What a farce looks like

Saturday, 28 January 2012   The Australian state   13 comments 

All we needed was a Canberra farce and we have all we need to know.

Lifting the veil of a hung Parliament

Thursday, 24 November 2011   Tactics   10 comments 

Rather than holding the government back, the hung Parliament has forced it to adopt the reforming agenda of the independents that at the last election, it made clear it didn’t intend to have.

Burying the Workchoices bogeyman

Tuesday, 1 November 2011   Tactics   5 comments 

While Fair Work Australia had allowed for the weak state of the union movement, it did not allow for what would happen when an employer would take advantage of a weak government.

The government mistake in still thinking it’s all about policy on asylum seekers, rather than its own authority, is why it cocked up so badly on Thursday.

This Parliament has an in-built disconnect with the electorate that is no more likely to be resolved at the next election as it was at the last.

If Turnbull had read what was happening to Abbott, he would have kept his head low.

Unlike Labor’s previous bouts of economic rationalism, say, as under Hawke and Keating, this time business aren’t especially asking for it.

This is why the real issue is not that Gillard didn’t mean it when she said there wouldn’t be a carbon tax, but that she doesn’t mean it now when she says there will.

The media are making this into a major drama, but it may not be, at least in the way they say.

Poor Julie Bishop. Always the proxy, never the bride.

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