Australian policymakers don’t share technology companies’ belief in a borderless world, writes James Panichi.

A century after the one-time attorney-general’s legislation was shot down by the Privy Council, Australia’s new criminal cartel law is up and running.

IT isn't often that Australia rates a mention in the European Union’s corridors of power. And that’s no bad thing: the long-running diplomatic stoushes with Canberra over agriculture and market access are seen here as water under the bridge. No news is definitely good news.

YOU’LL be familiar with the narrative. Lobbyists are quietly pulling all the strings in the political world. Deals are done behind closed doors, suspicious men in dark suits lurk in the corridors of power, and vested interests throw money at political parties to buy the influence they need to control what passes through parliament.

IN his short career in the Senate, Luigi Pallaro achieved the impossible: he brought together Italy’s ideologically irreconcilable political parties. When it came to expressing its contempt for the new senator, the Roman establishment set aside deep differences and spoke with one voice: the guy was a post-ideological buffoon, a throwback to a peasant past...