The latest issue of The Monthly and my response in The Drum on Monday (here, reposted at Left Flank here) have stirred public interest in the sharpened political debates about the future of the Greens. On Thursday, The Australian ran a curiously subdued feature on the party by Christian Kerr that also pulled a lengthy quote the Drum essay. One area that deserves more [...]
06 Feb
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‘Factional rifts, personal animosities and turf wars’ My latest article on ABC’s The Drum, looking at the politics and ideology behind the growing tensions in the Australian Greens, and why these debates matter. In the last decade there has been a dramatic reconfiguration on the Left of Australian politics. The ALP’s support has dropped to [...]
27 Nov
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Guest post by TONY HARRIS — cross-posted from his blog, Watermelon. In March last year, 35 prominent Jewish Australians signed a petition renouncing their automatic right of return to Israel, labelling such a right a “racist privilege” while Palestinians, ethnically cleansed from Israel in 1948, are denied their rights of return under international law.
15 Sep
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Since when did building a climate movement mean cheerleading neoliberal government policies? In the last post I argued that the deep crisis of the Gillard government is also a crisis of the Greens and the Left more generally. By effectively entering a “Left” government the Greens have replicated the disastrous strategy of Italy’s main party of the [...]
13 Sep
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The stench of death surrounds the Gillard Government. It is impossible to exaggerate the historic depths to which the ALP has fallen in the polls, with last week’s 27 percent in Newspoll confirming that there would be no “bounce” once the carbon tax announcement was digested by the electorate. Even the temporary revival of sleaze allegations against [...]
11 Sep
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The tenth anniversary of 9/11 has seen TV outlets promo tribute after tribute, where the message is clear: the tragedy of the twin towers requires of us an uncritical outpouring of grief. The now ten years old footage, which has been replayed so very many times, is still raw and powerful: people jumping from burning [...]
11 Jul
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Nick McKim faces protests over school closures Political debate in Australia seems firmly hinged on a cognitive dissonance over questions about the economy. Setting aside the ever-present obsession of discussing economic questions as if they are somehow separate to political ones, we have a federal government simultaneously arguing the economy is strong and we are [...]
09 Jul
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This is what the climate movement, the Greens and sections of the Left have staked their futures on: [I]n Australia, the push for carbon pricing originated from the Treasury as a pro-market economy-wide reform whose great advocates were Ken Henry, Martin Parkinson and Ross Garnaut with their ideas holding sway with John Howard, Rudd and [...]
27 Jun
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Moment of conversion? Cameron & Swan at the Toronto G20 Austerity (noun): 1. Enforced or extreme economy. From the Greek, austēros, meaning “harsh” or “severe”. 2. Merriam-Webster Word of the Year, 2010. The conversion of the present ALP federal government from new-era Keynesian stimulus apostles to sovereign debt doom merchants did not take place overnight, but [...]
09 Jun
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ABC’s The Drum has published an article today by @Dr_Tad and I about the reliance on market mechanisms to solve the climate crisis. We take on the accepted wisdom these mechanisms can adequately deal with the climate crisis, or that they are the only option. Moreover, we argue the debate is a distraction harming the climate movement and likely to see its demobilisation and defeat. Yet it is [...]
10 Feb
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