Politics

The fate of the Labor Government rests in significant part on the performance of one woman, and yesterday she held a press conference in Canberra with Prime Minister Julia Gillard.

She is Family and Community Services Minister Jenny Macklin, the left-winger who has developed a close working relationship with the right-wing Treasurer Wayne Swan.

One senior public servant has likened their unity ticket to the productive collaboration between former Deputy Prime Minister Brian Howe (Ms Macklin’s previous boss) and then-Treasurer Paul Keating – a meeting of left social concerns and economic conservatism.

Continue reading "The woman with her head down trying to save Labor" »

When North Queensland Liberal MP George Christensen got the idea of launching a new political organisation to counter what he calls “the radical Green movement”, he immediately reached out to Gina Rinehart.

Christensen sent her an email setting out his proposals to attack environmental groups (including UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation ) that he claims want to hold up mining projects in the region.

The email exchange has now leaked.

Continue reading "Mining money talks the loudest in Australian politics" »

Under pressure himself over his crusade against Craig Thomson, Tony Abbott has moved to present a softer side, suggesting that the ex-communicated Labor MP should quit politics for, ... wait for it, his own good.

“The best thing for everyone, to take the pressure off him, to take the pressure off his family, would be for him to leave the parliament,’’ the Opposition Leader told the Nine network during his regular Friday morning spray.

Mr Abbott acknowledged that the NSW crossbencher was under “enormous’’ pressure but offered no apology for his constant references to Labor’s “tainted’’ vote, his attacks on Fair Work Australia, (since redefined as the author of a rigorous piece of independent investigation) and his ceaseless prosecution of both the Government and Thomson.

For Julia Gillard subject to renewed leadership discussions by powerful forces inside her own party, this is a full-blown existential crisis.

Continue reading "This concern for Thomson won’t change the script" »

Craig Thomson’s wife Zoe must really love him. His political career is over. His reputation is shredded. He has become the butt of a national poor taste joke. And yet he continues to put up a front - blaming everyone, EVERYONE, but himself for the situation in which he’s landed.

He can only be doing it for his wife. When you love someone you want to believe them, but you can only believe them if they give you something to hold on to. And so Thomson is giving the mother of his children his ever expanding denials to cling to.

He’s being aided in this bizarre soap opera by the Labor Party, which is simultaneously defending him and barring him from the Caucus. The moral relativism being practiced in Canberra at the moment is almost comical, and Thomson is in the strangest state of career limbo you can imagine.

Continue reading "There’s no one Thomson won’t burn to save his skin" »

Gillard: Barack, you are not going to believe what’s going on down under in the 51st state. See, we’ve got this little sleazebag called Craig Thomson…
Obama: Tell me more…

Gillard: OK, so he’s been in a bit of hot water lately over his credit card and a bunch of hookers and the rest of it.
Obama: Sure, I’ve heard of him. And from what I understand, your party actually nominated the guy for election after these allegations came out, right?

Continue reading "Washington reacts to news of the Thomson saga" »

Australia is very generous to its prime ministers. They get a car and driver, domestic air travel, and an office with administration costs covered.

They have a huge responsibility for the country’s economy and its security. The country’s biggest headaches find themselves on their desks eventually. And their considerable perks after they’ve served the country cost our more-than-a-trillion dollar economy around a million dollars in 2010-11.

But do premiers who have served their states for more than a few years deserve their perks? Each state is different. Queensland’s new Premier refused Anna Bligh a couple of months of having funding for her office Blackberry and iPad after she being kicked out of office. The South Australian cabinet voted to give former premier Mike Rann a car, driver, office and security detail for six months last year and stirred outrage.

Continue reading "Sorry ex-premier, I’m not paying for your lunch" »

Recently I visited Andorra, Albania and San Marino. The trip elicited sideways glances from odd spot type gossip columnists who, with an almost salacious air, suggested that it may have had something to do with Australia’s UN Security Council campaign.

I confess: guilty as charged.

Australia is running for the UN Security Council. It is a tight race. We are trying to win. We are campaigning hard. Each of these countries has a vote. We are seeking their support.

Continue reading "We’re serious about our tilt at a UN Security Council seat" »

Like a good movie director, Craig Thomson knew the scene which would get the most viewers should be kept until towards the end, and that is when he finally addressed the allegations he on seven occasions hired prostitutes.

But he also knew that this was the allegation for which he had to have the strongest defence, the most convincing line of rebuttal. And he just didn’t.

As Mr Thomson said today after around 35 minutes of speaking: “One of the things I have difficulty in making an explanation about - and I’m certainly not going to use parliamentary privilege to lie or change that - is in relation to phones and how records were on my phones. I don’t have an explanation.”

Continue reading "Thomson didn’t answer the question everyone is asking" »

At midday all eyes will turn to the House of Representatives, as the Member for Dobell Craig Thomson gives a 30-minute speech addressing the amazing credit card/prostitutes/union funds scandal that has engulfed him and the Gillard Government.

Punchers David Penberthy and the Torii (Maguire and Shepherd) will be watching. Join them in the Cover-it-Live module below as they hope for anything but an anti-climax.

Craig Thomson’s address to Parliament at noon today will be unprecedented, but don’t expect much that is new to come from it.

The basics, and great slabs of the detail, of the allegations against the former Labor MP and Health Services Union secretary have been public currency since 2009.

Mr Thomson’s version of events has also been widely known, at least in outline. We could get critical detail.

Continue reading "A big day for Thomson, who thus far is guilty of nothing…" »

Craig Thomson and Peter Slipper have allegedly made a fair few errors in their life. But perhaps their most costly mistake was choosing the wrong profession.

Politics is an unforgiving game. Your each and every move is scrutinised by the public, making it imperative for those in power to behave appropriately at all times. A single slip-up, with or without context, can erupt into a full-scale Parliamentary inquiry.

Years ago I allegedly spotted the alleged Federal Treasurer Peter Costello allegedly jay-walking across an alleged road. At the time I considered sending off my candid photograph to the papers, just for a laugh. But I stopped myself in my tracks; could a photo as harmless as that be dangerous to the politician’s long-term reputation?

Continue reading "Even slippery politicians deserve a sporting chance" »

Breakfast television viewers must have fallen out of their chairs in shock at Joe Hockey’s words last Sunday.

“It is a very honourable profession, politics,” the shadow Treasurer said.

It was the day after Craig Thomson’s extraordinary “I was framed over hookers” interview, with its claims of the most elaborate identity theft plot in the annals of Australian crime.

Continue reading "Spoof sagas consume an “honourable” profession" »

As we have seen this week from the political and public reaction to the latest scientific report from the Climate Commission, science is not always popular.

And if you’ve come to this article hoping to see yet more thrashing of experts, you might as well stop reading now. It’s human nature to question information that’s painful, but let’s not shoot the messenger.

My role on the Climate Commission has come to an end after just over a year, so it’s a good time to reflect on my experiences working in one of the most difficult and controversial areas in the current political and economic landscape.

Continue reading "My year with the Climate Commission" »

Reports of Ron Paul’s political demise have been greatly exaggerated and his tactical genius is becoming apparent as he gives Mitt Romney, the Republican Party’s presumptive presidential candidate, a serious fright.

The curious Dr Paul, the only remaining challenger to Romney after Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich pulled out of the race, has been widely written off as a nuisance candidate after failing to win a single state in the caucus and primary race.

