Rex Ahdar: A Judicial Slap and Tickle?

In a case that will not be forgotten quickly, if only for its bizarre name, the Federal Court of Australia on 23 August 2024 upheld a claim of discrimination by a transgender woman against a social network app catering solely for women and intended to be an “online refuge” and “safe space” for women. The transgender woman, Roxanne Tickle, after initially being accepted (by AI facial recognition software) onto the mobile phone app, was later taken off it by its CEO. The written judgment in Tickle v Giggle for Girls Pty Ltd (No 2), or Tickle v Giggle for short, is lengthy (86 pages and 283 paragraphs).

David Lillis, John Raine, Peter Schwerdtfeger, Rex Ahdar, Cathy Downes: Open Letter to the Coalition Government

Restoring the Standing and Reputation of Science in New Zealand - Open Letter to the Coalition Government

The recent news that GeoNet has been merging science with the myth, mysticism and legend of Māori traditional knowledge in their 2024 Geohazard Information has provoked a scathing response from international commentator, Professor Jerry Coyne (University of Chicago). This follows close behind publicity around the public funding of research projects that involve mixing of traditional knowledge and modern science which invited the inference that New Zealand had given equivalence to traditional knowledge and modern science.

Emeritus Professor Rex Ahdar: Is Western civilization worth defending?

Is Western Christian Civilization something to be proud of, something worth defending? I believe so. Let us begin with Samuel P Huntingdon in The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (1996) at 311:

Emeritus Professor Rex Ahdar: The Four Knights

The Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, likes to trace his political lineage back to the pioneers of parliamentary Maoridom. I will refer to these as the ‘big four’ or better still, the Four Knights. Just as boxing had its celebrated ‘Four Kings’ in the 1980s (Sugar Ray Leonard, Roberto Duran, Thomas ‘the hitman’ Hearns and Marvelous Marvin Hagler), so New Zealand politics had the Four Maori Knights. This distinguished quartet of Parliamentarians---James Carroll (1857-1926), Maui Pomare (1875-1930), Apirana Ngata (1874-1950) and Peter Buck (Te Rangi Hiroa)(1877-1951)---were all knighted. They were members of the Young Maori Party, not so much a party as a collection of like-minded Maori keen to advance the education, health and status of Maori. Their essential strategy was to be educated in European ways and to use the Westminster system to promote the Maori people.

Emeritus Professor Rex Ahdar: Cometh the Hour

There once was a university in a distant land. It was a small, proud academy with a long history in that new country.

A famine came and austerity hit the land. The Great Committee of the university had planned for a rich harvest of fresh young minds to enter its halls. But the forecasts were awry. The members of the Committee were false prophets.