http://www.thepunch.com.au/author-bios/greg-thomson/ Greg Thomson is editor-in-chief of Western Australia’s Community Newspaper Group, a company part-owned by News Limited and The West Australian, which publishes 17 suburban newspapers covering the length and breadth of Perth from Wanneroo in the city’s north to Mandurah in the south. Mr Thomson relocated to Perth from the Northern Territory three years ago, and is a former managing editor of The Centralian Advocate in Alice Springs, having spent most of his journalistic career as a reporter and Chief of Staff with the Northern Territory News in Darwin. en Copyright 2012 The Punch penberthyd@newsltd.com.au penberthyd@newsltd.com.au Sat, 26 May 2012 20:00:40 +0000 Sat, 26 May 2012 20:00:40 +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/He-drills-he-earns-he-spends-he-doesnt-apologise/ He’s a self-confessed “cashed-up bogan” earning $800 a day or more than $208,000 a year in Western Australia’s booming mining industry. Since dropping out of Mandurah Catholic College in year 10, James “Jimmy” Dinnison, 25, has earned more than a million dollars, bought a house at aged 18, but sees no problem in splurging most of his hard-earned on boy’s toys. Jimmy works extremely hard in tough, hot and dangerous conditions as a fly-in, fly-out driller working 12-hour shifts in the WA’s north-west, but he has also sparked fierce debate about the fall of the American economy, thanks to an intriguing profile in that country’s highest circulating newspaper, the influential Wall Street Journal. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Greg Thomson) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/He-drills-he-earns-he-spends-he-doesnt-apologise/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/He-drills-he-earns-he-spends-he-doesnt-apologise/#item7209 Wed, 23 Nov 2011 19:55:20 +0000 Greg Thomson | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/the-fun-police-make-it-to-the-final-frontier/ I am trying hard not to sound like a grumpy old man well before my time, but what is it with the fun police on the streets of Perth? In just one week, the good citizens of the Australia’s western state have been subjected to a raft of state and local government regulations seemingly designed to take the enjoyment out of the simplest of life’s pleasures. Take the example of Town of Cottesloe, just one of 142 shires and municipal councils in the state, after it foreshadowed the banning of flying kites, hoisting over-sized beach umbrellas, playing with toy cars and drinking from glass bottles on an iconic stretch of beaches along the WA capital’s affluent western suburbs. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Greg Thomson) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/the-fun-police-make-it-to-the-final-frontier/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/the-fun-police-make-it-to-the-final-frontier/#item4112 Mon, 27 Sep 2010 19:35:36 +0000 Greg Thomson | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/why-rudd-should-n0t-be-the-foreign-minister/ It doesn’t wash that high profile Western Australian politician Stephen Smith would be happy to forego the plum foreign affairs portfolio to make way for Kevin Rudd. For a start, Mr Smith’s high profile in his home state and the capital Perth is critical to the party improving its electoral appeal in the west, and a demotion to a lesser portfolio would not sit well with the Liberal-leaning punters. Taking any parochial state-based political thinking out of the equation, there’s also the national interest to think of. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Greg Thomson) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/why-rudd-should-n0t-be-the-foreign-minister/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/why-rudd-should-n0t-be-the-foreign-minister/#item3415 Sun, 27 Jun 2010 03:17:24 +0000 Greg Thomson | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/the-friction-where-asylum-seekers-meet-unwilling-hosts/ I’m guessing that former prime minister Malcolm Fraser and Western Australian woman Jo Ruprecht wouldn’t agree on much when it comes to federal politics. At the launch of Refugee Week in Sydney yesterday, Mr Fraser joined forces with the vocal minority once more, calling for greater compassion towards asylum seekers, and attacking both sides of politics for their race “to see who can be the toughest” in their pre-election rhetoric. Unfortunately for Mr Fraser and the good folk at the Refugee Council of Australia, it seems the public view is very much running one way when it comes to the asylum seeker debate. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Greg Thomson) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/the-friction-where-asylum-seekers-meet-unwilling-hosts/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/the-friction-where-asylum-seekers-meet-unwilling-hosts/#item3368 Mon, 21 Jun 2010 19:40:29 +0000 Greg Thomson | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/anger-mounting-against-rudd-in-the-wild-west/ Prime Minister Kevin Rudd gave no quarter, nor was any apparently sought, when he strode before the Perth Press Club on Wednesday to defend his resource super-profits tax. Many in the Perth media felt the PM’s address provided the perfect backdrop from which Mr Rudd could make a form of policy detour, to deftly change tack, and to somehow head off a simmering confrontation with the nation’s powerful mining lobby - a swordfight that is showing every sign of looming into an electoral bloodbath in the state. A Westpoll conducted for The West Australian a fortnight ago suggests the Federal Government is on a hiding to nothing in WA, with the prospect of it holding just two seats at the next election, Perth and Fremantle, from a possible 15. Labor holds only four in the state. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Greg Thomson) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/anger-mounting-against-rudd-in-the-wild-west/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/anger-mounting-against-rudd-in-the-wild-west/#item3286 Thu, 10 Jun 2010 19:40:46 +0000 Greg Thomson | Author bios | The Punch