John Howard

Tony Abbott recalls the 11 years of the Howard government as a golden age and one gets the impression he would like Homer to nip back to record its god-like political heroes in an Aussie Iliad.

He put passionate nostalgia up front in a speech last week which revealed the core of the Abbott electoral philosophy. He is promising a former Australia preserved in Liberal amber.

It would be an Australia where no one had to share a suburban street with boat people, where factories operated in defiance of cheaper, better goods made overseas, and climate change was a minority fad, like fast-speed internet.

Continue reading "It takes selective memory to call Howard era a golden age" »

Am I missing something? I seem to be the last even remotely left-leaning person not to think the progressive sun shines out of Paul Keating’s hallowed backside.

A musical has been written about him. The best interviewers at the ABC speak to him in awed reverence, never for a moment stopping to quiz him on his own failures or shortcomings as he reads out his many laundry lists of everyone else.

Even Tory warhorse Janet Albrechtsen has heralded his “fine reforms” and confessed to voting for him in 1993.

And then there are all those progressive tweeps I follow who tweet about how they can’t wait to see said interviews. Then quote him throughout with gushing editorial hard up against the ubiquitous #.
“Keating: Blah blah blah I rule, everyone else sucks.” PJK summarises perfectly. Come back Paul, we miss you! #PJKforPMagain! That sort of thing.

Continue reading "Keating’s fine, it’s his worshippers who irk me" »

Climate change sceptics shouldn’t have to resort to juvenile ‘Gotcha’ tactics to get attention. But Professor Ian Plimer just did. And his target? Schoolteachers. Nice.

Prime Minister John Howard aided and abetted him, speaking at the launch of Plimer’s new book, How to Get Expelled from School: A Guide to Climate Change for Pupils, Parents and Punters.

The first bit of devious trickery is evident in the title - the ludicrous implication that a student would get kicked out of school for asking questions is just a nod to the conspiracy theorists who think the world’s scientists are engaged in an enormous scam.

Continue reading "How Plimer’s climate change book might just work" »

I am becoming increasingly tired of seeing, hearing or reading in the media, former Prime Ministers or politicians struggling to retire from political power and influence with dignity.

Anyone with even a modest interest in politics could compile a substantial list in just a few minutes. Think Malcolm Fraser, Bob Hawke, Pauline Hanson, Peter Beattie, Bob Carr, Cheryl Kernot, Jeff Kennett, Mark Latham, John Hewson, Peter Costello, Graham Richardson and Peter Reith and you will have just started. Why don’t these ex-pollies just put the kettle on and relax?

Then of course there is deposed Prime Minister Kevin Rudd who is suffering the “Kath and Kim “ syndrome: “Look at me, look at me, look at me!”

Continue reading "FOOI #10: Ex-pollies, just shut up and put the kettle on" »

A friend of mine said something strange the other day. He said: “I miss John Howard.’’

The reason this was strange is because he voted for the Greens. (Obviously I didn’t know this when I became friends with him but what’s done is done…)

But I knew what he meant. Whatever you thought of its politics, the Howard Government was always competent, stable and reliable. Right?

Continue reading "Does anybody else miss John Howard?" »

If Julia Gillard is looking for a shoulder to cry on about the torrid media coverage she has been receiving she could always pick up the phone to another recent prime minister in John Howard. If she were to do so she would find that, far from getting a sympathetic ear, she’d be politely advised to stop whining, harden up and get on with governing.

Ms Gillard once said, misleadingly, that her chances of seizing the leadership of the Labor Party from Kevin Rudd were as great as being picked to play for her beloved Western Bulldogs. To use an AFL analogy Ms Gillard is currently like the hapless footy coach who finds their team 10 goals down at half time and starts complaining about the umpiring.

