I’m reposting a recent piece I wrote for Overland Journal’s blog, in response to the debate over the contentious Enterprise Migration Agreement negotiated between the Gillard government and Gina Rinehart to allow the mining billionaire to import up to 1700 skilled workers from overseas. It was written as an open letter to Paul Howes after […]
08 May
Today, I’ll be reviewing George Megalogenis’ book, The Australian Moment, for you*. It is notable for two things. Firstly, it is hymn to Australia’s class war from above reform era of the 1980s and 90s — but tinged also with regret that since about 1993 the political class has lost the will to fight the good […]
08 May
Today, I’ll be reviewing George Megalogenis’ book, The Australian Moment, for you*. It is notable for two things. Firstly, it is hymn to Australia’s class war from above reform era of the 1980s and 90s — but tinged also with regret that since about 1993 the political class has lost the will to fight the good […]
13 Mar
Comments Off on Is the ALP’s condition terminal? A crisis of social democracy
My latest piece for ABC’s The Drum was published yesterday. Here is the original text for your reading pleasure. Comments most welcome, and I will try to respond. A flurry of excitement gripped federal politics in the last fortnight — from Kevin Rudd’s failed challenge for the Labor leadership to the parachuting of Bob Carr into […]
31 Oct
Comments Off on Qantas lock-out: The 1% declares all-out war on the 99%, and Gillard lends it a hand
If there was ever any proof needed that the central concerns of the #occupy movement, about rising social inequality and injustice, and the absence of democratic institutions willing to protect the interests of the vast majority, surely we got it in the behaviour of Qantas management over the last few days — and the Gillard government’s […]
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 May
Comments Off on What’s class got to do with it? Appendix: The strange persistence of egalitarian ideals
> In a piece of excellent timing given last week’s post-Budget pseudo-debate on class, the ACTU has launched a recent report on attitudes economic inequality in Australia that contains some stark facts about wealth (rather than income) distribution as well as some fascinating data on social attitudes. They’ve released this as part of their public […]
21 Nov
It was difficult to know how to approach Paul Howes’ Confessions Of A Faceless Man, his public “diary” of the 2010 election campaign. Was it to be a tell-all insider’s account delivering anecdotes that journalistic efforts would miss? Was it to be a re-evaluation of the problems the first-term federal government got itself into, a thoughtful […]
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 […]
24 Jun
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