Angela Merkel

Bill Kelty made a memorable speech last week. Addressing the ACTU Congress Dinner in Sydney, the legendary ACTU Secretary who helped shape the Accord in the 1980s and 1990s, explained why he became a unionist.

“It was the underdog you always sided with in our family,” he told a hushed audience that included former Prime Ministers Bob Hawke and Paul Keating.

“The Aboriginal on death row, the Gurindji people, women not getting equal pay. It was Australia of whom you were proud, but not the Australia who sang God Save the Queen.

Continue reading "Deep down we’re all unionists, even the haters" »

SOME Australian voters might view their prime minister as a process-driven, even slightly nerdy, policy wonk but he is in fact a fun guy according to his German counterpart, Chancellor, Angela Merkel.

Speaking after the two met in the fabulously large yet sparingly furnished Chancellery - said to be the largest government headquarters building in the world - Dr Merkel described the process of dealing with Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd and the Australian Government as ``a lot of fun’‘.

The clean lines and huge scale of the Chancellery building, itself a monument to Germanic excellence in design and architectural boldness, seemed a perfect counter-balance as the two heads of government fairly droned on in the all-too-familiar monotonal language of power-politics. But despite Mr Rudd lasping briefly into the most technical of bureacratese with a reference to ``programatic specificity’‘, (which as the name suggests, means bugger-all) Dr Merkel said, the issues and challenges made the relationship enjoyable.

``It’s actually a lot of fun to work together,’’ she said welcoming Mr Rudd formally to her country.

Continue reading "Fun-loving Germans say Kev’s the life of the party" »