It might be an over-simplification but the question Ms Gillard should ask herself is this. Is Labor on a record low primary vote of 27 per cent because of negative media coverage? Or is Labor getting negative media coverage because it’s got a primary vote of 27 per cent – that is, because its leadership has been so haphazard and its policies so poorly sold that the media is simply reflecting, not creating, public disquiet at its performance?

Continue reading "Crappy coach complains about the umpiring" »

When John Howard finally called an election in 2004, he had a cunning plan.

The ageing PM had trailed for much of the previous 12 months as the unorthodox Mark Latham repeatedly wrong-footed him on politicians’ super, the US/Australia free trade agreement and childhood literacy.

Morale waned. Senior ministers wondered if the jig was up. But the wily Howard, whom many voters believed had lied to them on the GST, children overboard, and Iraq, politely eschewed the prevailing view opting instead to meet the situation head-on.

Continue reading "In Abbott we trust, sort of" »

It’s not long ago that when people talked about the Federal Budget, the discussion was about more than hand-outs or who got what. It was about what the Budget meant for the nation, what it was going to leave for future generations, and how it was going to make Australia a better society.

This year’s budget hasn’t pleased everybody – Budgets never do. Some might have found it a bit underwhelming, but given the Government’s priority of returning the budget to surplus, it was not going to have the money for major projects.

What has surprised me is the nature of the debate in the media – the seeming obsession with minor changes to eligibility for family payments – and the lack of interest in how the budget deals with the challenge of getting people into work, improving the nation’s skills or fighting mental illness.

Continue reading "Ask not what the budget can do for you…" »

It’s unlikely John Howard will apologise, but he should at least feel deeply embarrassed.

Al Qaeda would be praying that Barack Obama became US president, Howard said in February 2007. 

The comment—an obvious diplomatic gaffe then—looks particularly stupid now.

Continue reading "We officially don’t know what happens post-bin Laden" »

New Treasury secretary Martin Parkinson got married last Saturday and had a splendid ceremony and celebration in the tourist-depleted north Queensland resort of Port Douglas.

He will now spend time which might have been allocated to a honeymoon doing all-nighters in the Treasury Building as the May 10 Budget is locked into place.

Crazy honeymoon. And it will be a crazy Budget in crazy economic times.

Continue reading "Budget 2011: Quick! To the fiscal bunker!" »

So after stalling on climate change, pushing boatpeople offshore and declaring billions in cuts to maintain a budget surplus at all costs, the Prime Minister has now announced a crackdown on welfare recipients.

The last discernible difference between Julia Gillard and John Howard has now finally been extinguished.

Of course I exaggerate: There are in fact two major differences between Gillard and Howard. 1) Howard actually believed in what he was doing; and 2) Under Howard we would have actually had an emissions trading scheme by now.

Continue reading "The Leader of Oz: No heart, no brain, no courage" »

It is a fixture of university lore that during all his 11 years as Prime Minister, John Howard never once set foot on the campus of ANU, just a few kilometers down the road from The Lodge in Canberra.

Certainly he never visited what is now Australia’s leading university anytime after 2001 when Ian Chubb became vice-chancellor, a job the 67-year-old relinquished on Friday.

Chubb, a rough-hewn figure credited with the most astute brain in higher education management, turned ANU into a major research hub where PhDs were earned in greater numbers than elsewhere and youngsters came from all around Australia, and the globe, to study.

Continue reading "The house that Howard hated" »

In the giddy afterglow of Kevin07, as the nation’s lefties rejoiced at exorcising the devil that was John Howard, it was assumed that the nation would become a more compassionate place. These same people obviously haven’t been paying attention.

There are now more children in detention than there were under Howard. Right now there’s 1045 of them. Just 28 of them are in community detention; that is, not behind bars but being cared for in private homes, in keeping with the softer policy that Howard introduced in 2005.

One of these children, Seena Aqhlaqi Sheikhdost, was trundled back to Christmas Island this week, a few hours after he had buried his parents. Whether you agree or disagree with mandatory detention, you’d be hard-pressed to argue that locking up a nine-year-old on the day he’s attended his parents’ funeral meets the dictionary definition of compassion.

