Paul Sheehan
Paul Sheehan is a columnist and editorial writer for The Sydney Morning Herald, where he has has been Day Editor and Washington correspondent. He is the author of two number-one best-sellers, 'Girls Like You' and 'Among The Barbarians' and been published in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New York Times and numerous anthologies.
Paul Sheehan
Biting the boom that feeds us
Paul Sheehan Twenty-five years ago the rainfall in Perth began to plunge. Last year it almost disappeared. The statistics of the decline are spectacular and unnerving.
Paul Sheehan
As the left sides with Muslims, Christians search for support
Paul Sheehan Martin Place is the symbolic centre, the point zero, of Australia's existence as a sophisticated economy. Last Wednesday it looked medieval.
Paul Sheehan
Next shock will be high food prices
Paul Sheehan You will pay for all this water. Unless you are insulated from the normal costs of living, you can expect sticker shock at some point this year, or next, when paying for the weekly food shopping.
Paul Sheehan
Floods steal precious topsoil - and future goes down drain
Paul Sheehan Australia reminds me of an injured person, gushing blood. Others gather around, concerned, yet nobody mentions the gushing blood, or appears to even notice.
Paul Sheehan
Cast adrift from reality, the slick spruikers of 'our' shame
Paul Sheehan The water in Sydney Harbour over the New Year weekend was clear, the sky was bright blue and endless, and the new fashion on the beach was bikini-clad women wearing pork-pie hats. A great look.
Paul Sheehan
A diminished Gillard caught in a storm of her own making
Paul Sheehan The most surprising aspect of Julia Gillard's first day of facing parliamentary questioning as the newly elected Prime Minister was her demeanour.
Paul Sheehan
Let's vote Kevin off the island
Paul Sheehan In the bible of bile, otherwise known as The Latham Diaries (2005), the former leader of the Labor Party Mark Latham reserved a special place of disdain for Kevin Rudd.
Paul Sheehan
Get your fracking facts right
Paul Sheehan Frack is not a pleasant word. Nor a popular one. It has obvious negative connotations. Even the spelling is contested. The industry that invented and uses the term prefers the spelling ''fracc''.
Paul Sheehan
Green by name, flaky by nature
Paul Sheehan Adam Bandt's first major policy initiative as the only member of the Greens in the House of Representatives was always going to be loaded with symbolism.
Paul Sheehan
Qantas keeps its head above water despite Titanic near-miss
Paul Sheehan The Airbus A380 represents the pinnacle of global aviation. It is especially the jewel in the crown in Singapore, where the government-owned Singapore Airlines was the launch customer.
Paul Sheehan
Faceless Libs should step aside
Paul Sheehan There could be blood. There doesn't have to be. It could be an elegant, seamless change of power, but eventually blood will flow if seamless change does not happen inside the NSW Liberal Party.
Paul Sheehan
In bed with the devil - a deal that has tainted Green politics
Paul Sheehan The word ''green'' has a powerful meaning in our public life in a way it never did before. It has connotations of habitat, nature, trees, wilderness and also moral connotations - stewardship of the...
Paul Sheehan
Obama deserves his insecurity and the disaster that follows
Paul Sheehan It is called ''La Inseguridad'': The Insecurity. It is the term the Mexicans use to describe the virtual civil war in parts of their country, especially near the United States border, that has cost...
Paul Sheehan
Power is the reason for this fight
Paul Sheehan Ian Widdup is dying - he has advanced leukaemia - and for some people he cannot die soon enough. The NSW government, the construction group Multiplex, and the building union the CFMEU, would all be...
Paul Sheehan
Our army is at war over the prosecution of commandos
Paul Sheehan Speaking on ABC Radio in 2006, after her appointment as the army's first Director of Military Prosecutions, Lyn McDade, told her interviewer: ''I'm outside the chain of command.''
Paul Sheehan
Fake or fact? Shining the light on the Facebook phenomenon
Paul Sheehan Fifteen hundred friends! He wouldn't know 1500 people! The insecure little p----.'' This is my hairdresser, harrumphing last week about one of his friends, a flight attendant, who lists 1500...
Paul Sheehan
Fast and furious, a league apart
Paul Sheehan On Thursday I received a text from a lawyer friend: ''Number of NRL players to be banned for match-fixing. Player agent also involved. Action is being delayed.
Paul Sheehan
Lives lost currying US favour
Paul Sheehan Thomas Dale, 21, killed by a bomb. Grant Kirby, 35, killed by a bomb. Jason Brown, 29, shot dead. Tim Aplin, 38, killed in a helicopter crash. Ben Chuck, 27, killed in a helicopter crash.
Paul Sheehan
Wild rivers a cage for Aborigines
Paul Sheehan ''With the natives we are hand in glove. They throng the camp every day, and sometimes by their clamour and importunity for bread and meat (of which they now all eat greedily) are become very...
Paul Sheehan
Far from an outsider or innocent
Paul Sheehan There were six people in the room. Morris Iemma was there with his top advisers to meet Rob Oakeshott and his key staffer. It was 2007; Iemma was premier of NSW, Oakeshott was an independent state MP.
