While Australia’s political class and media were obsessing over leaks from within the Labor cabinet this week, an altogether more important set of leaks found its way to the front pages of newspapers worldwide. Sourced by Wikileaks, over 90,000 military documents around the war in Afghanistan were released simultaneously by The Guardian, The New York Times and Der Spiegel. They catalogue a […]
29 Jul
Comments Off on Red baiting back in fashion
The NSW Senate race has produced a sideline of media commentary attacking Lee Rhiannon, the lead Greens candidate and until recently a NSW Upper House MP. Most of it has been along the lines of the socialist menace lurking beneath the apparently acceptable green exterior of the party.
24 Jul
Pushing their way through the clamour and mush regarding immigration and “the boats” have been murmurs of moves to ban the public wearing of the full Islamic veil in Australia. The issue has been raised on both the Left and the Right, with people taking a lead from Europe. France’s lower house has just passed […]
22 Jul
In 2001 the ALP folded in the face of a populist Liberal Party campaign tying concerns over boat people with fear of terrorism. It was then that the term “dog-whistle politics” came into common usage, referring to a political message sent in coded language so that while it was not overtly xenophobic it would be […]
19 Jul
Comments Off on Flight from the centre
Call it a “disconnect”. Call it a “cranky electorate”. Or call it “political volatility”. Whatever name you give it, something peculiar has been happening to alienate ordinary people from official politics in a way that most commentators have found difficult to explain. The rapid destruction of Kevin Rudd is but the latest symptom of a deeper […]
05 Jul
It seems fitting to start exactly here…
31 Jul
Comments Off on Apologist overload: Wikileaks and Australia’s Afghanistan non-debate