Continue reading "Compassion is a quickly expendable commodity" »

This is the third in a series of essays adapted from the Centre for Policy Development book, More Than Luck: Ideas Australia needs now. The Labor Government has set itself up for failure by upholding the view that asylum seeking is a national security threat, writes Kate Gauthier.

It is said that any civilised society can be measured by how it treats its most vulnerable people. Asylum seekers, vilified by the media and feared by the public, make an excellent target for unscrupulous public figures who seek to gain power or position through a culture of fear.

In order to appear tough on asylum seekers – tough on the victims of human rights abuses – successive governments and political parties have enacted or proposed policies that severely curtail the rights of people fleeing war, persecution and torture.

The argument in favour of taking a punitive approach is that it discourages onshore asylum seeking. This is shown to be false by two issues.

Continue reading "Big ideas: a sensible policy solution on asylum seekers" »

The Prime Minister has announced that she will establish an expert panel to investigate the best way for indigenous people to be recognised in the Australian Constitution.

Julia Gillard’s announcement is no surprise in of itself. It merely makes good on an election promise and, at least among major political parties, has bipartisan support.

But as Kevin Rudd has showed us, the road from announcing an “expert panel” to something actually getting done is a long one, and there are a lot few issues to be teased out between now and seeing this in the Constitution.

Continue reading "Aboriginal recognition: getting from talk to action" »

SUNDAY 24/10/10

Morning

Costello dropped in to Melbourne office today. Has copy of Howard memoirs. Says he is checking it for errors, misrepresentation, and slander. Book is dog eared and crammed with post-it notes.

Costello asked if I kept any records during Costello/Howard era.

Tell Costello I kept a diary.

Costello asks if I could check it. He is doing a ring around to get source material. Is thinking of writing a scathing review of Howard’s book for The Monthly.

Continue reading "Diary of a Liberal Frontbencher: My memoir" »

As Lazarus rose (albeit for a book launch) this week, the gaping leadership chasm that has been the Prime Ministership since John Howard’s departure was glaringly exposed.

A recent article in The Spectator on John Howard had the by-line “Remember when Australia had a real PM?”  It’s a fair question.

John Howard’s re-emergence on the national stage this week, along with a raft of shoe-throwing unwashed Howard-haters, only served to remind the public what it has been missing: conviction politics.  Plain and simple.

Continue reading "Recent PMs haven’t risen to fill Lazarus’s shoes" »

Hooray for Friday at The Punch. How’s your week been?

Share anything that’s on your mind here.

With the coming release of John Howard’s autobiography, Lazarus Rising, it’s worth considering Howard’s standing in Australia’s political history, and to compare him to his arch-nemesis, Paul Keating. 

John Howard and Paul Keating were political titans for 30 years but were vastly different politicians—and famously couldn’t stand each other.

Australian politics has enjoyed many compelling rivalries, such as Keating and Bob Hawke, Howard and Peter Costello and Julie Bishop and a garden gnome, but none have been as rancorous as between Keating and Howard. 

Continue reading "Howard was good, but Keating was better" »

Why didn’t the Q&A shoe‑thrower Peter Gray toss former Prime Minister John Howard a lamington instead?

Taking his cue from an Iraqi journalist, turned footwear rejecter, who flung his possessions at then‑US President George W Bush, Gray in one unoriginal act exposed the limitations of the Q&A program as an uninhibited experiment in deliberative democracy.

According to the program’s website, Q&A aims to place punters, pollies and pundits together to ‘thrash out’ the hot issues of the week. Think of it as the political equivalent of a WWE steel cage match.

Continue reading "It’s better to take Q&A as a comment, not democracy" »

Back in 2005 Peter Costello made a star appearance at the morning editorial meeting in the news room at The Daily Telegraph. He plonked himself down in what was the deputy editor’s chair. When his choice of seat was pointed out to him he roared with laughter and rolled his eyes, joking that it was his lot in life to forever be number two.

