Change – an update
Thursday, 8 November 2012
I sometimes felt as if I were watching the psychodrama of the baby boom generation — a tale rooted in old grudges and revenge plots hatched on a handful of college campuses long ago — played out on the national stage.
Barack Obama
There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right — there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent on government, who believe that, that they are victims, who believe that government has the responsibility to care for them. Who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing.
Mitt Romney
If even the stupid have worked out that it was about the economy, then there were good reasons why Obama should have lost on Tuesday. Read more …
2 commentsDegeneration
Wednesday, 10 October 2012
If the last grisly month of politics has shown anything, it is that these days the left is much better at launching personal attacks than the right. The decay of the progressive social movements of the 1960s and 1970s into the current realm of the personal with its victims, the easily offended and enforcers of politically correct etiquette, provide a far more conducive platform from which to launch personal attacks than the right’s out-dated social mores. Read more …
21 commentsTop end upended
Monday, 27 August 2012
I think you will find that for the first time in this nation’s history, in any state or territory, the outcome has been decided by people in the bush, indigenous people.
ALP NT Senator, Trish Crossin on Saturday
It’s almost axiomatic in Australian political commentary that whenever there is a political event that doesn’t fit comfortably into the politicos’ world-view, it is dismissed as “they do things differently up/over there”. Read more …
43 commentsHoward’s Golden Age
Monday, 20 August 2012
Who thinks Howard was right all along? Is division seriously required?
A bizarre complacency has descended on the media after the government’s adoption of (some of) the proposals from the committee of “experts” on asylum seekers. It is true that the government has finally got House agreement on a policy. But it is hardly “resolved” as the media claims. Read more …
16 commentsThe day the Gillard government died – an update
Wednesday, 15 August 2012
Somewhere deep in the Department of Immigration and Citizenship there must be a senior bureaucrat with a sense of work ethic tearing her/his hair out at how a half-arsed report by “experts” can now set the direction of policy on asylum seekers.
The Panel’s report is a cursory affair. Read more …
13 commentsThe day the Gillard government died
Monday, 9 July 2012
David Rowe in the AFR
The Greens will never embrace Labor’s delight at sharing the values of every day Australians, in our cities, suburbs, towns and bush, who day after day do the right thing, leading purposeful and dignified lives, driven by love of family and nation.
J Gillard speaking in Sydney in 2011, days after NSW’s Labor biggest loss
The Greens have come to take the Labor Party for granted. The truth is that they have put us in a position where sometimes anywhere else would be better with our preferences, and that includes even the Coalition.
Sam Dastyari in The Australian
Wait a second. Haven’t we been here before? Read more …
17 commentsAsylum seekers: a panic of the political class – an update
Friday, 29 June 2012
Something has to give this week or sometime soon as a circuit-breaker in what is policy dysfunction and a failure on behalf of the Australian community.
Rob Oakeshott
They only have themselves to blame. Let’s not forget this. Read more …
16 commentsAfter July
Monday, 25 June 2012
In September last year, Essential Research carried out a poll asking voters whether they supported the government’s plan to introduce a carbon pricing scheme on 1 July this year. Given the government’s deep unpopularity, the answer is as you would expect, they were against it (48% against, 35% for). Read more …
6 commentsClass war dreaming
Thursday, 24 May 2012
The Australian’s portrayal of Labor’s class war. They wish.
All of my life I’ve taken those values with me and their values with me and there has never been a moment in my adult life where I’ve doubted their wisdom or their morality. Those Labor values, my values, your values, they are the values that have guided the Labor Government I lead.
Gillard addressing the ACTU conference
Obviously the attempts by both parties to turn the Budget into a point of political principle were a farce. Read more …
33 commentsDemocracy v. Party ‘democracy’
Monday, 7 May 2012
Do they look worried?
So far the Australian Labor Party has been resistant to thoroughgoing reform. The problem here isn’t ideology — the ALP has never been an ideological party — it’s power.
Bruce Hawker The Australian 26 April 2012
The shenanigans at the HSU may be in extremis, but they highlight several things that go beyond just one union. Read more …
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