Politics
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RAMESH THAKUR. Challenging the Peter Principle: From Julie Bishop to Marise Payne
Before coming to Julie Bishop’s record as foreign minister in areas of my particular interest, three preliminary comments. Continue reading »
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JAMES O’NEILL. Julie Bishop’s Unmemorable Tenure as Foreign Minister
The departure of Julie Bishop as Foreign Minister is no cause for regret. Her tenure was marked by hypocrisy, selective application of international law, and blindness to geopolitical realities. Continue reading »
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JOHN MENADUE. Julie Bishop – Foreign Minister or Senior Consular Officer A repost from 16 May 2018
In this blog and elsewhere, Geoff Raby, a former Australian Ambassador to China, has pointed out that Australia’s relationship with China is unlikely to improve until Julie Bishop is sacked as Foreign Minister. The departure of Julie Bishop as Foreign Minister is necessary, but it is unlikely that Malcolm Turnbull will act. If he did Continue reading »
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IAN McAULEY. We sympathise with you Malcolm, but you should have read your mail
Re-visiting an open letter sent to Turnbull just after his narrow victory in 2016. And a suggestion how he may go on contributing to the public purpose. Continue reading »
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MUNGO MacCALLUM. Abbott will find another patsy in his endless search for revenge.
In the end, a vestige of sanity prevailed. The Liberal lemmings baulked on the brink and decided the final step into the chasm of a Peter Dutton prime ministership was just too crazy, and drew back. At least a bare majority of them did; they were happy to lurch well to the right, but not Continue reading »
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BRUCE WEARNE. Has the Party Ended?
“I’m not doing anything until I get legal advice as to whether his (Dutton’s) membership of the Parliament is constitutional.” Continue reading »
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FRANK BRENNAN. Consolations from the Liberal Party mess.
What a mess! Poor Fellow My Country. Today is not a day for reckoning about any big policy issues, because none of them was in play when members of the Liberal Party cast their votes in the party room. Continue reading »
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GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND
A regular collection of links to writings and broadcasts covered in other media. Continue reading »
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GILES PARKINSON & SOPHIE VORRATH “Scoal-Mo” as PM. What does that mean for climate and energy policy? (RenewEconomy, 24.08.18)
It says something about the state of Australia’s politics that the new prime minister, the man who brandished a lump of coal in parliament, is considered a moderate, at least in comparison to the forces he beat to the job. Continue reading »
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RODNEY TIFFEN- How Turnbull shrank in the job
The most important date in the history of the Turnbull government was December 1, 2009. That was the day Tony Abbott defeated Malcolm Turnbull after a revolt by the right wing of the party defeated Turnbull’s support for an Emissions Trading Scheme to address global warming. Continue reading »
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ALEX MITCHELL. Before “ScoMo”, Scott Morrison was our No 1 pin-up bogeyman
In 2014 I was asked to write a profile of “the Left’s pin-up boy” and its “chief bogeyman”. Continue reading »
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DENIS MULLER. How the right-wing media have given a megaphone to reactionary forces in the Liberal Party.
The polarisation that is devouring Australia’s politics is reflected in the increasingly stark polarisation of the country’s professional mass media. Continue reading »
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JERRY ROBERTS. What was the plan?
Peter Dutton was set up to lose the next election and to lose it badly. That would have left the Liberals in an even more chaotic mess than they are in today. To whom should they turn for salvation? Why, of course, to Captain Chaos himself – Tony Abbot. That was the plan. Continue reading »
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BRUCE GUTHRIE. Hello Rupert, bye-bye Malcolm (The New Daily 23/8/2018)
Anyone who doubts Rupert Murdoch’s role in the political chaos that has played out in recent days has never worked for him at a senior level. Murdoch’s annual visits to Australia invariably trigger seismic events both in and outside News Corp, the company he’s presided over for decades. So is it any surprise that Malcolm Continue reading »
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TIM COLEBATCH. Let the voters decide (Inside Story, 23.08.18)
An early election is the only solution to the chaos in the Liberal party room. Continue reading »
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LARRY ELLIOTT. Think our governments can no longer control capitalism? You’ve been duped.
