be said for a demolition expert. Not content with reshaping America, US President Donald Trump is reshaping diplomacy throughout the world. While the world’s diplomats are aflame with indignation over the seemingly ad hoc nature of Mr Trump’s foreign policy announcements, leading Australian policy experts suggest there could be […]

New report shows the real face of Islamic State terror converts, The New Daily, 10 February, 2017.

By John Stapleton Solidly middle-class, better educated than average, likely to be in a stable relationship and either studying or employed: that’s the face of an Islamic State convert. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute recently released a report titled The American Face of ISIS, which it commissioned in the hope of better understanding terror converts […]

Donald Trump given nuclear codes, and with them awesome power, The New Daily, 21 January, 2017.

By John Stapleton In the early hours of this morning, prior to his inauguration, a brief business-like transaction took place at Blair House, the presidential guesthouse where President-elect Donald Trump will be spending the night. Out of sight of television cameras, and with only a few people in attendance, he became the most powerful man […]

Heavy Meddle: Did the US interfere in Australia’s US election, The New Daily, 20 January, 2017.

By John Stapleton While Americans digest the news that Russia almost certainly tried to influence the election that delivered Donald Trump the presidency, new research indicates the US is an old hand at trying to sway votes in other countries. Political scientist Dov Levin of Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Mellon University says the US has attempted to […]

The frightening truth about pilots, The New Daily, 17 January, 2017.

By John StapletonNGREAD One day last autumn Qantas pilot Paul Whyte hired a single-engine Cessna 172 airplane from the Northern Rivers Aero Club in Lismore and flew out to sea. He disappeared off the radar about 11 kilometres north east of Byron Bay. The 46-year-old Mr Whyte was a regular at the club and, to […]

Surveillance in Australia: Who is Watching the Watchers, The New Daily, 9 January, 2017.

By John Stapleton The biggest unexplored story in Australia over the past 12 months has been the massive expansion of state surveillance. ASIO has publicly boasted that it is placing both Muslim and anti-Muslim groups, such as Reclaim Australia, under surveillance. This is a new frontier of policing, where people are being targeted not for what they […]

Donald Trump under pressure over Moscow, WikiLeaks links, The New Daily, 15 December, 2016.

By John Stapleton Donald Trump’s presidency could be derailed by a possible prolonged congressional committee investigation into whether or not Russian hackers aided him in winning the election. The powerful US congressional system is the same process that brought down Richard Nixon in 1974 and its inquiry does not bode well for the man many […]

We have lost a generation of Syrian children, The New Daily, 13 December, 2016.

By John Stapleton Russia’s envoy to the United Nations says a deal has been reached for rebel fighters to leave the embattled Syrian city of Aleppo. “My latest information is that they indeed have an arrangement achieved on the ground that the fighters are going to leave the city,” Russian UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin told […]

Mike Baird’s lockout laws ‘too little, too late’ for Sydney, The New Daily, 8 December, 2016.

By John Stapleton The relaxation – by 30 minutes – of the widely despised lockout laws imposed on Sydney’s entertainment districts have been slammed as “too little, too late”. The laws were introduced by former New South Wales premier Barry O’Farrell in 2014 as one of his finals acts in answer to the deaths of […]

Australian airports at risk of major security breaches, experts warn, The New Daily, 24 November, 2016.

John Stapleton SHARE TWEETSHAREREDDITPINEMAILCOMMENT The safety of millions of Christmas travellers has been put at risk by government inaction over urgent concerns about the security of the nation’s airports, experts have warned. The story concerning the safety of Australian airports has many strands, all of them alarming. A Senate inquiry into aviation and airport security […]

Security failures putting ‘lives at risk’, warn experts, The New Daily, 23 October, 2016.

By John Stapleton Share Tweet Share Reddit Pin EmailComment The poor coordination of Australia’s worldwide network of intelligence officers and their local headquarters is putting innocent lives at risk and wasting millions of taxpayers’ dollars, say experts speaking exclusively to The New Daily. They also claim that the fight against terrorism has left the nation dangerously exposed to organised crime, […]

Government Thugs. Opinion. A Sense of Place Magazine, 16 October, 2016

By John Stapleton The bullying culture with which the Abbott/Turnbull government has become synonymous is alive and well. While Turnbull has been strutting the political stage this week, essentially claiming to have solved the issue of bullying on the nation’s building and construction sites with the passing of the ABCC legislation, intimidation and head kicking […]

Attack on the Syrian village of Dabiq could have catastrophic consequences for the West, The New Daily, 20 September, 2016.

