Winnipeg Free Press > Opinion > Columnists

Michael Madigan

  • Cash for coitus scheme gets axed in Oz

    Australians cheerfully participate in a cash for coitus scheme run by a government that dangles $5,000 in front of those contemplating copulation. The only catch is the encounter must produce a baby -- a loophole that hasn't dampened the enthusiasm of thousands of Australians who can effortlessly manage both.

    View Full Column | 05/17/2013 1:00 AM | 0

  • Oz faces Titanic struggle

    BRISBANE -- Camels may struggle to walk through the eye of the needle, but Australian billionaire Clive Palmer reckons he can gets his bulk through the door of the prime minister's office. The man rebuilding the Titanic announced this week, in his gloriously blithe manner, that he also desired to lead the nation.

    View Full Column | 05/3/2013 1:00 AM | 0

  • Gruesome satirical proposal underlines Oz's financial plight

    BRISBANE -- Killing Australia's poor is one way of getting the federal budget back into surplus, and the idea does have monetary merit. In a satirical article published by a Conservative think-tank, Australian business lobbyist Toby Ralph advocated slaughtering about 20 per cent of Australians -- "a modest cull of the enormously poor" -- to get the nation back into surplus.

    View Full Column | 04/26/2013 1:00 AM | 0

  • New Zealand leaves Oz standing alone at the altar

    BRISBANE -- Australia was left looking slow out of the blocks this week when New Zealand became the first Asia-Pacific country to legalize gay marriage. Most Australians were not even aware the debate was on when the Kiwi parliament voted on Wednesday, making New Zealand the 13th country to accept gay unions.

    View Full Column | 04/19/2013 1:00 AM | 0

  • Threat over horizon seems over the hill

    BRISBANE -- Australians living in the nation's far north have been gazing at the horizon in recent weeks and contemplating the arrival of an intercontinental ballistic missile. The Northern Territory capital, Darwin, has been credibly identified as a target if North Korea's Kim Jong Un's trigger finger gets more than just itchy.

    View Full Column | 04/12/2013 1:00 AM | 0

  • Australia launches massive child abuse inquiry

    BRISBANE -- Australia's "grubbiest little secret'' was dragged out of the shadows and into the spotlight this week. The clumsily titled Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse began Wednesday in Melbourne, a full two decades after a high-profile case of child sex abuse exploded on to the national scene in 1994. More than 30,000 Australians signed a petition to the Western Australian parliament demanding the inquiry into abuse at institutions run by the Christian Brothers, who accepted the truth of much of what was alleged and issued an apology.

    View Full Column | 04/5/2013 1:00 AM | 0

  • Oz prepares to pay Afghanistan 'bill'

    BRISBANE -- The first ripples of what is shaping up as a mental health tsunami were felt in Australia Wednesday when a young soldier used talk radio to confront Prime Minister Julia Gillard about her support for Afghanistan War veterans. The decade-long conflict is coming to an end Down Under. Most troops are set to return home at the end of the year as the multinational base, Tarin Kowt in Uruzgan province, is handed over to local soldiers in 2014.

    View Full Column | 03/28/2013 1:00 AM | 0

  • Aussie Troubles fade away

    BRISBANE -- St. Patrick's Day is a day much given to political blarney Down Under, but it also is a reminder of a past in which Irish enmities played a big part in daily life. Former labour prime minister Kevin Rudd, for example, used a speech at Brisbane's Irish Club to proclaim his Irish roots.

    View Full Column | 03/22/2013 1:00 AM | 0

  • Canberra still safe from naval bombardment

    BRISBANE -- Australia's capital, Canberra, turned 100 years old this week. But instead of singing "for he's a jolly good fellow,'' the rest of the nation just stepped up the ridicule of our venerable seat of government. Why national capitals are subject to derision is something of a mystery, but few dispute that "Paris, London, Rome" has a romantic ring that "Canberra, Washington, Ottawa" can never quite match.

    View Full Column | 03/15/2013 1:00 AM | 0

  • Double entendres dog PM's search for spotlight

    BRISBANE -- Australia's prime minister this week left the sanctuary of her Sydney Harbour-side home and headed west to see how the other half lives. Julia Gillard's decision to leave Kirribilli House and spend a week in the Sydney suburb of Rooty Hill did what it was no doubt designed to do -- grab the nation's attention.

    View Full Column | 03/8/2013 1:00 AM | 0

  • Slim opening forms around idea of 'fat tax'

    BRISBANE -- Australia recently made cigarettes Public Enemy No. 1 and has now moved beyond the wheezing, emphysema afflicted smoker to put the "fat bastards'' in its sights. The national obsession with fat has hit overdrive in 2013 with a range of programs to stop what is now being widely described, without irony, as a "national epidemic."

    View Full Column | 03/1/2013 1:00 AM | 0

  • Doping scandal rocks Oz

    BRISBANE -- Australian sport is under a cloud this week amid claims of corruption and the widespread use of performance-enhancing drugs by our fabulously paid athletes. The announcement following a joint investigation by the Australian Crime Commission and the federal sports ministry has stunned a nation that often accords successful sporting identities a range of admirable character qualities attained by sheer dint of their physical prowess.

