Oz Politics
« Previous EntriesNelson out, Turnbull in
Tuesday, September 16th, 2008Due to the pressures of real life, I haven’t reacted to the change in Liberal leadership with the lightning speed for which the blogosphere is famed. A couple of thoughts on the players and the implications.
For Nelson, this was only a matter of time. He’s a likeable guy (though of course, the job of Opposition [...]
Costello cashes in his chips
Friday, September 12th, 2008Assuming that he was pursuing a consistent plan at all, Peter Costello’s months of coyness about possible leadership aspirations now appear to have been designed to ensure a big splash for his memoirs. Presumably, his departure from Parliament won’t be long delayed and (while you should never say never) it seems that his political career [...]
The voters speak
Wednesday, September 10th, 2008The outcome of the Western Australian election remains undecided. Labor could hold on to power either by winning enough seats to govern with the support of independents or by making a deal with the Nationals. Conversely, the Libs need to win the seats in which they are currently ahead, and then cut a deal with [...]
All change in NSW
Friday, September 5th, 2008One thing I’ve learned in life, though not always applied, is that if you ignore a job long enough, it often goes away. I was going to write a post excoriating Maurice Iemma and Michael Costa for their handling of the electricity privatisation issue, but it doesn’t matter much now (retail privatisation may still go [...]
Double dissolution ahead
Friday, September 5th, 2008A week ago my Fin column (over the fold) predicted a double dissolution over legislation to establish an emissions trading scheme. The rejection of the government’s changes to luxury car tax shortens the odds considerably. The government made a number of compromises to satisfy the Greens and Nick Xenophon that highly fuel-efficient vehicles would be [...]
Everything old is new again
Wednesday, August 6th, 2008After trying out three alternatives, the WA Liberals are back to Colin Barnett as leader, and, amazingly, he still hasn’t given up on the idea of a canal from the Kimberley to Perth.
Longtime readers will remember that we had loads of fun with this and similar crazy ideas last time around.
According to my quick calculations, [...]
Two cheers for Labor
Tuesday, July 29th, 2008The euphoric honeymoon period for the Rudd government may be behind us, but we still get regular reminders that we made the right choice as a nation last November. Today’s news includes two such reminders
* The end of the brutal policy of mandatory detention, introduced by the Hawke-Keating government and hardened repeatedly by the [...]
How to get an ETS through the Senate
Friday, July 25th, 2008After the contortions of the last few weeks, I think it’s pretty safe to draw the following conclusions
(i) The Liberal Party is all over the shop on climate change and is going to stay that way, at least as long as Brendan Nelson remains leader
(ii) Whatever legislative proposal the government comes up with, the Opposition [...]
No Libationals today?
Friday, July 25th, 2008Having made the bold predictions, some time back, that neither the Nationals, nor the Liberals, would ever win another election in Queensland or nationally, I gave myself two bob each way by explaining that this was because a merger, or a completely new party, was a precondition for defeating Labor. Everything looked to be going [...]
Indigenous Territorians short-changed?
Wednesday, July 16th, 2008That’s the claim made in today’s Oz, quoting the NT Council of Social Service president Barry Hansen. The NT gets very high levels of Commonwealth Grant funding on the basis of a needs-based formula which is heavily influenced by the large proportion of indigenous people, living in remote areas that are costly to [...]
Sheridan on 1972
Sunday, July 6th, 2008Greg Sheridan’s panegyric to Alexander Downer includes the following aside,
Australian foreign policy history, and Australian history generally, is written overwhelmingly by people who are institutionally sympathetic to the Labor Party. In fact they are generally quite a fair bit to the Left of the Labor Party. And one of Labor’s great virtues is its [...]
More oddity at the Oz
Wednesday, June 25th, 2008The Oz today has quite a good piece from David Coats, arguing that unions and the Labor party need to focus on the quality of work, extending the focus on rights at work to the broader idea that “good jobs and quality work are an essential driver of both good economic outcomes and good social [...]
Labour losing ground ?
Thursday, May 29th, 2008Don Harding of La Trone University has been digging into the Budget Papers and he’s found something startling - Projections of a sharp decline in the labour share of national income. As he says, this seems implausible on the face of it, but if the projections are right it’s a much bigger deal than food [...]
Groan
Monday, May 26th, 2008It’s taken six months, and there have been some near-misses along the way, but for me, the weekend announcement that the government will be reviewing the collection of GST on the full (excise-inclusive) price of petrol is the Rudd government’s inevitable first big policy failure. I don’t know where to start on this. First, the [...]
Put a fork in him, he’s done
Thursday, May 15th, 2008After the fiasco over alcopops, there’s only one reason Brendan Nelson can survive as Opposition leader. All the potential alternative leaders, with the apparent exception of Julie Bishop, have made just as big fools of themselves as Nelson has.
The decision to tax premixed spirit drinks on the same basis as spirits in general was announced [...]
Instant budget reaction
Tuesday, May 13th, 2008First up, I have to say that it was good to watch a budget without having to put up with Peter Costello. Unlike Howard, I never regarded Costello as having any real substance. Even after 11 years on the job, his mastery of his portfolio was a clever barrister’s mastery of his brief, not a [...]
Core promises
Thursday, May 8th, 2008My article in today’s Fin is over the fold
A question for readers
Tuesday, May 6th, 2008I’m working on a piece for the Fin, and, in my current draft, I say that John Howard never actually used the word “non-core”. Rather, he said he had delivered his “core” promises and we were left to infer that the rest were non-core. Can anyone protect me from error by pointing to an occasion [...]
Substance and symbols
Thursday, May 1st, 2008I don’t have much comment on the government’s measures to remove a wide variety of discrimination against same-sex couples, except to observe that this ought to put an end to the canard that the Rudd government is “all about symbolism”. This is an issue where Howard tried hard to push the symbolism of gay marriage [...]
Keating haters
Thursday, April 24th, 2008Throughout the days of the previous government, its media cheer squad denounced anyone who dared to criticise the government as a “Howard-hater”. This seemed to me to be either a silly piece of rhetoric or just plain wrong. To the extent that it was simply a label for anyone who disliked the government’s policies and [...]
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