In reality there has been a class war, in which the right has spent decades using the state to undermine workers. We can fight back. Continue reading »
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VIC ROWLANDS: Where on earth are we going?
John Howard could smell political advantage under water. Tampa changed politics in this country for the worse and made any future rational discussion of immigration and refugees thereafter political poison. Howard was in Washington when the Twin Towers were struck and it understandably had an immense impact on him, but it is hard to avoid Continue reading »
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GREG BAILEY. The Australian Political Duopoly: are its days numbered?
Statistics of voting patterns over the past forty years have shown a consistent drift towards fringe and minor parties. Such a drift seems likely to continue whilst the duopoly of the LNP and the ALP continue to ignore the mainstream, both ideologically and as group worthy of receiving some intrinsic recognition. Continue reading »
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MICHAEL PASCOE. PM Dutton would abandon what has made Australia great (The New Daily, 22.08.18)
There’s a big hint in the job title – “leader”. It means the job is to lead, not to follow, not to merely manage a disparate group by appeasement, compromise and bribery. Continue reading »
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KIM WINGEREI. Vale the two-party system – the elephant in the room (Part2)
As Malcolm Turnbull was pushed from pillar to post on his National Energy Guarantee and renewable targets over the last month or so, Bill Shorten and his team were enjoying the spectacle from across the aisle. At no point did it occur to them that if they stepped in to support the proposed renewable energy Continue reading »
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GEOFF RABY. Australia needs a foreign policy not a speech (Australian Financial Review, 21.08.18)
The Prime Minister’s intervention last week to take charge of China policy and begin to set out a clearer framework for managing the relationship was much too late and probably too little, but it was a welcome start nonetheless. Continue reading »
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KIM WINGEREI. Vale the two-party system – long live democracy (Part 1)
On Monday the Fairfax-Ipsos poll showed that the combined support for Labour and the Liberal/National coalition was 68% – down almost 10% since the 2016 election. In other words, one third of voters prefer neither party. On Tuesday, we witnessed the unsavoury spectacle of yet another leadership spill in the Liberal Party; the sixth such Continue reading »
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TIM COLEBATCH. A party too divided to rule.
The reckoning has arrived for a party — and its Coalition partner — riven by cultural fixations. Continue reading »
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Turnbull survives as puppet of right wing, as Australia burns (RenewEconomy, 21.08.18)
At least in 2009, Turnbull left his job as then Opposition leader with his dignity intact.But not now. Continue reading »
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DAVID SPRATT & IAN DUNLOP. In the climate end-game, humanity has a big decision to make
Humanity has a big decision to make very soon about its future on warming planet, but the Federal Coalition is still in denial that human-induced climate change even exists, let alone that the climate end-game is upon us. Continue reading »
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JERRY ROBERTS. Will Turnbull call a snap election and let the people decide?
The 19 August Fairfax-IPSOS poll showed the Coalition with 33 per cent of the primary vote and Labor with 35 per cent. John Menadue added the two figures and deduced that 32 per cent would not have voted for any of the major Parties. The problem for pollsters after the drama of Tuesday morning in Continue reading »
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MARK HUDSON. The too hard basket: a short history of Australia’s aborted climate policies (The Conversation, 20.08.18)
Less than three years ago, after Malcolm Turnbull had wrested the prime ministership from Tony Abbott, I wrote an article entitled “Carbon coups: from Hawke to Abbott, climate policy is never far away when leaders come a cropper”. Continue reading »
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JOHN MENADUE. Peter Dutton is an embarrassment for all of us. Repost from March 21 2018
Peter Dutton failed as Health Minister. His track record since then is even worse. Continue reading »
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JOHN MENADUE. Drug policy reform series
Attached is a collection of articles on drug policy reform, which were published as a series on Pearls and Irritations between 6 and 11 August 2018.This series is designed to draw attention to this important issue, and to the failure of our current policies. Continue reading »
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WILL STEFFEN. A Fundamental Re-think of the Climate Change Challenge
Using a complex systems framework, we argue that a set of feedback processes intrinsic to the Earth System could form a planetary threshold which, if crossed, would not only speed up climate change, but also take the trajectory out of human control and propel the system irreversibly to a Hothouse Earth state. Continue reading »