    View Full Column | 02/15/2013 1:00 AM | 0

  • Australians suffering disaster fatigue

    BRISBANE -- Just as an Australian businessman handed over a whopping $50 million to aspiring university students, the spirit of generosity appears to be fading away among his compatriots. Canberra-born Graham Tuckwell this week impressed the nation with the largest financial donation ever made to an Australian university.

    View Full Column | 02/8/2013 1:00 AM | 0

  • First Bloke's prostate humour backfires

    BRISBANE -- A digital rectum examination is no joke for the average male, yet every man who talks about it seems to feel a need to make light of the invasive procedure. That's fine in private company, but as Australia's "First Bloke" discovered recently, some forms of humour should never leave the locker-room, or the doctor's office.

    View Full Column | 02/1/2013 1:00 AM | 0

  • Australians chafe against cotton-woollen age

    Australian men once routinely referred to their closest friend as "an old bastard" in the confident knowledge his mate would never accuse him of being insensitive, or even inaccurate. Being born outside wedlock even a mere 40 years ago still carried serious social stigma.

    View Full Column | 01/25/2013 3:18 AM | 0

  • It's hell in Australia this fire season

    BRISBANE -- If Australia is point man in the global battle against climate change, we've just spent the week in close contact with the enemy. In 2009, the Los Angeles Times suggested Australia was experiencing the effects of climate change earlier and more dramatically than most other countries.

    View Full Column | 01/11/2013 1:00 AM | 0

  • Turkey on the barbie

    BRISBANE -- On Tuesday afternoon millions of Australians will risk death by drowning as they slump on inflatable beds in back yard swimming pools attempting to digest a baked turkey lunch in 30 C heat. The roast turkey, along with the brandy-infused plum pudding, is a menu designed to be accompanied by gentle snowfalls and roaring fireplaces.

    View Full Column | 12/21/2012 3:17 AM | 0

  • Aussie pranksters feel world's fury

    BRISBANE -- Australia appears to have spent the week shouldering a collective sense of guilt over a simple radio hoax gone horribly wrong. Aussie broadcasters Mel Greig and Michael Christian are in the global village stocks this week, and social media is throwing more than just rotting fruit their way.

    View Full Column | 12/14/2012 1:00 AM | 0

  • Australians peering nervously over their own fiscal cliff

    BRISBANE -- There's a deep unease stirring in Australia and it's got nothing to do with the Mayan calendar's unsettling prediction that doomsday arrives Dec. 21. The nation's jitters stem from something more troubling than Judgment Day as it peers nervously over a Down Under version of the fiscal cliff.

    View Full Column | 12/7/2012 1:00 AM | 0

  • Harper has a mini-me in the land down under

    BRISBANE -- Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has a mini-me in Australia. In the northern state of Queensland there's a political party modelled on the highly successful Conservative Party of Canada. Heading it is Premier Campbell Newman, whose age, balding forehead and short stature rule out any suggestions he sprang from Harper's loins.

    View Full Column | 11/30/2012 1:00 AM | 0

  • Oz has sobered up since the 1970s

    SYDNEY -- The random alcohol breath test turns 30 years old in one Australian state this year. Police officers plan to celebrate the birthday by testing one million drivers this summer. Given there's probably only around four million Australians with a driver's licence in the state (New South Wales), that's a 25 per cent chance of getting tested at least once.

    View Full Column | 12/4/2012 7:54 PM | 0

  • Australia's child abuse scandal hits confessional

    BRISBANE -- A sacred tenet of the Catholic Church which survived at least one millennium is under attack in Australia this week as the nation ponders whether it's time to break the sacred seal of the confessional. Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced on Monday a federal royal commission into child sexual abuse after yet another round of allegations against the Catholic Church.

    View Full Column | 11/16/2012 1:00 AM | 0

  • Charles re-acquaints, endears himself Down Under

    LONGREACH -- They might be an anachronism, but watch a direct descendant of William the Conqueror walking through the outback Australian dust and you can't help but be impressed by the endurance of the British Royal Family. Australia is once again playing host to the Royals -- the old ones that is.

    View Full Column | 11/9/2012 1:00 AM | 0

  • $190-million jackpot has Oz all giddy

    BRISBANE -- One hundred millions dollars is up for grabs in Australia on Tuesday as this gambling nation enters a new phase of its lottery obsession -- the nine-figure payout. For years Australians have gazed on gape-mouthed as the Americans and the Spanish proffered $500-million lottery wins while Aussie dreams were kept modestly confined to the $1-million realm.

    View Full Column | 11/2/2012 1:00 AM | 0

  • He put a firecracker where, you say?

    BRISBANE -- A young man in Australia's far north recently placed a firecracker in his bum and had a close friend light the fuse, igniting a gust of merriment sweeping the nation. Alex Bowden, 23, resident of the far northern city of Darwin, has reminded a nation in danger of taking itself too seriously that a sense of humour remains the vital ingredient in its life blood.

    View Full Column | 10/26/2012 1:00 AM | 0

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