That has changed. The elderly Texas congressman has won the majority of delegates in Romney’s home state of Massachusetts, as well Maine and Nevada, even though Mitt Romney had supposedly “won” these states months earlier.

Continue reading "Reports of Ron Paul’s death are greatly exaggerated" »

Ten million children vaccinated. 2.5 million people with access to safe drinking water. And 30 million people supported through humanitarian crises like famine and war. These are some outcomes to be delivered this year, by Australia’s Budget for overseas aid.

This year, Australia’s aid budget will rise – by $300 million, to a record $5.2 billion. And it will go on rising - reaching $7.7 billion in three year’s time.

In dollar terms our aid budget is the largest in our history. As a percentage of Gross National Income, it’s at 0.35%, rising to 0.5% by 2016/17. That’s just one year later than planned – a pretty good outcome in a tough budget year.

Continue reading "Our Budget blade didn’t cut aid, it’s being paid in spades" »

It’s usually best to avoid putting too many statistics in a post but reading the ACTU’s report on insecure work the statistics speak volumes so bear with me if you’re interested.

Almost a quarter of Australian workers, or 2.2 million people, are in casual employment. Women (25.5%) are much more likely to be in casual work than men (19.7%).

According to the report: “Over half of all casual employees are ‘permenant casuals’ in that they have long-term, ongoing and regular employment but, by virtue of being a casual, have non of the basic entitlements associated with ongoing employment.”

Continue reading "An insecure workforce makes for an insecure society" »

Did you know that ostriches do not actually bury their heads in the sand? They do scratch around a bit in the dirt and bury their eggs, but they don’t actually believe that if they can’t see trouble, trouble can’t see them.

The Government, on the other hand – perhaps with some help from new spin-doctor-in-chief John McTernan – somehow thinks if they don’t name their Achilles heels, those weaknesses will magically disappear.

In the new era of Things Which Shall Not Be Named they scrubbed any mention of the carbon tax, or a carbon price, from their advertisements for the compensation that starts to flow through today.

Continue reading "Labor’s new strategy of Speaking No Evil" »

He turned up on the stage of the Sydney Convention Centre yesterday looking like he was outfitted by a tailor legally barred from using the endorsement “bespoke”, and with a hairdo a trainee mate might have tended to.

He had started on the shop floor unencumbered by a university degree, and yet there he was prepared to give advice to political queens and business emperors.

He was available to help shape a $1.5 trillion economy when at his peak earning years he might have taken in just a bit over $90,000 annually.

Continue reading "Meet the anti-Craig Thomson" »

Strap yourself in, and stock up on supplies, because if you thought politics had become a bit exhausting the Prime Minister gave us a not so subtle reminder yesterday that, barring something unforseen, we’ve still got a long way to go until the next election.

Ironically, Julia Gillard delivered this wake-up call with a speech that sounded suspiciously like a campaign launch. It’s no secret the real campaigns now begin well out from when the starter’s gun is fired five or six weeks before an election.

But Gillard’s point was clear when she addressed the ACTU Congress in Sydney yesterday. She’s remembered she’s a Labor Prime Minister and she’d like even a half-decent shot at the next election.

Continue reading "One down, 499 days to go" »

Let’s be clear about this. Let’s be absolutely, crystal clear. The reality is that politicians use clichés. Don’t let the other side try every trick in the book to cloud the issue.

And can I say this: as with many decent, hard-working Australians, I find it understandable when politicians fall into using the same-old, same-old patterns of words, time and time again. Only politicians use short sentences. And they pause for effect. And they use rhetorical devices.

With all due respect, some politicians will categorically deny these allegations. Some will say this is a fishing expedition. Some will question the timing of these accusations. And of course, some will decline to comment, saying that it’s a private matter. 

Continue reading "We’re not out of the woods when it comes to pols’ cliches" »

The packet calls them the most “irresistible chocolate biscuit”. But when The Punch’s neighbours at news.com.au found themselves in possession of an obscene amount of a certain Arnotts’ biscuit yesterday, the team was unable to resist using them exclusively for the purposes of clear-eyed political analysis.

If only the carbon tax really was a rectangular chocolate biscuit lightly coated with chocolate, encased in chocolate. Mmmmmmmmm-mmmm.

Yeah, this took several attempts to pull off.

Vid courtesy of Helen Parker. It’s Wednesday. What’s happening in your world?

It was organised as a celebration of Australian car makers but the 250 people in the Great Hall of Parliament House found themselves witnessing a reunion of Veterans of Labor Leadership Wars.

A big chunk of the event became what one attendee called “a festival of Kevin”. Kevin Rudd that is, of course.

What was designed as a rousing salute to the automotive industry had to share the focus with anti-Gillard comrades-in-arms uniting on a stage, and in videos.

Continue reading "The festival of Kevin is not over yet" »

When Wayne Swan is at his desk he likes to work to music. He told journalists during the week that his Budget song this year had been Bruce Springsteen’s “Land of Hope and Dreams”.

Perhaps it was two lines in the opening verse that struck a chord with the Treasurer:

You don’t know where you’re goin’
But you know you won’t be back

Continue reading "Saints and sinners, whores and lost souls" »

Wayne Swan’s 2012-13 blueprint was well crafted and immediately drew errors from the Opposition.

Tony Abbott’s one-speed approach to political combat apparently blinded him to the knuckle-headedness of standing between voters and a wedge of cash.

By invoking the arbitrary principle that cash hand-outs are bad policy, Mr Abbott again showed how bluntly oppositional he is prepared to be. But it was dumb politics.

Continue reading "They just are… dumb politics" »

US President Barack Obama has come out in support of gay marriage in a TV interview. The news followed growing accusations that he believed in same-sex marriage but wasn’t expressing that for political reasons. It is, after all, an election year, and the President has been under pressure to toe the line with conservative electorates that could get him over the line in November.

It’s a ballsy move from the President. Who knows how Obama’s decision will play with US voters, who latest opinion polls show are marginally in favour of same-sex marriage (at best).

But whatever your view on the issue, at least Obama is standing behind his convictions, however long it took for him to get to the point of expressing them. Up until this point, the President was increasingly being accused of, well, “Gillard-ing” the issue. That is, many people believed he supported same-sex marriage and many people also believed he and his political team just thought the political waters were too fraught for him to say it.

Continue reading "It takes a brave leader to Barack for gay marriage" »

Do you remember what Wayne Swan said in his 2007-08 Budget speech?

I bet you do. And in intricate detail.

It went something like this: “Working families, working families, working-families—working-families—working-families—working-families! Working-families, working-families-working-families—working-families—working-families—working-families, Mr Speaker.”

Continue reading "Uh-oh, time for another round of “working families”" »

Parliament is growing weary of Craig Thomson riding the “presumption of innocence’’ principle for all he is worth. In fact, Parliament is tired of Craig Thomson.

The allegations against him point to behavior so objectionable that if true would be more than enough to end Mr Thomson’s public life. But it’s not just the allegations.

The Health Services Union saga has been so drawn out - over close to five years - that even the most staunch defender of the right to proper process is wondering when that entitlement becomes a means to dodge accountability.

Continue reading "Even the pollies are sick of the Craig Thomson saga" »

Trapped in a political death roll, Treasurer Wayne Swan prepared a Budget speech that would see him go down in history as the most desperately honest politician the world has ever seen. Then, in the wee small hours, a spin doctor talked him down from the ledge. Here’s how it went down.

