http://www.thepunch.com.au/author-bios/david-penberthy/ Dave grew up in Adelaide’s southern suburbs and attended a really nice public school, Marion High, which was subsequently bulldozed during the tyrannical reign of Liberal Premier Dean Brown. He fell into journalism while not studying law at the University of Adelaide. He joined The Adelaide Advertiser as a cadet journalist in 1992 and spent his first few years on the newspaper as education reporter, industrial reporter and state political reporter. In 1996, shortly after the election of the Howard Government, he was posted to Canberra to head the Advertiser’s parliamentary bureau. In 1999 he moved to Sydney to join The Daily Telegraph as state parliament bureau chief, a position he held for three years before his appointment as chief of staff and then as opinion editor and roving columnist for the paper. In April 2005 he became editor of The Daily Telegraph, a position he held until November last year. He is now the editor of The Punch. When not writing about stuff or reading stuff other people have written, he can be found at home in the kitchen cooking traditional dishes from Mexico, where he lived for a year in 1986, and which after a few tequilas he will wrongly cite as his place of birth. en Copyright 2010 The Punch penberthyd@newsltd.com.au penberthyd@newsltd.com.au Thu, 18 Mar 2010 20:12:23 +0000 Thu, 18 Mar 2010 20:12:23 +0000 Politics, opinion, world news, sports news, latest news, views, Barack Obama, Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Nathan Rees, Malcolm Turnbull, Peter Garrett, Barnaby Joyce, Australian, federal politics, opinion polls, election, The Punch, thepunch, punch ExpressionEngine 1.6.7 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 15 http://www.thepunch.com.au/images/punch-logo-rss.png http://www.thepunch.com.au/ 144 70 Politics, political opinion, world news, sports news and the latest news and views updated live, daily on The Punch - Australia's best conversation. Search The Punch keywords http://www.thepunch.com.au/search/ http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/Who-wants-a-hot-date-with-a-State-Treasurer/ If you missed yesterday’s excellent interview with South Australian Treasurer Kevin Foley on Adelaidenow here’s the potted version – he doesn’t want the top job, he just wants a girl. For the uninitiated, Foley is the man who last year went public about the collapse of his marriage, his subsequent failed relationships with a raft of women, his battle with depression, his late-night ruminations about whether his political career has been worth the sacrifice. Late last year to his eternal credit he was filmed at an Adelaide karaoke venue singing the above rendition of The Gambler. The serious takeout from the Foley interview was that he appears to have put his leadership aspirations on hold and will serve as a loyal deputy until such time as Mike Rann goes of his own volition. Not that he was being that presumptuous – he admitted to being really worried about whether Labor would get home tomorrow at all. penberthyd@newsltd.com.au (David Penberthy) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/Who-wants-a-hot-date-with-a-State-Treasurer/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/Who-wants-a-hot-date-with-a-State-Treasurer/#item2635 Thu, 18 Mar 2010 18:56:34 +0000 David Penberthy | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/making-the-swill-less-unrepresentative/ Some years ago the BBC produced a brilliant documentary series about the House of Lords which chronicled the strange existence of those hereditary peers who by dint of their birth had wound up being underemployed for life in this absurd parliamentary chamber. There was one chap aged only in his 30s who was not only completely loaded, he was also completely smashed, living in the rundown country estate his late father had left to him where the only functioning room appeared to be the cellar. Every morning he would wake up, put on his tweed trousers and a silly cravat, and start working his way through bottle after bottle of 1950s French burgundy. His face was dotted with burst capillaries and he sat in his comfy chair like that Uncle Monty from Withnail and I, rabbitting about how one felt a sense of duty in maintaining one’s family traditions by serving as a Lord. It now seems that even the Brits have realised their Upper House is an elitist anachronism and a waste of money. penberthyd@newsltd.com.au (David Penberthy) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/making-the-swill-less-unrepresentative/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/making-the-swill-less-unrepresentative/#item2631 Tue, 16 Mar 2010 04:00:11 +0000 David Penberthy | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/bunny-boilover/ It’s been pilloried in song by Paul Kelly as a stuffy and boring place where nothing interesting ever happens, but if someone made a film about the past five months of politics in the City of Churches it would probably attract an MA rating. Economically and culturally South Australia is humming along. Just 10 years ago, in the backdraft of the $3.15 billion collapse of the State Bank on Labor’s watch, it was an economic basketcase which young people were queuing to leave. Last Thursday, on the day I started this piece by sitting down with Premier Mike Rann, the national employment figures confirmed that SA has yet again registered the lowest jobless rate in the land. penberthyd@newsltd.com.au (David Penberthy) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/bunny-boilover/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/bunny-boilover/#item2610 Sun, 14 Mar 2010 19:00:45 +0000 David Penberthy | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/to-damage-your-reputation-hire-Max-Markson/ ``How do you start a small business? Give Warwick Fairfax a big one’‘, should be reworked in a PR context in honour of Australia’s pre-eminent spiv, the celebrity publicist Max Markson. The events of the past few days have demonstrated, in my view, that if you really want to damage your reputation, you should hire Max Markson to defend it. In a few days, Markson has helped pull off an extraordinary feat in relation to his new client, Lara Bingle. His contributions have only helped to further turn what seems like the entire country against this girl when, less than a week ago, she was enjoying rare public support after being belittled and demeaned by one of the biggest yobbos to grace an Australian sports field. penberthyd@newsltd.com.au (David Penberthy) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/to-damage-your-reputation-hire-Max-Markson/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/to-damage-your-reputation-hire-Max-Markson/#item2604 Sun, 14 Mar 2010 03:45:35 +0000 David Penberthy | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/for-gods-sake-our-mps-should-stick-to-their-day-jobs/ Update 12.35pm: Stephen Fielding has just told The Punch that he was mistaken when he claimed on Q&A that Kevin Rudd did not believe in evolution. A number of commenters have attacked the PM below off the back of Fielding’s claims but the Senator says: “I made a mistake. I thought I had read it somewhere but obviously I didn’t, I apologise to the Prime Minister for the mistake.” We now know courtesy of Monday’s excellent episode of Q&A that when Stephen Fielding and Kevin Rudd first met the PM pulled a Bible out of his top pocket and gave an impromptu sermon. It’s not clear which passage Rudd read although we can presume it wasn’t Ezekiel 25:17 - “I will strike you down with great vengeance and furious anger and you will know then that I am the Lord” - tempting as it may have been for the PM to pass the ETS by popping a cap in the Christian Senator’s ass. I am not a violent person either but there was something about the creeping Jesus quality of Monday night’s show that had me wanting to kick a hole in the plasma, wondering angrily whether anyone can remember the French Revolution and the quaint conviction that the Church is over there, the State is over here, and never the twain shall meet. penberthyd@newsltd.com.au (David Penberthy) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/for-gods-sake-our-mps-should-stick-to-their-day-jobs/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/for-gods-sake-our-mps-should-stick-to-their-day-jobs/#item2572 Tue, 09 Mar 2010 18:55:24 +0000 David Penberthy | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/abbotts-first-mistake/ John Howard told The Punch at Friday’s Liberal Party get-together in Mosman that Tony Abbott “hasn’t put a foot wrong” since becoming Liberal Leader in December. It now looks like in the past 24 hours that Abbott has done just that. The reaction from surprised business leaders, a cynical public and his own irritated MPs suggests that Mr Abbott’s maternity leave scheme is a poor bit of policy which has also been badly managed politically. While business has a tendency to complain about any new cost that comes its way, and the public a habit of being cynical about everything, it’s the political mismanagement of the issue, which saw Mr Abbott offer a qualified apology to his own MPs today, which may have done the most damage. It certainly gave Labor its first good Question Time of the year, after weeks of drift and distraction over the insulation scandal, and successive drops in the polls in the backdraft of the failed ETS. penberthyd@newsltd.com.au (David