The reason for the meeting was simple. The newspaper, of which I had just become editor, wanted to get to know him better. Not because we were trying to cause trouble – well, perhaps a little bit -  but more so because we thought our Sydney readers were curious about the guy and believed that at some stage he would become PM whether they liked it or not.

The reality in 2005 was that Labor was going nowhere under the leadership of the likeable but lacklustre Kim Beazley. It was our assessment back then that the only probable change of government during the 2004-2007 parliamentary term would be from a Howard Government to a Costello Government.

Continue reading "Why step down for someone who could never step up?" »

The Punch will be live blogging the former Prime Minister John Howard’s appearance on the Q&A program this evening. You can join in from 9:30 PM AEDT.

Continue reading "How honest is John’s version of history?" »

Labor hard man Graham Richardson noted yesterday that courage was a defining quality in a leader. He was speaking about Peter Costello’s unwillingness to do the hard graft of gathering the numbers for a challenge which of course, never came. That tawdry clash of egos which bedevilled the last Coalition governemnt will re-surface this week when John Howard’s memoirs, ``Lasarus Rising’’ hits the bookshelves.

Courage remains important in the contemporary political context too because it is not just seizing power that takes guts, exercising it fully also requires steely determination in the face of resistance.

Even Julia Gillard’s political enemies concede she has passed the first of these tests. Blasting Kevin Rudd from the leadership took a lot of sand.

Continue reading "Sometimes only a hard decision will do" »

“The voters always get it right” was a regular refrain of former prime minister John Howard. He used it to bat away suggestions that election results could somehow be accidental, such as federal Labor’s victory in the 1993 Fightback! election, his own re-election with less than half the popular vote in 1998 when promising to introduce a GST, or the unexpected defeat of the Kennett Government in Victoria in 1999.

One of Howard’s strengths as a politician was his innate respect for the collective wisdom of the voters. It’s the primary reason he didn’t get bent out of shape by defeat in 2007, both at a general election and in his own seat, and helps explain why he’s provided none of the embittered theatrics and revisionist commentary of other past PMs.

Australian voters are not only smart, they’re often smarter than people such as us who write about politics. Writing about politics, especially amid the stage-management of an election campaign, is a bit like pressing your face up against a tapestry. You can become so immersed in the minutiae that you lose a sense of context and fail to appreciate the broader issues which are exercising the public mind.

Continue reading "Voters have a keener, more critical eye than us journos" »

Goldfish have a neat survival mechanism to prevent them ever getting bored – by the time they have swum around the bowl they have forgotten the previous lap. It makes them a lot like voters at election time.

This is why we are grateful when our failed candidates enter the fray to remind us of why we voted against them. And while Mark Latham has rightly been drawing attention, like onlookers to a car crash, another leader took centre stage over the weekend to take us back to meaner and trickier times.

As he moved in to give Tony Abbott a man-hug at the Liberal launch, John Howard reminded us of many of Australia’s most forgettable moments. Given that Abbott is running on a “re-elect the Howard Government” ticket it is worth dwelling on our former Prime Minister’s Ten Most Notable Contributions to the Nation.

Continue reading "Remembering ‘Abbott’s dad’: top 10 Howard era memories" »

In less than two weeks time, while the majority of Australians flock to the polls and cast their ballots, young people across the country will sit in silence, stripped of their democratic rights by our cumbersome and anachronistic electoral system.

Last Friday, the High Court overturned the Howard government’s 2006 changes to the Electoral Act. The amendments had resulted in the electoral roll being closed a matter of hours after the writs were issued.

In an action brought by political advocacy group GetUp!, the court held these changes to be unconstitutional, thereby restoring the original seven day grace period in which individuals may place themselves on the roll.