Wayne Swan (hand on heart): Madam Deputy Speaker, this Government will be a Robin Hood taking from fat cats like Clive Palmer and giving to working families. We have an ever so slightly personal dislike for these magnates messing around in politics, and think we look pretty tough giving them these little smackdowns.

Labor also feels that the next Government will reap all the benefits of the mining boom so we must redistribute that money before we lose power, and be remembered for slipping the dosh straight into the pockets of Australians whom we will refer to repeatedly as working families. 

Continue reading "How Swan almost took a dive on the Budget Speech" »

Very, according to Julia Gillard. The PM has been at pains this morning to convince everyone the $1.5 billion buffer will not be blown out of the water at the first sign of trouble.

It’s a hard sell. This time last year Wayne Swan predicted the 2011-12 deficit would be $22.6 billion. In November’s MYEFO it was revised to $37.1 billion, and last night it was confirmed to be $44 billion.

According to Swan, the GFC wiped $150 billion off Australia’s tax take in the five years to 2012-13. A short time ago on Sky News Gillard pointed to this drop in revenue as proof of how hard she and Swan would fight to maintain the promised surplus.

Continue reading "How safe is the surplus?" »

How long would the Government have lingered over this question: Do we try and probably fail to give companies $4.7 billion or do we back the sure thing of offering the cash to grateful families?

In a Budget devoted to suburban street politics more than high road economic management, the answer would be: Not much.

Given that a large chunk of that money, around $1.5 billion in 2012-13 and 2013-14, would be handed out as voters approached an election, it’s no surprise that the families won.

Continue reading "This Federal Budget is all about the next election" »

If tonight’s Budget was all about the “Schoolkids”, they’d better enjoy their time in the playground while it lasts. Once they start working, there’ll be no gold watch at 65.

Faced with an ageing population, which will eventually struggle to support its top-heavy retirement class, this Budget set about encouraging even the quite elderly to stay in the workforce for as long as possible.

Up to now the greying of Australia has been presented as a looming crisis.

Continue reading "Generation Silver Service: work ‘til you drop" »

Right now the nation’s brightest political minds are trapped in the recycled air of Budget lock up, sniffing out black holes and poring over numbers. Shuffling papers and press releases and pinning down wonks.

Berlusconi vs. Thomson
by: toryshepherd76

As they drift past the tables of quartered chicken sandwiches and party pies to congregate at the figurative water cooler, do you think they’re avidly discussing the ramifications of the wafer-thin surplus? Do you think the drip filter coffee-fed excitement is centred around cuts to foreign aid?

There’s a fair to middling chance that it’s not. While there is a rumour doing the rounds that there will indeed be something big in today’s Budget papers that wasn’t already detailed, the chances are that people are still chinwagging about the Craig Thomson affair.

Continue reading "Who cares about the Budget? We’ve got Craig Thomson!" »

Australian wage earners fear an economic winter during the northern hemisphere summer and are saving to protect themselves from what they believe could be another big global crunch.

Yesterday the financial markets were jolted by the elevation of anti-austerity parties in France and Greece in weekend elections and immediately took cover.

It was a rare moment of rational, ordinary Australians and occasionally irrational markets being in accord: You have got to defend yourself against countries not capable of looking after themselves.

Continue reading "Tonight is about the surplus, not leadership speculation" »

If there’s one thing you can count on in Canberra these days, it’s that nothing is guaranteed. As the government dances along the knife edge of minority support, the balance of power seems to be shifting on a daily basis.

Such is the case with Andrew Wilkie. Only a few months ago it appeared that his influence with Labor had been dealt a serious, almost terminal blow, with the role of Speaker moving from Harry Jenkins to Peter Slipper. Indeed, it was only a short time later that Julia Gillard reneged on her agreement with Wilkie, which in turn led to him withdrawing his support for her government.

Yet here we are just a short time later, with Slipper on the cross-benches and embattled Labor MP Craig Thomson joining him. Anna Burke has stepped into the Speaker’s role temporarily, reducing her influence to that of a casting vote. And amidst all the turmoil, while allegations and sordid details are replayed endlessly in the media, Wilkie has found himself once more in a position of power.

Continue reading "Gillard’s time to go double or nothing on pokies" »

There are just 1.83 million members of trade unions in Australia, roughly 18.4 per cent of the national workforce. Take out the heavily unionized public services and the proportion is 13.2 per cent. That means about 1.3 million out of 10 million workers in all areas are employed in private companies and are in trade unions.

It’s these 1.3 million workers - a scrap of the dwindling union membership - that the Opposition will be targeting today with claims that the entire union movement is led by self-indulgent shonks who have been wasting their money and their trust.

There will be indications of this having happened in one trade union, but all will be painted by the Health Services Union brush. The Fair Work Australia report on the Health Services Union has been bouncing around the bureaucracy unloved and unwanted but today will be released to those most eager to embrace its 1100 pages of findings.

Continue reading "Union movement trying to fight off HSU disease" »

The origin of the excellent Australian term “bogan” has been the subject of intense debate but its definition has always been clear – a blue collar person, usually from an outer suburb, who earns little money and has a limited education. The more conceited uni-educated types have laughed smugly at the bogan, tut-tutting at his love of the parmigiana, Cold Chisel, bourbon in a can and trackie-dacks, things which for many of us are the makings of a pretty good night.

The bogan has also been derided by the trendies as an ugly blight on the social landscape, someone who refuses to tread lightly on mother earth, spending the baby bonus on a second-hand speedboat, an Acca Dacca box-set or the biggest plasma screen they can find, generating a distressingly large carbon footprint in their McMansion with their 12-speaker home cinema, eight-burner barbie and three cars in the driveway.

It’s time to stop sneering, hipsters. Something remarkable has happened in Australia. The bogans have won. They are officially and seriously cashed-up. There is now a stronger link between having a university education and earning lower wages, than being skilled in a high-demand trade and handsomely rewarded in the blue-collar sector.

Continue reading "Cashed-up bogans will have the lethal last laugh on Labor" »

The biggest reader reaction I have ever had to a column involved a fight with the power company AGL, which had hit me with a baffling bill which had jumped by $700 in just one quarter.

The column examined the question of actual meter readings versus estimated readings, and the issuing of so-called “catch-up” bills by power companies which for whatever reason had undercooked an earlier bill, leaving them with no choice but to whack the consumer with a kind of one-off bill which would force you to sell one of your kidneys.

In researching the piece I was snowed with some largely (and possibly deliberately) confusing explanations from power providers as to how the meters were read by a different company which was at arms length from their business. Both the power providers and the meter readers seemed more than happy to blame each other for all the confusion, and the subsequent one-off impost.

Continue reading "The shocking truth about the Greens and power" »

Labor’s recovery plan is simple and unexciting: delivering an unlikely Budget surplus.

Yet with a primary vote languishing in the mid-to-high 20 per cent range, this rather abstract financial goal is now the whole game - the political rock around which all else will be anchored.

The strategy assumes two inter-related things: first that Ms Gillard can hang on to the leadership and second, that an election is still 16 to 18 months away.

Continue reading "Surplus circus serves a purpose, on the surface." »

Welcome to this week’s I Call Bullshit, a regular column where we take a look at codswallop and propaganda, logical failures and brain farts. The big news today is the Government’s plan to pay families to look after asylum seekers.

Last year, to ease pressure on detention centres, the Government started releasing more people into the community on bridging visas – but there’s still not enough room.