By John Stapleton SHARE TWEETSHAREREDDITPINEMAILCOMMENT To most people this week’s news that a group of 40 US special forces soldiers, accompanied by Turkish troops and Arab militias, are preparing to march towards a northern Syrian village called Dabiq means nothing. For the followers of Islamic State (IS), it means everything. In the early Muslim prophecies […]

Truth behind the bottled water myths, The New Daily, 26 August, 2016

By John Stapleton A boom in bottled water sales has helped drinks giant Coca-Cola Amatil sail to $198.2 million net profit, as the marketing of one of the most readily available substances on Earth steps into overdrive. Coke’s net profit lifted 7.8 per cent on trading revenues of $2.5 billion for the first six months of […]

This Sydney building could be a terror target thanks to a media stunt, The New Daily, 12 August, 2016

By John Stapleton SHARE TWEETSHAREREDDITPINEMAILCOMMENT A dispute has erupted over terror training exercises planned for the Queen Victoria Building in central Sydney, with a security specialist describing them as a “media stunt”. Critics claimed the exercise will alert terrorists to one of Australia’s softest terror targets. Roger Henning, director of Homeland Security Asia Pacific, described the exercise as […]

More questions asked as to whether the failed Turkish coup was staged, The New Daily, 20 July, 2016.

By John Stapleton Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has conducted a comprehensive purge of dissenting voices to his divisive regime since last week’s failed coup attempt. A growing number of observers are openly musing that the authoritarian leader may staged the coup himself in order to facilitate a crackdown on opponents. Questions are being asked as […]

Why Islamic State hates France, The New Daily, 15 July, 2016.

By John Stapleton As the Nice attack may prove, the French embody everything the terror group loathes. France is regularly singled out by IS. France is a prime target for Islamic State and its affiliates. It is seen as the antithesis of a good Islamic society, a centre of licentiousness, pleasure seeking, prostitution and sexual […]

Howard Defends Iraq War after damning report, The New Daily, 7 July, 2016.

By John Stapleton Former Australian prime minister John Howard, who took the nation to war in Iraq in 2003, has refused to admit to any mistakes despite the criticisms of a new UK report into the invasion. The Chilcot report, delivered on Wednesday, slammed the decision of Britain to go to war in Iraq and […]

Thailand: What No One Tells You About the Land of Smiles, Accidental Travel Writer, 3 July, 2016.

Thailand: What No One Tells You About the Land of Smiles Book Review Thailand is one of the world’s most popular travel destinations, and within the Asia Pacific, it often tops the list in terms of international tourist arrivals. But is it also one of the world’s deadliest destinations as an author claims? Click here […]

Why voters are angry about Australia’s internet, The New Daily, 22 June, 2016.

By John Stapleton Leading industry body the Australian Computer Society has issued a dramatic call for the nation’s political parties to confront the problems afflicting Australia’s internet. We are ranked 60th in the world for internet speeds, below the US, Canada, most of Asia and most of Europe, according to the highly respected Akamai State […]

Lone wolf massacres are on the rise, experts warn, The New Daily, 17 June, 2016

By John Stapleton The number of people killed in lone wolf massacres is increasing, as is the number of incidents, in a violent trend that has national security experts worried. On the surface the killing of British Labour MP Jo Cox by Tommy Mair, 52, was motivated by opposition to Britain remaining in the European […]

Former PM Tony Abbott made Islamic State sound cool, The New Daily, 7 June, 2016

By John Stapleton The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) has condemned as “unhelpful” the description of Islamic State as a “death cult”, and blasted successive Australian governments for ad hoc decision-making on national security and defence. The hard-hitting paper Strategic Choices for the Next Government, launched in Canberra on Tuesday, calls on politicians to stop […]