Penberthy) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/abbotts-first-mistake/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/abbotts-first-mistake/#item2573 Tue, 09 Mar 2010 04:34:18 +0000 David Penberthy | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/The-sweetest-upset-of-all-tony-abbott/ It is Tony Abbott’s 93rd day as Leader of the Liberal Party and he’s being cheered as a hero. He’s just arrived at the Mosman RSL, one of the few affordable venues in the richest suburb on Sydney’s ultra-conservative North Shore, and the member for Warringah is not among friends but fanatics. If Abbott is trying to argue that it’s a marathon not a sprint, and that the party has a lot of work to do ahead of polling day, tonight is not the night for such dispassionate political cliché. It feels like a dress rehearsal for a victory party. Every single person that I speak to on the night not only believes that the Libs can win, many are saying they will win. penberthyd@newsltd.com.au (David Penberthy) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/The-sweetest-upset-of-all-tony-abbott/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/The-sweetest-upset-of-all-tony-abbott/#item2555 Sun, 07 Mar 2010 19:00:34 +0000 David Penberthy | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/has-kevin-24-7-been-caught-napping-by-a-fresh-opponent/ AS Kevin Rudd ploughs through the media analysis of his political woes and weighs the counsel of advisers and the trends identified by pollsters, the man known as Kevin 24/7 may be in need of some more homespun and maternal advice. Kevin, it’s past your bedtime. Get some sleep. The fatigue factor has been largely unexplored in the context of the Prime Minister’s poll slump and the corresponding surge by Opposition Leader Tony Abbott. There has been a longstanding and well-documented view within Labor circles that Rudd’s workload and sleeping habits are so punishing as to be unsustainable. penberthyd@newsltd.com.au (David Penberthy) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/has-kevin-24-7-been-caught-napping-by-a-fresh-opponent/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/has-kevin-24-7-been-caught-napping-by-a-fresh-opponent/#item2550 Fri, 05 Mar 2010 19:00:39 +0000 David Penberthy | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/rudd-i-dont-pretend-to-be-some-sort-of-perfect-leader/ Kevin Rudd’s festival of contrition and humility has now entered its fourth day with the PM’s address to the National Press Club on his health reform blueprint becoming a showcase for his new laid-back, softer style. You can see the latest news coverage of the health plan here. More interesting politically was to observe the continuing shift in Mr Rudd’s demeanour. He’s officially buried crotchety Kevin and is now conciliatory Kevin, self-flagellator always at the ready, as he admits his faults and flaws. He even expressed his relief at the happy news that his nemesis, the surging Tony Abbott, had not vanished overnight in the dead heart of the Australian desert. penberthyd@newsltd.com.au (David Penberthy) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/rudd-i-dont-pretend-to-be-some-sort-of-perfect-leader/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/rudd-i-dont-pretend-to-be-some-sort-of-perfect-leader/#item2533 Wed, 03 Mar 2010 02:39:01 +0000 David Penberthy | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/taking-off-the-white-blindfold-and-black-armband/ The most dispiriting intellectual spectacle of the past decade would have to be the so-called “history wars”, where academics, politicians and commentators on the extreme left and right battled for domination in telling the story of modern Australia. The history wars were essentially an exercise both in understatement and overstatement. The right-wingers tried to pretend that Australian history was nothing other than a happy story involving the orderly and humane progression of European civilisation on these shores, where no indigenous children were ever stolen, no families ever broken up, and whatever dislocation or hardship Aborigines experienced was at worst an accident, brought about by the purest of motives. The left-wingers retaliated by branding the conservatives as liars, and telling a version of Australian history which reads like a long string of human rights abuses, with repeated acts of savagery against a wholly peaceful indigenous populace. penberthyd@newsltd.com.au (David Penberthy) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/taking-off-the-white-blindfold-and-black-armband/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/taking-off-the-white-blindfold-and-black-armband/#item2516 Mon, 01 Mar 2010 19:00:34 +0000 David Penberthy | Author bios | The Punch