So now they’re going to use the Australian Homestay Network - a network of households who have already signed up to look after international students. The Government will cover the costs of room and board – about $140 per asylum seeker per week.

Continue reading "ICB: House the homeless before asylum seekers?" »

My son will be 15 months old next week. Fifteen months on and I’m still waiting for the stunning insight to hit. I’m supposed to have a greater understanding of the world now aren’t I?

My empathy is supposed to be of a superior quality to the childless. I’m supposed to be more attuned to the pressures of modern-day living. I’m supposed to be able to look at the child-free with a sense of smug condescension, pitying them for their lack of emotional and practical experience.

Except that it’s all bullshit isn’t it. There are many, many things wrong with Julia Gillard’s Prime Ministership, but the fact she doesn’t have children isn’t one of them.

Continue reading "Being a parent does not make you a superior leader" »

There is only one minister with the trust and clout to tap Julia Gillard on the shoulder and with regret advise that it’s time to move on. That minister is Wayne Swan.

This is the critical “pull out digger, the dogs are pissing on your swag” moment, recalling Gareth Evans’ imperishable words to Bob Hawke.

And Swan is in no mindset to deliver them, certainly not before the implementation of the Budget he will produce next week, probably not before the next scheduled election.

Continue reading "Gillard unlikely to be forced into a Swan dive" »

Australia still has the haves and the have-nots, but more people now see themselves in the ‘have not’ camp. How else can you explain the hue and cry over cost-of-living pressures when Australia is, by all objective accounts, doing quite well? Are we becoming a nation of ‘must haves’?

Another report out today makes clear the blindingly obvious fact that prices will almost always go up, and it’s their relationship to incomes that matter – and on that front, the average Australian household has more disposable income than ever before.

The AMP.NATSEM Income and Wealth Report says the average Australian family is better of by $224 a week in real terms. You can read the full report here.

Continue reading "Good news, Australia! You’re actually doing just fine" »

People looking for reasons for the ongoing implosion of the federal government are, it is fair to say, spoiled for choice. There is a phalanx of reasons lined up ready to drag Labor into electoral and political oblivion.

These include the assassination of Kevin Rudd, the carbon tax, the mining tax, the pokies cap, the second Rudd showdown and subsequent recruitment of Bob Carr and the Craig Thomson and Peter Slipper scandals.

However at the core of them all is one common element. One fundamental characteristic of the current Labor leadership which will prevent it ever again winning government in this country until it is expunged.

Continue reading "A Hildebrand guide: how Labor destroyed itself" »

Some years ago the ABC ran an excellent program called Bush Mechanics documenting the amazing resourcefulness of indigenous car nuts in the most remote parts of Australia. These guys have no access to car parts but keep their bombs on the road by stuffing blown tyres full of tightly wound spinifex, using pieces of wood as chassis parts, old pipes as steering columns and so forth.

I was reminded of this program while watching Julia Gillard outline her thinking on the scandalised MPs Craig Thomson and Peter Slipper. Whatever reasons Ms Gillard offers for the line Thomson has apparently crossed which now requires his suspension from the ALP, and for Slipper standing aside as speaker amid criminal claims of rorting and civil claims of sexual harassment, the popular take on her predicament is that this the prime minister is desperately trying to keep a clapped-out bomb of a government on the road. Like the bush mechanics, Ms Gillard has been flailing about for months using almost anything to keep her hands on the steering wheel of government.

At almost every turn – most notably with the supposedly genius idea of luring the shonky Slipper away from the Coalition with the promise of the speakership – she has ended up crashed in a ditch, wheels spinning madly.

Continue reading "Will the creators of this government now destroy it" »

Australian politics at the moment is a strange sort of Wonderland. It’s filled with odd characters – some weird, some slightly sinister – and it’s all more than a little bit nonsensical. Some voters are stamping their feet in frustration at the stupidest tea party they’ve ever been to, while the more violently inclined are calling for decapitation.

In the most recent chapter, Greens Leader Bob Brown disappeared back up the rabbithole, sidelined Labor MP Craig Thomson’s alleged adventures have shrunk his stature significantly, while Liberal-turned-Independent Speaker Peter Slipper’s problems seem to be experiencing unstoppable growth.

Yesterday mining magnate Clive Palmer announced he wants to join the party. He wants to challenge Treasurer Wayne Swan in a battle that seems to have just a whiff of the personal about it – Swan and he have been engaged in a war of words over the mining tax and the role of billionaires in public life.

Continue reading "Australian politics gets curiouser and curiouser" »

It says a lot about the current climate that a mining magnate can simultaneously announce he’s commissioned a replica of the Titanic and that he’s going to run against the Treasurer at the next election and it seems like just another day in the circus that is Australian politics.

Clive Palmer’s press conference this morning might shift the focus from Julia Gillard’s diabolical situation for, oh, about seven minutes. But as much as the ALP might want to jump all over it like a life-raft, anyone who thinks mocking Clive Palmer is going to clear the “dark cloud” hanging over parliament is deluded.

While it might be great fun, it’s not going to work. But you can almost hear the list of talking points pinging around the ALP front-bench this morning, as the people running the Government’s dysfunctional communications cling to the idea that at least going after Clive is better than the “what she said” strategy.

Continue reading "Iceberg or life raft? Clive’s bid not enough to rescue PM" »

Over the weekend, Prime Minister Julia Gillard moved to disperse the “dark cloud” over Parliament by further distancing Labor from embattled pollies Craig Thomson and Peter Slipper. Here is political editor Mal Farr’s take - and find all the latest news at news.com.au.

The cost of holding onto a minority government is angering senior Labor figures frustrated by the non-stop arm wrestle since the inconclusive 2010 election.

“Maybe we should have told the Greens to get stuffed and gone on our own,” said one exasperated Labor voice last week.

So many votes have been lost keeping the Labor government afloat the negotiated survival has guaranteed it will be sunk. Labor has been compromising itself into defeat. The “get stuffed” approach still might be an option. Julia Gillard has 18 months to convince voters she stands for solid and distinct policies, not what she can wrangle through a Parliament riven by dozens of competing agendas.

Continue reading "Gillard may need to consider the “get stuffed” option" »

The concurrent parliamentary inquiries on gay marriage mark a new low point in what has been the constant manipulation of truth and democratic process by gay activists in the pursuit of same-sex marriage.

As the inquiries closed it was evident that they had been reduced to the status of cheap public polls instead of what they should be - our highest forums for review for public policy.

The manipulation of truth over this issue has had a long precedent and we should question why it is necessary. 

Continue reading "Gay marriage is threatening our freedom of faith" »

Julia Gillard has jettisoned one of the burdens she has been lugging around in the minority government cart - Craig Thomson. She will probably have to unload another, stood-aside Speaker Peter Slipper, if he doesn’t do it for her. Read all the latest at news.com.au.

Both have been tolerated by the Prime Minister because of her fears about the wretched numbers Labor has in the House of Representatives. But to make room for them on the cart she has had to dump what many voters would see as appropriate standards of regulation of behavior.

The Prime Minister appeared to be ready to tolerate anything to stay in power. And the claims against Mr Thomson and Mr Slipper - still untested and still denied - are of totally unacceptable practices.

Continue reading "Thomson slips away from Labor. What next?" »

Journalists who report on politics for a living see plenty of hypocrisy. We’re seeing plenty now from Julia Gillard.

