The anti-woke warrior took issue with the fact that the NSW government will convene for just three weeks in the first four months of 2024,echoing criticisms from Kiama’sGareth Ward,who called the Minns government “bone-idle and lazy”.

But Latham’s criticism raised eyebrows given he zipped to London in the midst of budget estimates.

Latham confirmed to CBD that he indeed hadn’t attended any budget estimates hearings. But to be fair,no one had asked him to.

“I’m not on any of those portfolio committees,” he tells CBD. “If the government wants to remove some of the portfolio committee members and put me on,that’s fine by me,and I’ll attend. You gotta be practical about it.”

Latham was drawn to London to attend the first Alliance for Responsible Citizenship conference,a “gathering of conservatives,libertarians and traditional social democrats who are anti-woke” led by Canadian traditionalistJordan Peterson. (It’s the one whereTony Abbottsaid members of the “climate change cult” need to take a chill pill and that the last Ice Age proves extreme global warming has nothing to do with humans,or something.)

Latham said there were excellent sessions on education and economic policy,and that he caught up with a suite of state and federal parliamentary colleagues in the Big Smoke.

“I never knew I knew so many people in politics,” Latham enthused,adding that he had a bracing conversation on COVID-19 policy with ex-PMScott Morrison. To be a fly on that wall.

SINGER-ING A STRANGE TUNE

Philosopher,author,bioethics professor and one-time Greens Senate candidatePeter Singerhas been making good use ofElon Musk’s conversion of Twitter to the unmuzzled haven of free speech now known as X.

Last week,Singer posted a “thought-provoking read” for the consideration of his followers titledZoophilia Is Morally Permissible. The post – concerning what cruder crowds would call bestiality – attracted about 740 likes but more than 4000 horrified replies,which is what the kids would call getting “hardcore ratioed”.

The ensuing furore prompted Singer to post a follow-up at the weekend clarifying he didn’t write the article.

“It was published in theJournal of Controversial Ideas,a journal that pushes back against ‘cancel culture’ by providing an outlet for controversial ideas,which authors can publish under a pseudonym,” he wrote.

“I am a founding co-editor of that journal. The fact that we judge an article worthy of publication does not indicate that I or my co-authors agree with the views contained in it.”

Unsurprisingly,the author of the zoophilia article opted for the invisibility cloak of a pen-name.

The journal purports to be the first academically rigorous,peer-reviewed journal that grabs controversial topics by the horns (given the context,we’d like to stress that this is a strictly hypothetical metaphor).

But doing so behind a pair of initials and an invented surname,as some of the journal’s contributors do? Cop-out.

SOCIETY COMEBACK

The HR Nicholls Society – out of its long hibernation to take up its mission of delivering Australia’s vulnerable bosses from the evils of the trade union movement – plays its big comeback show in Sydney on Friday,with its first conference since 2017.

The gathering is timely,withAnthony Albanese’s government facing heavy weather in the Senate as it tries to get its “closing the loopholes” industrial relations reforms through the parliament.

The society’s headline act – as previously reported in these pages – is Shadow TreasurerAngus Taylor,with support fromJudith Sloan,veteran opinioniser in US-owned broadsheetThe Australian,and brief to the bossesFrank Parry,KC.

Interestingly enough,former Australian Public Service Commissioner John Lloyd – plonked into that position by Tasmanian hardlinerEric Abetz to make sure federal bureaucrats knew their place – is on the roster of speakers.

Turns out Lloyd is – fun fact – a “senior researcher” at the society. We did wonder whatever became of him.

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