Julia Gillard and her advisers believe they can see a narrow path to victory for Labor at the next federal election. They spent the Christmas break devising a political strategy aimed at taking the Government along that path.

Wednesday’s speech by the prime minister - titled `Building a new Australian economy together’ - was, in effect, a map of the route she plans to take.

Sadly for Gillard, it is almost certainly too late.

Continue reading "Gillard’s mapping a route but will probably still be routed" »

As key moments go, it ranked with Gough Whitlam’s dramatic dismissal speech branding Malcolm Fraser “Kerr’s cur’’ or the latter’s lip-quivering concession on election night, 1983.

It was June 24, 2010. Before a huge media throng, a teary Kevin Rudd, his composure failing, his bewildered family staring awkwardly forward, detailed his achievements one by one. Long silences exacerbated the tension.

It was excruciating.

Continue reading "Kevin 2.0 could be better. Or it could be even KRuddier." »

Can you hear a faint sort of teeth-grindy sound? No it’s not the rats in the roof gnawing the wires again, it’s just those thousands of lady drivers with the windows down as they motor past the bottle shop.

Even just four days into Febfast, the annual excruciating month of alcohol abstinence, the novelty will have well and truly worn off and we’re already down to the bare bones of resentment and “I know it’s for charity and all but what the feck was I thinking”.

All around Australia there are mild-mannered ladies cursing the leap year, too, as were it not for that stupid spare day, there would only be 24 grogless ones left. For many of us talented drinkers, when it comes to one’s consumption of alcohol there is the comfort of denial and “look over there, is that a rare orange-bellied parrot? (Yes waiter top me up)” for 11 months of the year, and then there is the long, hard look in the mirror that is horrendous February.

Continue reading "Working women need to escape the grog bog" »

Long before the abomination known as Moves Like Jagger (Maroon 5 your days are numbered), the rubberfaced Rolling Stones frontman made a different move. He wore lipstick and lavish beauty products and took much more time than most of his male counterparts when getting ready.

Yep, Mick Jagger was the first Metrosexual. He was The Man…who slightly resembled a woman.

Modern day metros like Pharell Williams, David Beckham, Marc Anthony and Orlando Bloom should doff their fedoras to Jagger, the grandfather of metrosexuality and an outstanding individual who championed individuality.

Continue reading "Mick Jagger’s still putting the sex into metrosexual" »

You can’t blame Hope Rinehart for trying to get her Mum to pay for a cook, a housekeeper and a bodyguard. Optimism isn’t even her middle name - it’s right up there.

And who among us wouldn’t have a fairly ambitious birthday wish list if Mum was the richest person in Australia?

So Hope asked Mum for a cook (AND showed her willingness to negotiate by including a salary ranging from $40,000 to $225,000+ which means she’d presumably gun for Jamie Oliver but be happy with a Subway “sandwich artist”). 

Continue reading "The Rinehart whine came straight from the heart" »

Typically, leadership contests have that nagging chicken-or-egg feel about them.

They usually involve a period of intense public speculation with various insiders anonymously cited as backing this option or that.

It is a process which can leave voters suspicious of motives if only because change, division, and conflict, make great news copy.

Continue reading "Julia Gillard is on the highway to the danger zone" »

Anonymous says: Before I became a parent I thought this question was an absolute no brainer. A little smack here and there can’t hurt a child, I used to think. Especially if it’s going to help them learn to control certain behaviour and doing dangerous stuff, like crossing a road without looking.

Things are different now. My daughter is 18 months old and I couldn’t smack her for the life of me. The idea fills me with horror. Friends say that will change as she gets older, but I’m not convinced. There are other ways to teach your kids a lesson. This article in today’s Daily Telegraph advocates making smacking your kids illegal. But what do you think?

Vince Focarelli – alleged leader of the feared New Boys street gang and, briefly, an Adelaide group of Comancheros bikies – had already walked away from three attempts on his life.

It seemed unlikely that those who wished him harm were about to stop trying.

Last weekend, Focarelli’s aura of invincibility was shattered with tragic results. A hail of gunfire left the man himself with a head wound and claimed the life of his son Giovanni, who was just 22.

Continue reading "Outlaw bikies cannot be judged outside the law" »

When the Snowtown murder trial concluded in 2003 a prominent criminologist scandalised the good people of Adelaide by saying there was nothing surprising or remarkable about the case.

New Yorker Allan Perry, a lecturer in criminal law at the University of Adelaide, blamed what he called a subculture of degeneracy in the city’s most depressed and dysfunctional suburbs, defined by inter-generational welfare dependency, the daily abuse of alcohol and drugs, shocking levels of child abuse, child neglect and family violence.

Dr Perry said the only thing which shocked him about Snowtown was that people were shocked by it. And he really cut loose in his description of my hometown, sending talkback and the letters pages into meltdown, and prompting the then Attorney General Mick Atkinson to tell him to move back to Brooklyn.

Continue reading "A horror movie about poverty and welfare" »

How far do you commute to work? One hour? Twenty minutes? Do you work from home? Where’s head office? Do you think a person who has to drive 15 minutes to their workplace is unqualified to do the job?

In politics, like no other job, being born and raised in the one area is some sort of political necessity. It’s a ridiculous thought because if we all thought like that, we’d be doing piecemeal work from home on looms.

This week, Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd called Campbell Newman an ‘alien’ because Newman doesn’t live within the electoral boundary of Ashgrove. Newman lives one suburb away from the seat of Ashgrove. Does this mean he is unqualified to represent the people of Ashgrove?

Continue reading "Politicians don’t have to live in their own electorates" »