She asserts that Peter Slipper should not be sidelined until sexual harassment allegations are dealt with by the courts because he’s entitled to the presumption of innocence. It’s the same excuse the prime minister uses when she refuses to intervene in the Craig Thomson affair and says the Labor backbencher accused of grossly rorting union credit cards still has her full confidence.

Yet when Wikileaks infuriated the US Government by publishing a stack of leaked diplomatic cables, Gillard immediately accused editor-in-chief Julian Assange of acting illegally. There was no presumption of innocence for him.

Continue reading "Gillard’s hypocrisy on the presumption of innocence" »

It was the line that brokered the ceasefire of the century: “Let’s declare peace in this phony war and go back to focus on the substance.”

With that simple sentence came a halt in the so-called “mummy wars” between working and non-working mothers - just as a fresh bucket of kero had been dumped on the embers this month by campaigning US politicians and their media-savvy wives.

This olive branch was delivered by Democratic consultant and working mother Hilary Rosen by way of apology to Ann Romney, Republican candidate Mitt Romney’s wife and a stay-at-home mother to five. Rosen had controversially accused Mrs Romney of “not having worked a day in her life”. Naturally, an online skirmish followed, with plenty of publicity smart-bombs.

Continue reading "The Mummy Wars are over. They never actually existed." »

Last Friday, Minister for Mental Health and the Ageing Mark Butler gave Canberra correspondents a pre-announcement briefing on his aged care reforms.

Silkily handling a complex brief, he fielded questions on the $3.7 billion package, the biggest shake-up of the area in decades.

Aged care of course is a political and demographic mine-field with its burgeoning demand, under-supply, competing interests, regulatory problems and much social and familial guilt thrown in.

Continue reading "No comfort for Gillard even if Slipper dons robes again" »

It was clear from the opening titles of last night’s ABC program I Can Change Your Mind that the two protagonists were going to do nothing of the sort.

Climate activist Anna Rose and climate skeptic Nick Minchin might have finished the program celebrating their common ground, but essentially they remain on either side of a deeply divided debate. Not only did they not change each others’ minds, it’s doubtful they would have changed anyone else’s minds either.

This is hardly surprising. As pointed out by one of the people the pair in the show consulted, Anthony Leiserowitz: “We all have this tendency to look for information that confirms what we already believe.”

Continue reading "Have you ever changed your mind on a significant issue?" »

It hasn’t been a very good week for the anti-gay marriage people in this country. The results from two independent parliamentary surveys came out on Monday, both giving marriage equality thumping majority support.

“We are comprehensively losing this,” the Australian Christian Lobby wrote in an email to its followers before the deadline, foreshadowing the inevitable. “But it is this weight of numbers that a complicit press will report, and we must win it and then pray the strength of argument in our considered ones prevails.”

I don’t think I’ve ever seen desperation quite like that before, and yet I’ve been to the only gay bar in Adelaide.

Continue reading "Australia edges closer to a gay old time at the altar" »

Every 20 seconds, a baby or toddler will die from a disease that can be prevented by a simple vaccine. Most of these deaths happen in developing countries because children go without the immunisations and lack access to other health services that parents in wealthy nations take for granted.

As usual, it is the poorest children in the poorest countries who are least likely to be immunised, and it is those same children who are at the greatest risk of being exposed to life-threatening, preventable diseases like tetanus, polio and measles.

This week, April 21-28, is World Immunisation Week, and around the world we acknowledge that all children have the right to life and health, no matter where they live.

Continue reading "We must immunise our aid budget from amputation" »

Peter Slipper attempted to enhance the reputation of Parliament by wearing the robes of an 18th century English parson and forming the world’s shortest formal procession to mark his entry to the House of Representatives.

It looked funny, but it was a genuine bid for a more dignified legislature. He backed up the pomp and frippery with measured and applauded management of the most boisterous chamber in the Westminster system. He was sincere in wanting to lift the image of the House, and the Parliament itself.

But it now can be argued that the current focus on Peter Slipper has endangered the very dignity of the national Parliament which he had wanted to reinforce, and through that the image of the entire nation.

Continue reading "Slip sliding away from the Speaker’s chair" »

Welcome to ICB, The Punch’s weekly column where we call bullshit on matters owed the honour of being metaphorically described as fecal matter.

This week we’re taking a look at gaffes - verbal slip-ups. I’m calling bullshit on the way other politicians blow the tiniest of their opponents’ public stuff-ups into a big deal.

Let’s start with Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, who “gaffed” on Tuesday. Talking to the media he said: “Should the Reserve Bank lower interest rates today, that will be welcomed, but that is obviously a matter for the bank”.

But the Reserve Bank chooses whether to adjust interest rates on the first Tuesday of the month. This Tuesday was April’s fourth. Dun-dun-DUN!

Continue reading "ICB: Gaffes aren’t worth mouthing off about" »

On Saturdays, British PM David Cameron shops at his local Sainsbury’s supermarket. The rest of the week, his wife Samantha buys the family groceries online. Mr Cameron pays under 50p for a pint of milk and has very little time to pick up his kids from school.

If you found that information important, you probably think a political leader should have a full life beyond their day job. By extension, you are then interested in what sort of a real person they are. For example, where do they shop and what do they buy.

However, if you found it frustrating and irrelevant, you probably think people like David Cameron have a busy enough time running the country to worry about saving 10 pence on a bottle of milk.  He’s Britain’s prime minister - who cares how or where he does his shopping?

Continue reading "We need our pollies in parliament, not Woolworths" »

The public view of the Gillard Government is it’s shielding a man who took union money to pay for prostitutes and another man who tried to get a male staffer into the cot.

None of these claims has been tested or confirmed by a court, all have been denied. But they have become currency in front-bar political debate and can only hurt Labor.

It has been hard enough for the Government to sustain Craig Thomson on its back bench. It now has Peter Slipper – who has never been a member of the ALP – to manage.

Continue reading "It’s no longer about the majority, it’s about integrity" »

Every time Julia Gillard’s desperate Government looks at some policy or event as a potential circuit-breaker, things seem to get worse rather than better. 

But hope springs eternal. Gillard and her inner circle now believe they can use a return to surplus, and the Budget that brings it about, as a platform for a political recovery.

This was the basis of a speech - a revving-up lecture - that the prime minister delivered to a special meeting of federal Cabinet on Tuesday night.

Continue reading "Gillard rallies her troops for the final round" »

Mayors are an integral and important part of our political process. Who else would bin the bin emptiers? Who else would wear the oversized ceremonial necklaces? Who else would weigh in ponderously on whether a significant tree is dead or just resting?

So despite the obvious fact that you can put just about anyone in the position, you can’t just put ANYONE in the position. Here is a short list of people who should be ruled out of ever being Mayor of Anywhere.

1. Kim Kardashian. She reportedly wants to run for Mayor of Glendale, California.

Continue reading "Five people who should never be Mayor. Of anywhere." »

Since the huge news of Bob Brown’s retirement last week, new leader Christine Milne has emerged as a leader just as canny as her predecessor, crafting her own stamp on the party leadership rather than walking in anyone’s shadow.

Despite her somewhat school matronly exterior, the new leader is emerging as a tough, razor sharp and sophisticated player in Federal politics.

Bob Brown has left the party in its strongest ever position. The reality facing the Labor Party now is that it can’t survive without the Greens. With the latest polls showing the ALP at 29 percent and the Greens around 14, there are only 15 percentage points now separating the two parties in terms of popularity among voters. The Greens have cemented themselves as the third political party in Australia, and the ALP had better look out the Greens don’t swallow them up.

