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.

9/11 and the War on Terror didn’t mark the start of Labor’s problems, it marked the temporary suspension, for about five or six years, of the Coalition’s.

Walking straight into it

Friday, 2 September 2011   The Australian state   8 comments 

Commentators are dismayed at Gillard’s ‘outrageous’ attacks on the High Court, but what is really striking is how mild it is.

Where the problem lies

Tuesday, 10 May 2011   Media analysis   15 comments 

Tanner and Megalogenis may take pot shots across the media-political divide but ultimately it comes down to voters as the problem.

Can Australian politics be that insubstantial?

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

Nothing to say

Thursday, 16 December 2010   Tactics   7 comments 

That neither of the major parties have anything to say is implicit in Gillard’s call for a bipartisan committee to look into the issue.

If Rudd was so powerful, how could he have been summarily dismissed within barely a blink of an eye?

Stability

Monday, 26 July 2010   Key posts, State of the parties   12 comments 

Standing for nothing is bad enough, but if you are so unstable that you can’t even keep to your head of government under the slightest pressure, then that is something else.

Rudd touched a raw nerve of how Labor, especially in NSW, understands its decline.

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