As a consequence, an estimated 100,000 additional Australians, predominately youth, are now able to take part in this year’s election.

Continue reading "Young voters silenced as they fall through electoral cracks" »

It normally takes about two hours to get a sense of which way an electorate is going to vote. In Bennelong, the site of John Howard’s humiliation in 2007 where he became only the second prime minister to lose both his seat and the election, the longer you spend talking to voters, the more confused you become.

On paper, Bennelong should be an electorate which represented the peak of Labor’s 2007 landslide, which with a 1.4 per cent margin should revert to the Liberals in 2010.

That is not the case. The giant-killing former ABC journalist and 7.30 Report host Maxine McKew might have won by just 2400 votes, but there are signs this middle-class seat in Sydney’s inner north-west might be easier for Labor to defend than some blue-collar electorates.

Continue reading "Ghosts of Howard walking the streets of Bennelong" »

In some minds the absurd black-balling of John Howard as ICC vice-president was decided by his tragic spell of bowling on a dusty plateau deep in the Pakistan mountains in 2005.

More likely it was a product of the former Prime Minister’s 2003 opposition, entirely principled and warranted, to World Cup games being played in anti-democratic Zimbabwe.

But Howard has gained the reputation of a klutz with the ball and the International Cricket Council could not have a leader who didn’t have a talented arm. Howard, one commentator has said, is a pie chucker.

Continue reading "The true story of why John Howard is a pie-chucker" »

It must have been an odd week for John Howard.

Seven days ago the man who threw him out of office after eleven years was tossed by his own party before he could even serve out one term. Whatever Howard says, it must have been rewarding on some level.

A few days later Howard has suffered his own political humiliation after the ICC rejected his bid to become the organisation next vice-president.

Continue reading "Howard got done again, but this time it’s not cricket" »

At the press conference announcing his hard-line policy on asylum seekers Tony Abbott declared himself ‘a big risk to people smugglers’. While he claimed that ‘if I get elected, people smugglers will go out of business’, Abbott stressed that ‘my argument is not with desperate people who want a better life’.

If only it were that simple. The reality is that the Opposition’s policy constitutes a grave risk to traumatized people who will, if the policy is implemented, be traumatized further.

Temporary protection visas will be reintroduced for irregular maritime arrivals who are found to engage Australia’s protection obligations, as well as for others.

Continue reading "Abbott’s asylum seeker policy is out of its mind" »

The only use of the word ‘debt’ that’s justified in the same sentence as John Howard and Peter Costello is ‘debt of gratitude’.

If we are hearing a lot about the need to return Government to surplus, and hearing the PM use the word ‘conservative’ as much as he can, it is because Howard and Costello set the governance benchmark and changed our political culture in their term in office.

The Westpac Chief Economist, Bill Evans, put up a telling set of graphs at the bank’s budget night dinner showing the debt situation of Australia compared to the US and European countries.

Continue reading "The only debt these two are owed is gratitude" »

It is all a bit hazy now. But this time three years ago there was a real buzz around Kevin Rudd, a sense of excitement on the part of many voters that the Howard era was coming to an end, making way for a fresh, modern, forward-thinking leader who better suited the times.

Someone who recognised and would act on the challenge of climate change, who understood the importance of broadband, wanted a more humane approach to border protection, believed working families deserved a better deal on issues such as childcare. Someone who was also a self-described fiscal conservative who understood the importance of maintaining a surplus and not driving the nation into debt.

Superficially at least, Rudd’s 2007 campaign had a similar vibe to the victories of Bill Clinton and Tony Blair in the United States and the UK – Clinton after 12 years of Republican rule, Blair after 18 years of Tory domination, both of them young men, Clinton, saxophone in hand, jiving on stage to Fleetwood Mac’s “Don’t Stop”, Blair in shirt sleeves, smiling broadly and looking upwards as if to a better future to the sounds of “Things Can Only Get Better”.