Continue reading "Who wants to be a Milne heir?" »

It used to be called the Premiers’ Conference, and it was all about money. The Premiers attended, determined to screw as much cash out of the federal government as possible. When the Commonwealth took over income tax in 1942, they had no other real source of income.

The meetings were essentially a theatre. The Premiers left their states with a farewell press conference, promising to extract a great deal out of Canberra. On the night before the meeting, the Commonwealth would slide its offer under the hotel door.

In the morning, another series of press conferences, with each Premier deriding the meagre amount offered. When the meeting broke up, each Premier held yet another press conference, praising his or her magnificent effort in extracting a reasonable offer from the feds. End of another annual money carve-up.

Continue reading "Money (That’s What The States Still Want)" »

Remember when Julia Gillard stood shoulder to shoulder with her two new allies in Government Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor and they declared, hand on heart, that this was the beginning of a new era in accountability? A new paradigm, in fact.

Hard to believe it was just on 18 months ago that the Labor PM said that her deal with the Independents meant her minority government would be held to higher standards of accountability.

“So let’s draw back the curtains and let the sun shine in, let our Parliament be more open than it was before,” she declared with flourish.

Continue reading "Ain’t no sunshine when she’s governing" »

With Bob Brown’s resignation as leader of the Greens, Australia has lost its most important left-wing politician.

There was a time when Labor and the coalition were regarded as the Left and Right of Australian politics. Not any more.

In terms of what they stand for, the major parties are almost indistinguishable. The competition between them is about competence, not much else.

Continue reading "Love him or loathe him, a rare man of conviction" »

Did anyone see that coming? Greens Leader Bob Brown’s shock resignation today came out of a clear blue sky, and now we’ll all quickly scramble to work out what it will mean for the Greens’ future, and for ours. See news.com.au’s rolling coverage here.

Apart from the occasional nutty dummy spit, Bob Brown has been a steadying influence in the Greens, which is prone to both admirable idealism and flashes of extremism.

He has been a herder of cats. His replacement Christine Milne’s corralling abilities remain to be seen, as does her ability to deal with the Government and the Opposition, and an ever-critical public.

Continue reading "A new start for the Greens or the beginning of the end?" »

The blame game monster is back and it has been munching steroids in its brief absence.

Tomorrow’s Council of Australian Governments (COAG) meeting will be the first following both the NSW and Queensland elections and the subsequent realigment of the national political equation.

The long-standing fixture of state-federal animosity will be intensified by the dominance of Coalition premiers who will have a 4/2 majority.

Continue reading "The blame game monster returns. Now he’s ANGRY!" »

Yet another study has emerged that appears to put people with conservative political views in a somewhat shady light.

The research, published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, linked conservatism to “low effort thinking”. Meaning people who were pissed or distracted were more likely to hew to conservative thinking.

It’s just the latest in a bunch of studies that have hit the headlines, and it’s almost enough to make right-wingers feel targeted (and remember, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you).

Continue reading "Conservatives: Are they right or will they be left behind?" »

There’s something about planes, people working on them, getting things done. People getting things done on planes look like the sort of people you want to get things done for you.

Julia Gillard used to look like that back in 2010 when this photo was taken. She could use a bit of that juice right now. Just look what it’s done for Hillary Clinton.

A photo of Clinton, shades on, Blackberry in hand, about to take off for Tripoli, has not just become an internet sensation but injected a whole new energy into the commentary about her political prospects.

Continue reading "What Gillard needs is a shithot pair of shades" »

Good on Christine Forster and her partner Virginia Edwards for coming out. The more the merrier. Most of us in the marriage equality movement have known about the relationship for a couple of years, so we have been viewing Tony Abbott’s comments on the issue of equality through the prism of knowing he had a sister who had left her marriage for another woman.

We had also been told the story was stitched up and kept out of the media for political reasons before the last election.

For goodness’ sake Mr Abbott - don’t you think your family is just like everyone else’s? We gay folk are everywhere.

Continue reading "Abbott’s one lame argument against gay marriage" »

The Parliamentary Christian Fellowship is a non-party political group of strongly Christian MPs in the federal parliament, who meet unofficially to discuss politics, parliamentary life and faith. Way back in 2004, the convener, Bruce Baird, put its membership at 60 out of a total number of 226 federal MPs.

However, one of his religious colleagues (who did not want to be named) said the figure was more like 75. Talk among non-religious members of the Press Gallery now suggests that there may be as many as 90. This means that the percentage of highly religious MPs in the parliament could easily be around 40 per cent.

The latest National Church Life Survey quotes a figure of 9 per cent of Australians who are regular weekly churchgoers. This could roughly be said to equate with the degree of religiosity evinced by most members of the PCF. This means that these people are over-represented in the parliament by four times that of the general community.

Continue reading "We have a right to know when God is in the House" »

It is hard to argue against the fact that Australian politics is currently in disarray. What we have are two major parties that spend more time formulating insults to hurl at each other than negotiating decent policy outcomes.

While Australian politics has always been adversarial – a direct result of our Westminster system – good policy outcomes have often risen above party politics.

There are many examples that highlight this: from the opening up of the Australian economy in the 1980s, to John Howard’s gun reforms in the 1990s, and the joint response to the HIV/AIDS crisis as a health issue rather than a moral panic. Each one of these went beyond party politics as the two major parties ‘trusted’ each other’s intentions.

Continue reading "Even in politics it has always been a matter of trust" »

As political leaders scramble for fresh excuses to maintain 40 years of flinching from a decision on a second Sydney airport, let’s eliminate one of them.

It is not just a Sydney issue. It is not even just a NSW issue. It is a national issue, and this entitles people outside the state’s borders to expect action within them.

The congestion at Sydney Airport adds around 25 minutes to the time it takes a scheduled airline fight to get to Melbourne.

Continue reading "Sydney’s second airport is a national issue" »

Fellow Earthians, I formally declare open the inaugural Global Parliament. Before turning to matters of procedure, I will chant the prayer:

“Almighty Gaia, we who exist as mere parts of your living organism, humbly pray to the great spirits of the universe to direct and prosper our deliberations for the welfare and wellbeing of this living planet.”

Let me indicate at the outset that henceforth all representatives are expected to be present and chant the opening prayer with me each session. Conscientious religious objection is abolished and only that great green spiritual leader will be able to articulate Her will and Her will be done on post-anthropogenic earth as it was on pre-anthropogenic earth.

Continue reading "A statement by the President of the Global Parliament" »

“I can see clearly now, my job is gone,” to paraphrase the 1972 hit song. Suddenly seeing clearly is what politicians mysteriously do after leaving the stage. The passing of power leaves them with a kind of hyper-clarity on subjects that just months before they had been all wordy, vague, and reluctant.

This week saw another case when the dumped ex-cabinet minister, Robert McClelland, notorious for monotonous legalese as AG, suddenly found brevity when defining Julia Gillard’s problem: broken promises (carbon tax), and endless political spin.

Sour grapes aside, the catalyst was obvious: the dire standing of the ALP in successive opinion polls and the mother of all electoral king-hits delivered by Queensland voters a fortnight ago reducing the Bligh government to an embarrassing non-party rump.

Continue reading "A bunch of insiders risk pushing Labor outside" »

Lined up at the voting booths before the last federal election, a guy in front of me loudly announced to his mate: “I’m just going to draw a gigantic cock on the paper.”

