Colonialism

While you’re watching the Commonwealth Games closing ceremony tonight, take a moment to look at the VIP box.

The first guest of honour in New Delhi is Britain’s Prince Edward, there representing his mother, the Queen, in her capacity of Head of the Commonwealth. Nothing unusual about that. But alongside him in the guest of honour spot will be Mahinda Rajapaksa, the President of Sri Lanka.

The Games are these days the most visible expression of the Commonwealth itself – an organisation which aims to promote democracy, human rights, good governance, the rule of law, individual liberty, egalitarianism, free trade, multilateralism and world peace.

Continue reading "When quiet diplomacy equals silence on human rights" »

Listening to ABC Local Radio a few weeks ago, I heard the former Minister John Brown saying John Howard should take a leaf out of the book of his predecessor Stanley Bruce who, when he lost his seat and lost government simultaneously in 1929, “had the decency to go and hide under a rock for the rest of his life”.

Now Mr Brown – a man who must sometimes be frustrated that his own political career tends to be summed up by the average punter as “had sex on his Ministerial desk with his wife, didn’t he?” -  really should have known better.

The National Archives of Australia are opening an exhibition about Bruce this week, and I hope it will do something to change the public awareness of a man whose post-political career was if anything more distinguished than his time at the head of government.

Continue reading "Uncle Bruce, the former PM who made a life after politics" »