Neil Prakash’s Life before he became an IS fighter, The New Daily 6 May 2016

By John Stapleton Slain Australian terrorist Neil Prakash was a failed rapper who wrote about sex and drugs before defecting to the world’s most notorious terror group, where he preyed on vulnerable young people and threatened innocent families. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull celebrated his death this week after being informed by United States intelligence that […]

Thailand: Deadly Destination continues to get coverage, Sickening video – British tourists viciously assaulted in Thailand, Michael Smith News, 28 April, 2016.

http://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2016/04/sickening-video-british-tourists-viciously-assaulted-in-thailand-because-they-were-farangs-westerner.html In the comments section: seeker of truth said… From a 2014 UK Daily Mail article – A new book has branded Thailand one of the world’s most dangerous tourist destinations. Australian author John Stapleton suggests that widespread police corruption, violence and crime are all blighting a country once commonly referred to as the ‘Land […]

Belgium-style Attack Could happen in Australia The New Daily 23 March 2016

By John Stapleton Airports are ‘soft targets’ for terrorists, warn experts. Photo: AP Anti-terrorism measures at Australian airports may not be enough to stop a Brussels-style attack happening here, experts including a former head of Qantas security have warned. Following a plea from Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, border force personnel have cancelled planned strikes over […]

Anti-protest laws ‘draconian’ and ‘oppressive’ The New Daily 20 March 2016

By John Stapleton Emotions have been running high following the passing of laws in NSW which will see political protesters fighting against the coal seam gas industry, even on their own properties, face large fines and up to seven years in jail. Hundreds of people demonstrated outside NSW Parliament last week against the harshness of […]

Why Killer Robots Must Be Stopped, The New Daily, 17 March 2016

By John Stapleton Humanity is on the verge of experiencing a “nightmare scenario” of robot warfare that until now has been confined to the realms of science fiction, experts have warned. Killer robots are far smarter than any soldier, physically tougher, not prone to battle fatigue, not subject to human error and not beset by […]

Middle East Threatens to Bubble Over, The New Daily, 11 March 2016

By John Stapleton The cauldron of the Middle East continues to grow more dangerous by the day, as new details emerge of an old enemy’s presence within the ranks of the so-called Islamic State. This week a disillusioned defector leaked the identity of 22,000 Islamic State (IS) supporters in more than 50 countries, including Australia. […]

Margie Abbott sidelined by Credlin, author claims The New Daily 7 March 2016

By John Stapleton As a staunch Roman Catholic, Tony Abbott campaigned on traditional family values. But with his wife Margie barely in evidence throughout his time as Prime Minister, at the same time as his chief of staff Peta Credlin was constantly at his side, traditional family roles were not what the rumour mill of […]

Credlin attacked Abbott Publicly and Often: Book The Road to Ruin, The New Daily, 6 March 2016

By John Stapleton Tony Abbott was abused by his chief of staff Peta Credlin at such a volume that her swearing over the phone could be heard by others in his presence, according to a new book. The Road to Ruin by journalist and former Liberal Party staffer Niki Savva, released on Monday, contains numerous […]

Father of Reconciliation Patrick Dodson to Enter Senate The New Daily 2 March 2016.

By John Stapleton Patrick Dodson, a Yawuru man from Broome in Western Australia, is distinctive in appearance, with a long flowing beard and a trademark black Akubra hat marked with the Aboriginal colours. He is also one of the country’s most distinguished Australians, combining sharp intellectuality, deep spirituality and a common touch to become almost […]

Telegram, A Sense of Place Magazine, 21 February, 2016.

John Stapleton For once the advertising logo is correct. The headline grabbing mobile app Telegram promotes itself as a “new era of messaging”. It uses military grade encryption to ensure the privacy of communications. That it is one of the most popular programmes for jihadists and Islamic State supporters is for some beside the point. […]

1990 In the Herald, Sydney Morning Herald, 19 February, 2016.

BRIAN YATMAN Mr Fraser blocks supply The Herald spoke with Malcolm Fraser, aka ‘‘the Minister’’, a trucker who had instigated a blockade in Wodonga. ‘‘Asked why he was holding the protest, he said it was because of all the trouble interstate drivers are getting from NSW. He felt the public was behind their action and there was […]