Opponents of compulsory voting tend to argue that’s not the only way people makes dicks of themselves with their ballot papers. You often hear people argue that compulsory voting forces people uninterested in politics to donkey vote or vote for who they like the most, rather than a party’s policies.

People like Anders Holmdahl, a South Australian resident who took his quibble with compulsory voting to the SA Supreme Court yesterday, have a problem with the fact that voting is defined as both a right and a duty in different parts of Australian law.

Continue reading "Don’t knock compulsory voting, it’s fine as is" »

The commonly accepted choice between a stuff-up or a stitch-up is to go with the stuff-up.  Anyone reading the Auditor-General’s report into Labor’s botched tender for the Australia Network television service will reject that accepted wisdom and conclude a stitch-up was more likely.

While the Australia Network may be Australia’s soft diplomacy channel into the Asia-Pacific, Labor’s internal wrangling over who should produce this service has involved anything but soft diplomacy.  A needless internal power game saw the most senior figures in the government face-off over the future direction of the Australia Network.

Sadly, Labor wasn’t content to just battle it out amongst each other.  The owners of Sky News and the ABC were dragged into the fray as proxies in a war over a contract that need not have gone to tender in the first place.

Continue reading "The tender trap set by Government mired in enmity" »

Last Friday the Parliamentary Inquiry into Australia’s Detention Network finally released its report. The three most important recommendations – a time limit on detention, transparency around ASIO decisions, and an independent guardian for unaccompanied children – are also the most controversial.

Elmo doesn’t think the three recommendations are that controversial

Unfortunately, this controversy is entirely fabricated and not at all based in reality.

Enshrining these recommendations in Australian law would a) bring us closer to treating refugees the way a humane country should, b) save Australia tens of millions of dollars in detention costs and c) stop us destroying the mental health of thousands of people, 90 per cent of whom will end up as Australian citizens.

Continue reading "Three sensible ways to fix a silly immigration system" »

It’s been so long coming that release of the report into credit card use within the Health Services Union is being hailed as a huge stride in resolving this lingering, messy controversy.

But all we’ve done is slip from one inquiry into another, after which there might be yet another examination of the facts, this time in a court. And we don’t yet know what those facts are.

The Fair Work Australia report filled 1100 pages. It is possible that not one of those pages contains evidence of criminal activity by Labor MP Craig Thomson - the former HSU national secretary - despite the fears of the Government and the hopes of the Opposition.

Continue reading "Thomson’s lynch mob left frustrated for another day" »

Veterans are once again engaged in battle, but this time they are not fighting on behalf of the Australian Government. They are fighting against it.

Serving and retired military personnel continue to be seriously financially disadvantaged by deliberate Government policy and they demand justice.

Armed with flyers and posters, they are engaging with the general public in Operation AWARE to explain their grievances and increase awareness and support for change in Federal Government attitude, an attitude that callously refuses to acknowledge the Government’s financial obligations to current and former Diggers, their widows and those who are on invalid and disabled pensions. 

Continue reading "Veterans need super, not a war with the government" »

Hopefully at some point in the near future Julia Gillard will get to hang out with the newly-elected member of the Myanmar parliament Aung San Suu Kyi and they can trade jokes about what it’s like being a woman in politics.

Of course Suu Kyi has been the beneficiary of those two killer political weapons, a husband and children, so she might have some trouble relating to the hardships our own Prime Minister faces on a daily basis.

After all, Suu Kyi might have spent 15 of the last 21 years under house arrest, but no one has ever called her “deliberately barren”. Her father might have been assassinated by her political rivals the year she was born, but I bet Germaine Greer thinks her stylish backside is just fine.

Continue reading "My political handicap is bigger than yours" »

Consider this. Twenty-three per cent of home owners in the United States currently have underwater mortgages. That’s close to one in four home-buyers owing more to the bank than the house is worth.

Negative equity loans account for a staggering 11 million of America’s near 49 million mortgaged homes. In go-ahead states such as Arizona and Nevada, the underwater rate is actually above half.

In California one in every 283 homes was served with a foreclosure notice last month and nationally the average price obtained at sale is $165,193 per house. That’s a lot of families being cast to the wind in a country with a poor to non-existent social safety-net.

Continue reading "Why we actually are the economic envy of the world" »

Childcare should not be a battle ground. Parents need to be able to make a living for themselves and provide a future for their children. They should not be penalised by a system that makes going to work impractical or expensive.

Tony Abbott’s plan to ask the Productivity Commission to look at the best ways to provide childcare is a commitment to review the options and see how childcare can be changed to make life easier for mums and dads, and ensure access is available in the city and the country.

If in-home care turns out to be the common-sense option, we will pursue it, and it will be a great complement to the Coalition’s six-month paid parental leave scheme. The hysteria the Government has tried to create over this announcement by claiming child care assistance will be cut, or that this is welfare for the wealthy is nonsense. This is not about providing nannies for millionaires or cutting important help for low income working families.

Continue reading "Nanny plan about economics, not polishing the silver" »

Reading the entrails of the Labor carcass in Queensland will no doubt keep an army of commentators and party strategists occupied for some time. This was not a simple routing, or another “they’ve been there too long” swing. It was something new altogether.

It wasn’t merely a large number of swinging voters deciding they wanted a change of Government. The magnitude of the swing points to a desertion by Labor’s true believers.

While the fact they fled their party is interesting, more interesting perhaps is where those disenchanted dyed-in the-wool Labor folk went.

Continue reading "ALP evacuees have no love for The Greens" »

After the events in Queensland on Saturday it’s probably time to upgrade Wayne Goss’s memorable observation at the 1996 federal election that voters in the Sunshine State were waiting with baseball bats to clobber the life out of the Keating government.

If Saturday’s state result was in any way a dry run for what awaits Labor federally next year, voters in Queensland are waiting with baseball bats, rocket launchers and cans of capsicum spray in readiness to obliterate the ALP.

If the staggering and unprecedented 16 to 17 per cent swing at Saturday’s state election is in any way reflected at the next federal poll, Labor will be utterly destroyed, with a raft of senior government figures from Treasurer Wayne Swan down swept from office. The equal-worst federal result Labor has ever had in Queensland was in 1996, when just two of its MPs were re-elected. On Saturday’s numbers, not one Queensland MP would survive.

Continue reading "Greatest risk to Gillard a dialogue with the deaf" »

Here’s some advice for interest groups who want to influence a conservative government with such a stonking majority - pack away the hemp shirts, love beads and sandals and deal with them like professionals.

No protests, petitions or snippy social media campaigns. Publicly congratulate their win. They don’t need to listen, so you need them to want to listen. For every one Labor MP in Queensland now there will be 10 opposite numbers. How do less that 10 people, however talented, even stay abreast of government business, let alone the controversial stuff?

The LNP’s superior and unequalled bargaining position should give pause for thought for any interest group that wishes to influence or change the government’s position.  How do activists get the attention of a government or opposition (who now just sleep at the office reading briefing papers)? By being strategic.

Continue reading "How to sway a government with no opposition" »

Jessica Rudd, daughter of Kevin, gets the award for clever political gallows humour: “I’ve never voted for a minor party before,” she tweeted.

Few other Labor figures were inclined to quips as the Queensland party grimly surveyed the devastation to its ranks, and the emergence of the most powerful conservative leader in the nation.

The Queensland ALP was out-campaigned, chewed up and spat out by a rampant Liberal National Party at the weekend.

