I remember when Malcolm Turnbull suavely muscled his way into office for his second bite at the parliamentary cheddar. This is made somewhat easier to recall by the article I wrote at the time, back when I was fresh-faced and starry eyed about our country's great white hope; the best thing to happen to us as a nation since Vegemite, the Hills Hoist, and Don Bradman's revenge against Douglas Jardine's infamous 'Bodyline' team all rolled into one. Sadly, said white-teethed hope has turned a dirt

IT’S Perth, WA, in the early 70s. All you think about is playing the drums, maybe being a writer of some sort, and essentially being a bit of a larrikin. Little do you realise one day you will be staring down the barrel of four best-selling novels, a potential international movie deal, and yes, the barrel of a rifle. Then you come across a man — or rather, two men — who essentially change the course of your life. One of them is licensed to kill, and the other one wrote him the Walther PPK with which to do it.

I sometimes think of depression as similar to that mythical bogeyman we faced as children. Whether it hides under the bed or in the closet, or sits astride our chest, for some of us the monster in our mind grows in adulthood to become an ogre of menacing proportions. Sadly, much like the childhood version, it's seen by many as imaginary. But poor mental health cannot be banished by putting on the lights or screwing our eyes shut or calling frantically for parents to please, please, come quickl

It has no cure. 70,000 Australians currently live with it. Twenty per cent of them — that’s one in five people, like me — are under 50. As is the case with 10 per cent of those 32 people diagnosed everyday, I was under 40 when I was told I had it. Like my hero, Michael J. Fox, I have had it since I was 29. Admittedly also like Mike Fox, I didn’t talk about it publicly for quite some time, both out of fear of acceptance and lack of understanding of my own condition.

A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot. Because I was not brought up by wolves, I know what good manners are. I know, for example, that being unpunctual is ill-mannered. It is impolite. It shows disrespect to the person you are meeting; it shows disrespect for the event you are attending. Be that as it may, for about four years, I have run o

“DO you feel the empowerment?” Senator Bridget McKenzie asked a group of reporters and political staffers attempting to shoot clay pigeons on Friday, succinctly shooting herself in the foot. A “hottie with a shottie,” as Americans would say, Senator McKenzie is the co-chair of the Parliamentary Friends of Shooting Group, and until that question her arguments appeared pretty level headed.

MY best friend, one of the mainstays of my existence, one of the strongest, funniest, silliest people I know, is gay. She has an amazing partner. They have a baby boy. He is beautiful. He is so beautiful I could happily baby-nab him, which I should not admit in a national publication, but I think they know this and forgive me for it, and carefully check every night to make sure I am nowhere near the house.

Let me say that a little differently. I am a proud survivor of rape. I am a proud survivor of a rape that occurred at 18, when I was an educated, ‘nice’ girl, who had very little understanding of just how scary some men could be. I am the survivor of physical and emotional violence within a relationship. I do not hate nor do I think I marginalise men. I am fortunate in my marriage to a gentle man, and in my amazing male friends. But violence is a gender-based issue.

Why? Good question. Do I consider myself a mental health expert? No. Do I have a degree in psychology, or psychiatry, or medicine, or neuroscience perhaps? Nope. What I have is a disease, and it’s an incredibly frustrating, infuriating, and weird disease. Think about the frustration of an English fan who flew from Australia to the Rugby World Cup, expecting his team to make the semi-finals, only to see it crash out in the group stage. It’s more frustrating than that. Bad, huh?

On November 4, Justin Trudeau, son of Canada's perhaps best-known Prime Minister -- to date at least -- Pierre Trudeau, was sworn in as the 23rd Canadian leader. Much like his father, he is already inspiring an age of 'Trudeaumania'; lauded by the majority of Canadians for his intelligence, his sense of social justice, and his abhorrence of the conservative, 'cynical' witch-hunting approach to governance of his predecessor Stephen Harper.

I grew up in the 1970s. I say this not to engender comments from those younger and smarter than myself of 'wow, you're really old' and 'was the iPhone 5 out then?', but rather to point out how much things have changed when it comes to women in sport, and the way we perceive them. Or perhaps not. This was pre-AFL, when the V in VFL stood for 'so very Victorian'. The Swans were South Melbourne FC, the Lions roared in Fitzroy, rather than Brisvegas...

Little do you realise one day you will be staring down the barrel of four best-selling novels, a potential international movie deal, and yes, the barrel of a rifle. Then you come across a man — or rather, two men — who essentially change the course of your life. One of them is licensed to kill, and the other one wrote him the Walther PPK with which to do it. Bond and the man behind the series of spy novels, Ian Fleming, introduced Chris to the world of espionage, duty, danger and bucking the s

AS YOU tuck into that sausage sizzle down at the beach and pump up the volume on the Hottest 100, take a good look around you — by the end of today three women in Australia will be hospitalised as a result of domestic violence. Already this year three women are dead — two in WA, and one in Victoria. Seventy-nine women were violently killed in Australia last year, according to figures from Destroy The Joint, and about 80 per cent of those deaths were as a result of family or domestic violence.

September. Spring has sprung, the sun is (occasionally) shining, it's time to feel a little more hopeful about life. Unless one brings to mind U.S. politics, Australian politics, the sheer waste of life in terror-related incidents globally, casual sexism in the media and in sport continuing to be seen as acceptable... On another un-springlike subject, National Suicide Prevention Week started on Monday, with World Suicide Prevention Day on September 10.

TWO former Australian Army veterans will be honoured for the first time publicly in WA, as they take part in a service to mark UN Peacekeepers’ Day. Laying a wreath to mark the occasion in King’s Park will be two men who served their country in UN peacekeeping missions which may not have been ‘war zones’ as we think of them, but who faced conflict, death, disease, and conditions of terror on a daily basis.