Prison Population in Australia has climbed, The New Daily, 18 February 2016

By John Stapleton There are 45 times more Aboriginal people in jail now than in the late 80s. More Australians are in prison now than at any time in the nation’s history. That’s the finding of one of Australia’s leading criminologists, Don Weatherburn, who delivered a paper on Australia’s ever-rising incarceration rates at a conference […]

Blood Year by David Kilcullen, A Sense of Place Magazine,17 February, 2016

John Stapleton The result of Western intervention in the Middle East has been the creation of battle hardened terrorist groups wealthier and more dangerous than ever before. A new book by internationally acclaimed Australian-born terror expert David Kilcullen, Blood Year: The Failures of the War on Terror, released this week, slams President George Bush’s invasion […]

Unbelievable things your tax dollars are funding The New Daily 12 February, 2016

By John Stapleton From statues of Mary Poppins to entirely useless multibillion dollar desalination plants, outlandishly indulgent study tours and helicopter trips by politicians, Australians have become increasingly angry over massive government waste. So there was little surprise at this week’s news the Tony Abbott-appointed National Wind Farm Commissioner Andrew Dyer is being paid more […]

The Government is Reading What You Post Online The New Daily 9 February 2016

By John Stapleton Agencies are trawling through social media sites to uncover more than $2 million in fraud. But at what cost? More than 60 government agencies want access to your metadata. Photo: ABC The net is tightening for all Australians. Last week the government proudly announced that it was monitoring social media websites, including […]

‘You are being targeted’: former terror suspects The New Daily. 7 February 2016

By John Stapleton A former Guantanamo Bay detainee has told a conference of young Muslims in Sydney that they were being targeted in an unprecedented way and Australian anti-terrorist laws were even more draconian than those in Britain. Delivering a videotaped address from London, Moazzam Begg, who was held at Guantanamo from 2002 to 2005 […]

Abbott Credlin kept Defence Minister on short lease, The New Daily, 2 February, 2016.

By John Stapleton Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott and his Chief of Staff Peta Credlin directly interfered in the operations of the Defence Ministry, undermining and ultimately destroying former Defence Minister David Johnston, according to a new book. Senator Johnston was a little-known Liberal Senator from WA who held the shadow portfolio for several years […]

Tony Abbott Used Terror Threat as Political Weapon The New Daily 1 February 2016

By John Stapleton Former Prime Minister Tony Abbott and his controversial Chief of Staff Peta Credlin manipulated public opinion in relation to national security and the terror threat “on a mass scale” in a desperate effort to stay in power, according to a new book published this week. Credlin & Co: How the Abbott Government […]

Book reveals Tony Abbott and Peta Credlin’s Secrets, The New Daily, 29 January, 2016.

By John Stapleton Whatever is left of Tony Abbott’s reputation is about to be shredded with a new book containing a string of revelations about the incompetence of his government, including on questions of national security. Credlin & Co: How the Abbott Government Destroyed Itself, written by Australian Financial Review journalist Aaron Patrick, differs from many other books […]

The Crisis facing Australian Schools is Real, The New Daily, 20 January 2016

By John Stapleton Australia’s education infrastructure needs to grow to keep up. Photo: Getty Australia is staring down the barrel of classroom and teacher shortages in the coming decade as a result of a population boom, educational experts have warned. There has been a failure to plan for enough classrooms to cope with a significant […]

The Drug Creating Islamic State Supersoldiers The New Daily, 13 January 2016

By John Stapleton A powerful drug known as Captagon is being linked to terror attacks across Europe and the Middle East. While the drug is virtually unknown in Australia, it mirrors some of the effects of ice, a methamphetamine with which Australians are becoming all too familiar. Feuding jihadi groups across the Middle East may […]

Nightlife Crackdown Turning Kings Cross into No Life Suburb, The New Daily, 28 December 2015

By John Stapleton The authorities are cracking down on the seedy, often criminal underbelly of Kings Cross. But are they robbing the famous Sydney suburb of its life? “Sydney is dead.” It is a phrase repeated in conversations across the once-vibrant entertainment districts of Sydney. Aggressive crackdowns and the “lockout laws” limiting admission to bars […]

Terror in Australia: Workers’ Paradise Lost. Sample. Section One: A Terrible Beauty is Born. 2015. Pages 1-10.

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