If there is something a touch phoney about the same sex marriage debate, it looks positively genuine compared to the one on uranium.

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.

Going down together

Friday, 18 November 2011   International relations   4 comments 

The irony of all of this is that there is pretty well no two countries with less interest in breaking off with each other than the US and China.

Far from wishing to undermine it, the Australian media is joined at the hip to the current political system and is getting caught up in its problems.

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 is a struggle over the dead soul of the Labor party.

Too late for the NSW disease

Wednesday, 7 September 2011   State of the parties   27 comments 

This was the real NSW disease, not changing leaders, but it no longer having any electoral rationale.

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.

This upside-down thinking of social reality is symptomatic of a political party in decline.

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

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