Continue reading "Bligh just the first victim of anti-Labor sentiment" »

Queensland’s ground-breaking election at the weekend did one thing above all else. Voters had an overriding message about the nasty, relentless campaign from Labor during the past nine weeks.

They said they hated what they saw and heard. The smash-up election result was always coming but its size was in doubt.

Let’s look at the empirical evidence. Crosby Textor, the best polling organisation working in real politics, did a serious exit poll on Saturday and found a big result - the top issue that affected voters was the nature of this campaign.

Continue reading "The mud Labor flung swung back in their faces" »

The smash-up arrived. A hyper-powered LNP vote - not just above 50 per cent but half way to 60 per cent - drove into Brisbane and parked on the footpaths, the lawns and the median strips.

The LNP has secured the greatest majority in Australian electoral history.

The territory from Ashgrove and Mount Coot-tha to Everton and Stafford over to Brisbane Central and Greenslopes was painted blue.

The Premier’s seat of South Brisbane went down to the wire. This morning Anna Bligh has no finger nails and will just hang on. Nearby Bulimba has a blue glow that may grow.

Continue reading "Queensland: Labor one day, Liberal the next" »

In his six types of ill-fated armies, the brilliant Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu identified one called “crumbling”.

“If the higher officers are angry and insubordinate, engaging the enemy themselves out of unrestrained anger while the general does not yet know their capabilities, it is termed crumbling,” Sun Tzu wrote more than two millennia ago.

While the Bligh Government’s first - and last - full term does not fit this description perfectly, there is something in a correlation of the two.

Continue reading "Labor will be left with nothing but crumbs" »

“When the tide goes out in Queensland,” a senior Labor figure said yesterday, “it goes out more quickly and more deeply than anywhere else.”

It’s true. Think the 1974 state election when Labor was reduced to 11 MPs - a cricket team. Think 2001 when Peter Beattie destroyed the conservatives and won 66 seats in the 89 member state parliament.

Or think the 1975 federal election, when an anti-Labor tide affected the whole country but in Queensland left the party with just one seat and less than 40 per cent of the vote after preferences.

Continue reading "The Labor brand is damaged - and so is the product" »

John Howard notched up his final election victory in 2004 by pointedly asking voters “who do you trust?’‘

Years of experience had taught the incumbent prime minister that if you were being outgunned by populism, there was always the core matter of trust - the very foundation-stone of representative democracy.

Tony Abbott learned his political stage-craft at the foot of the great man so he too knows the currency of trust, gaining it, holding it, and presumably extending it to others.

Continue reading "Tony Abbott is losing faith" »

Someone deep inside the Labor bunker provided an exquisite campaign truth this week. Discussing the increasingly desperate Labor tactics - distilled to something along the lines of “if you touch that button your children will die” - this pie-eyed strategist had one point to make.

“Mate,” he said, echoing generations of Labor persuaders, “can you imagine where we would be if we had been discussing Queensland Health for the last four weeks?”

While I’ve cleaned that quote up, discarding the Tourette syndrome tendencies that everyone close to this madness can’t avoid this week, it has an essential truth. Some people reckon Labor has trashed itself with its last-roll-of-the-dice campaign.

Continue reading "Anna Bligh’s been reduced to begging for votes" »

At the South by South-West music conference in Austin, Texas, last Thursday, Bruce Springsteen let a brilliant cat out of the bag. He junked the supposed key to modern politics: authenticity. In a 50-minute address, Springsteen said it’s not real.

“There is no right way, no pure way of doing it,” said the Boss to a packed auditorium. “There’s just doing it. We live in a post-authentic world. Today authenticity is a house of mirrors. It’s all just what you’re bringing when the lights go down. It’s your teachers, your influences, your personal history.

“At the end of the day it’s the power and purpose of your music. It still matters.” Anyone who watches modern politics will recognise the profound truth in what Springsteen says.

Continue reading "The inauthenticity of the new political “authenticity”" »

It looks like Wayne Swan was onto something after all when he started his bad-tempered battering of mining billionaires. Maybe they aren’t like the rest of us. But if Mr Swan was right in theory, it took Clive Palmer to prove it by claiming the President of the United States was using spies to recruit Greens to wreck Australian coal mining.

Mr Palmer, one of the three billionaires the Treasurer has been taking swipes at, has started something that others might find extremely difficult to finish.

If the mining industry was worried the newly-passed Minerals Resources Rental Tax would deter investors, what sort of disincentive would come from an influential magnate claiming undercover agents in the open-cut mines?

Continue reading "CIA conspiracy undermines Clive Palmer’s credibility" »

For the past two years media writers have spent a lot of time examining whether Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is a journalist.

The Walkley Foundation proclaimed him one by bestowing a big award for his contribution to journalism, but then gave him an open platform to bash the Prime Minister. The Brits gave him the 2011 Martha Gellhorn prize for journalism, saying Wikileaks’s “goal of justice through transparency is in the oldest and finest tradition of journalism.”

Jonathan Holmes was torn. Marc A. Thiessen on the Washington Post was not. Others have pointed out the title of “journalist” is one of the few things standing between Assange and the wrong end of a United States Grand Jury.

Continue reading "You can’t call yourself a journalist and a politician" »

The contrast between past and present arrived quickly and starkly in Parliament yesterday.

Just before Question Time there were moving speeches of condolence following the death on Saturday of Margaret Whitlam.

From the Labor side of the House Julia Gillard, Tanya Plibersek and Kevin Rudd were listened to by all in silence.

Continue reading "A moment of decorum before the rock fight resumed" »

The medical qualifications of Chief Opposition Whip Warren Entsch extend to “railway porter, insurance clerk, real estate salesman, fitter and turner with a mining company, grazier, and crocodile farmer.”

A doctor he ain’t, but there he was on AM this morning examining the entrails of Labor MP Craig Thomson.

Thomson has a doctor’s certificate excusing him from this week of parliamentary sittings because of “abdominal pain”. This has become quite an issue because of a number of complicating factors:

Continue reading "When is a sickie not simple? When you’re Craig Thomson" »

If you are confused by debate over company tax cuts don’t feel alone. The chap miffed he won’t be guardian-in-chief of the $73 billion Future Fund also is unsure of his way on the issue.

“Well look Chris, I’m in favour of lower company taxes … ” former Treasurer Peter Costello told Chris Uhlman on the ABC’s 7.30 last week.

“But the price … if the price of cutting taxes is to impose a carbon tax - in other words to impose a huge, mammoth new tax of which you give back a very small amount - frankly I’d rather they do nothing.” Familiar sentiment; wrong “tax”.

Continue reading "The taxing business of the politics of tax" »

Nick Minchin is spot on. Making Peter Costello chairman of the Future Fund would have been a very bad decision. If Tony Abbott, Joe Hockey and the rest of the coalition’s current economic brains trust can’t see that, it is a real worry.

“The fund must be and be seen to be independent, professional, completely above politics and entirely apolitical,” Minchin wrote yesterday in a letter to The Australian newspaper. Appointing a former politician—even one of the stature of Costello—as chairman would therefore be most unwise.”

He added that those members of the Fund’s board of guardians who favoured the appointment of the former Treasurer to the job were “naïve”. Minchin knows what he is talking about. As Finance Minister for the last six years of the Howard Government, he was—with Costello—the co-creator of the fund set up to make provision for unfunded Commonwealth superannuation liabilities.

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