Continue reading "How Rudd took out an AVO against Kevin07" »

It must be Christmas for politics right now because the ghosts of prime ministers past are out in force. 

Yesterday, Bob Hawke and John Howard tussled over the future of the global economy, China and federalism at the Oxford Business Alumni Forum in their first ever head-to-head debate.

Away from the lectern, last week Hawke backed Anna Bligh over daylight saving in southeastern Queensland and called on Australia to rethink its position on nuclear waste.

Continue reading "Ghosts of PMs past are welcome to the debate" »

Remember not so long ago when an aspiring prime minister, one K Rudd, adopted the practice of referring to John Howard PM, as ``a clever politician’‘?

He uttered the phrase at every opportunity. It was no throw-away line. At face value, it seemed positive but closer scrutiny revealed a focus-group crafted pseudo-compliment designed to have the opposite effect. Namely, to reinforce a perception bubbling away just under the surface of voter consciousness, that John Howard was somehow tricky. Sure, he’d been ironically dubbed ``honest John’’ before.

And equally true, Labor had seized on the embarrassing warning from then Liberal Party president, Shane Stone, that voters saw the Howard government as ``mean and tricky’‘. But these were old insults and had lost any real impact.

Continue reading "Rudd becomes the “clever politician” he once mocked" »

As a political reporter I haven’t paid too much attention to the Hey Dad sex allegations story but it has been difficult to miss, as it’s dominated much of the news media for the past week.

Which is why I was surprised Prime Minister Rudd didn’t know about the story when asked if he had heard of it by Neil Mitchell this morning, ‘ah no, sorry I haven’t seen those reports,’ he replied.
This morning, as Kevin Rudd was in the Sunrise studio waiting to go on-air, the 7 o’clock news was broadcast; it’s lead story? The Hey Dad claims. It is possible he was mentally preparing for his upcoming interview and didn’t see or hear the story.

But the Prime Minister’s been aware of much lesser ‘tabloid’ stories before.

Continue reading "Should the PM be across the big non-political stories?" »

You learn a lot about people when the pressure is on.

Some interesting facts emerged recently about what really happened during those extraordinary four weeks last year when the Oceanic Viking abandoned our Patagonian tooth fish to become home to 78 Tamil asylum seekers.

During these events the debate raged about who knew what and when. Where would they go and on what terms? The answers to many of these questions came to light during recent questioning in Senate estimates.

Continue reading "Rudd fails the Tampa test" »

The Kiwis are sputting chups this morning about John Howard being put forward for the spot of Deputy President of the International Cricket Council, with the likelihood he’ll take over the top job in 2012.

The New Zealand Herald this morning lamented: “Cricket: ‘Fan’ with no cricket experience gets top job.” The paper wondered what “Australian heavying” went on behind closed doors to secure Howard over NZC Chairman Sir John Anderson.

On AM this morning the former Prime Minister, now 70, mounted an understated defense of his credentials for the role.

“I don’t know that I have a lack of background in the game,” he said. “I don’t come to the game as having been a champion player or a previous administrator, but there aren’t too many champion players and I think most people know what I’ve been doing with my spare time up until now.”

Continue reading "Is this man qualified to run world cricket?" »

Can’t bowl, can barely bat - but could he run world cricket? Former Prime Minister John Howard may be feeling a twinge of nostalgia for his time in office today after waking to a spectacular bucketing in the morning papers.

Cricket writer Peter Roebuck said nominating Howard for president of the International Cricket Council was “as pitiful as it is disrespectful”, the logic being that the ex-PM is really just an enthusiastic follower of cricket than a leader who can think creatively about the future of the game. “Plain and simple,” writes Roebuck, “he is not qualified for the job.”

Isn’t he? Given the laundry list of problems with internal bickering in cricket’s international governing body, maybe a pragmatic politician like Howard is just what the ICC needs.

