In a considered piece at ABC’s The Drum on Thursday, Jonathan Green highlighted a phenomenon that seems to overwhelm Australian politics — the inability of simple facts about the Gillard Government’s performance to overcome the stench of crisis hanging over it. He is correct to point out “that in assuming that the mere facts of its […]
20 Mar
Comments Off on Malcolm is not so in the middle
Here’s my latest for ABC’s The Drum website, published yesterday. Australian politics has a strange ‘centre’ at the moment, and the dial seems increasingly to fall at the feet of Malcolm Turnbull. His presence on shows like Q&A results in both calls for him to reassume the Liberal Party leadership, and the suggestion he is an ALP member in disguise. Analogies […]
26 Jul
Comments Off on Australia’s Islamophobes & right-wing ideologues praised in Breivik’s manifesto
Keith Windschuttle UPDATE 26/7/11: It is apparent that Breivik was pretty committed to lifting material straight out of other far Right tracts. His praise for Howard and Pell appears to to have originated here and the Windschuttle comments here. Thanks to David Brophy for pointing out the former reference. As with all the links to far Right sites […]
05 Jun
Comments Off on #nswisconsin: How the age of austerity came to NSW & what can be done about it
Lest you thought the warnings raised on this blog about the “Age of Austerity” currently ravaging Europe and North America coming to Australia (see here and here, for example) were exaggerated, Barry O’Farrell has exceeded even our worst fears about the scale of attacks being planned in elite circles. What is being sold by the media as a case of reining […]
31 May
Comments Off on Barry O’Farrell: From modern managerialist to old-fashioned class warrior
> A funny thing happened on the way to Macquarie St. Before the March NSW election, Barry O’Farrell was a seemingly banal, workmanlike and mild-mannered Liberal leader who spent years rebuilding his party’s broken morale, even at the cost of reining in powerful far Right factional elements. Rather than projecting the leader he would be […]
16 Nov
Me in today’s The Drum Unleashed on the ABC website, where I look at the collapse of the Greens’ strategy to secure Liberal Party preferences in some key inner-Melbourne seats. Just why is a Left party playing these games? Since 2006 the ALP has hammered the fact the Greens are willing to do deals with the Liberals, a line […]
22 Aug
Comments Off on Welcome to another edition of Thunderdome?
When we started this blog in July, we addressed the “democratic deficit” in Australian society. Yesterday’s result, of a likely hung parliament, is a reflection of the inability of the main parties to even create the illusion they have won a mandate to govern. The election was a disaster for the ALP. Having killed the […]
08 Aug
I wonder how you see the Greens party. I mean is it an ecological party or is it maybe Australia’s only left wing party? —Laurie Oakes to Bob Brown, 11 July 2010 The persistence of polling showing the Greens at 11-13 percent has meant that for the first time in a federal election 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 […]
15 Feb
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