Category: Malcolm Turnbull

18 Sep

7 Comments

The plebiscite & the impasse on marriage equality

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As the Pet Shop Boys acutely observed, “love is a bourgeois construct,” so same-sex marriage (or “marriage equality”) has always seemed to me to be a bit of a double-edged sword — both the removal of one of the last legal forms of discrimination against LGBTIQ people and the integration of same-sex couples into a historically […]

Filed under: ALP, Bill Shorten, Featured, Left strategy, LGBTIQ politics, Malcolm Turnbull, sexuality, Tony Abbott

15 Jun

1 Comment

An election that will resolve nothing

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Labor, unsurprisingly, refuses to concede any policy mandate for a Turnbull victory. Nor do the Greens, the Nick Xenophon Team or most of the independents. The mandate theory, once applying to an elected government’s program, has been corrupted to mean every party and independent has a mandate against the government. This year’s policy contest may […]

Filed under: ALP, Bill Shorten, Featured, Greens, Liberal Party, Malcolm Turnbull

17 Aug

11 Comments

End times for Abbott’s prime ministership?

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Let’s get something clear right away — same-sex marriage has not been and will not be the kind of issue that could destroy Tony Abbott’s prime ministership. Electorally, despite overwhelming popular support for equal marriage rights, it has consistently been a lower-order issue in terms of votes. And within the party room Abbott is on the […]

Filed under: ALP, anti-politics, Featured, Greens, LGBTIQ politics, Liberal Party, Malcolm Turnbull, Scott Morrison, the Right, Tony Abbott

11 Jun

9 Comments

Post-Budget: Just what the hell is Abbott up to?

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In today’s Sydney Morning Herald, Economics Editor Ross Gittins portrays Tony Abbott as a political “chameleon” who went from being a soft “populist” before the election — backing Labor’s spending commitments, promising minimal cuts despite saying that the Budget deficit needed to be reversed, etc. — to “an inflexible ‘conviction politician’ who doesn’t seem much worried […]

Filed under: ALP, anti-politics, Clive Palmer, economics, Europe, Featured, Joe Hockey, Liberal Party, Malcolm Turnbull, Spain, the Right, Tony Abbott

01 Jun

29 Comments

The Left and Tony Abbott’s ‘inevitable downfall’

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GUEST POST BY SIMON COPLAND Eight months in and the Abbott government seems to already be at the point of no return. After the disaster of the budget, the government has hit a new low in polling — one that, given the political “skills” displayed, seems very difficult reverse. As I’ve predicted in the past, […]

Filed under: ALP, anti-politics, Bill Shorten, Clive Palmer, Featured, Left strategy, Liberal Party, Malcolm Turnbull, neoliberalism, the Right, Tony Abbott

20 Mar

Comments Off on Malcolm is not so in the middle

Malcolm is not so in the middle

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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 […]

Filed under: class, Featured, Liberal Party, Malcolm Turnbull, neoliberalism