Continue reading "Can this man save cricket?" »

John Howard’s dramatic re-entry in the political debate is notable for two reasons - the former PM has steadfastly refused requests for anniversary-type interviews, and he has also said repeatedly he would not “do a Keating” by commenting on domestic affairs, save to defend his record.

His interview with The Herald-Sun’s senior writer John Hamilton went well beyond defending his own record - rather, it was an exocet missile aimed squarely at Kevin Rudd’s record, most provocatively on border protection. The word in Liberal ranks is that the interview went ahead with the knowledge and support of Malcolm Turnbull, who has been buoyed by a Newspoll turnaround widely attributed to the border question. EMC director and Punch contributor Peter Lewis detected the same sentiment.

Lefties will regard the re-emergence of the man they despise as like something from a horror film. But the many millions of Australians who still voted for Howard in 2007 - and more disturbingly for Labor, some swinging voters who gently saw him off with no major sense of animosity - will have been interested to hear the input from the man from the toughness side of the ledger on unauthorised arrivals.

Continue reading "Heeeeeeeeere’s Johnny" »

UPDATE: As of 5pm all four banks have already passed on the interest rate increase.

For the second time in as many years, the Reserve Bank has helped cement the banking community’s reputation as a cuddly bunch of warm-hearted funsters by using Melbourne Cup Day to stick it to home-owners.

.

While you were munching on some prawns the RBA increased rates from 3.25 per cent to 3.5 per cent, resisting the temptation to go for a much more dramatic and painful 0.5 per cent rise, but still sticking by its warning that there would be more more pain to come.

Many people with mortgages will shrug this one off – we’re still about $700 a month better off in terms of repayments than we were when the GFC hit.

Continue reading "Kevin Rudd does not want to own these rate increases" »

Of the 9.1 million people who the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) describes as refugees, there are 827, 323 with outstanding applications for asylum around the world. This compares to 9.6 million refugees five years ago and 912,291 people still seeking asylum. Five years prior to that, there were 11.5 million refugees worldwide and 1.3 million seeking asylum.

Looking at even more recent data, between January and August 2009, there were 226,069 asylum applications worldwide. During the same period in 2008 there were 226,857 applications.

So much for the Rudd Government’s claim that international push forces are the cause of 41 boat arrivals since last August with almost 2,000 people on board, putting their lives at risk.

Continue reading "Kevin Rudd has no idea what he’s doing on boat arrivals" »

How about this? It’s from 1995:

A lesser-known Guns ‘N’ Roses song called 14 Years is a particularly apt theme for Costello’s day. Below is some video to listen to while browsing the post:

Lyrics excerpt:

I try and feel the sunshine
You bring the rain
You try and hold me down
With your complaints…

... You know, I’ve been the beggar…
I’ve played the thief
I was the dog…they all tried to beat

But it’s been 14 years of silence
It’s been 14 years of pain
It’s been 14 years that are gone forever
And I’ll never have again.

After Peter Costello resigned it’s worth re-living some of his highs and lows as featured on the front pages of newspapers. You can share your favourite memories of him here - and we’ll take requests on this post for any particular front pages you want reprinted.

This, from July 2006, also deserves a special place in the sun. The rest are below the fold.

Continue reading "It’s been 14 years of silence, 14 years of pain for Pete" »

He’s one of our most misunderstood and maligned public figures - and today, Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty has confirmed he will be quitting the job on September 2, thirty-five years to the day he joined the force.

Keelty was reviled by the Left for his pursuit of exonerated terror suspect Dr Mohammed Haneef, and vilified by the Right for daring to suggest that the 2005 Madrid bombings were the direct result of the then conservative Spanish Government’s commitment to the war in Iraq.

The Madrid episode was a low point for the Howard Government - and was only defused when John Howard, who’s never been great at saying the s-word, invited Keelty to a secret dinner at Kirribilli House where he apologised to his face.

Continue reading "The day John Howard said sorry to Mick Keelty" »