Premiers

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" »

Julia Gillard says she for one was not surprised by the closeness of the August federal election result, maintaining with an `I-told-you-so’ tone that she’d always argued it would be close. But why? Had the Government not successfully steered Australia around a massive global crisis, keeping people in jobs and businesses trading?

Her ready resignation to a cliff-hanger result at best raises fundamental questions: What’s gone so wrong with the Australian Labor Party that voters are deserting it in droves. Why is that even competent governments (the pink batts fiasco notwithstanding) cannot seem to muster enough support and enthusiasm to form a majority?

Take the federal poll about which Ms Gillard proved correct. Despite the leadership change, (or perhaps because of it) Labor fell well short of the 76 seat minimum needed to govern in its own right.

Continue reading "Gillard’s long-term bid to overcome a damaged brand" »