Despite my election-related criticisms of the Greens political party, the deal announced today between Julia Gillard and Bob Brown is a good one. Prime Minister Julia Gillard has agreed to a swag of demands from the Greens as part of a formal deal to join forces as Labor tries to secure a parliamentary majority. Immediately [...]
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Five articles I’m reading today
Rebuild the Party A pro Republican renewable website aimed at rejuvenating their grassroots. As Republicans, we face a choice. Either we can spend the next several months — or years — trying to figure out what just happened, excusing our defeat away as a temporary blip or the result of a poor environment, and waiting for [...]
Great news for Tony Abbott: Liberals’ economic credibility trashed
The Newspoll before the election has great news for Tony Abbott: the Liberals’ lead in polling on the economy has been trashed by Abbott’s economic innumeracy. For the last three weeks, Tony Abbott has refused to accept a debate with Julia Gillard on the economy (or any other issue). Labor has responded by running ads [...]
Great News for Tony Abbott: Tony Abbott is not a tech head, doesn’t understand economics either
There was a lot of reporting about Tony Abbott’s interview on 7:30 Report last night about the Liberal’s risible broadband policy. Tony Abbott repeatedly said “I don’t claim to be any kind of tech head in all of this”, basically admitting he didn’t have the faintest clue about his own policy. After all, no one [...]
There IS a News Ltd campaign against Labor
Crikey’s editorial tries to debunk the idea that there is a systematic campaign run by The Australian and News Limited against Labor. A more likely scenario is that the blunt and sometimes nasty coverage in News Limited newspapers of the government in general, and Julia Gillard in particular, is the collateral result of dumbed-down editorial [...]
Dear Richard
Just left this comment over at Richard di Natale’s blog. Looking forward to a response. Hi Richard, I can understand that you are frustrated that there is no price on carbon. Perhaps if you were in the Senate, you would have crossed the floor against your colleagues and voted in favour of the CPRS (as [...]
The Greens Party support citizens’ assemblies on everything but climate change
Adam Bandt (or maybe one of the Greens Party apparatchiks) wrote on the official Adam Bandt Facebook page: We already have a “citizen’s assembly” to deal with climate change, Prime Minister: it’s called Parliament. I’ve already spoken to people in Melbourne who are disappointed and angry at Labor’s latest climate greenwash and delay. People often say [...]
The “boring” election
Political journalists contribute significantly to misinformation about Australia’s political process, policies and civil society. They distort and distract, and with only a few exceptions their gutter-obsessed herd-mentality results in myopic and shallow commentary. Over at the Political Sword (an excellent blog whose authors’ commentary rivals that of the most experienced Press Gallery hack), Ad Astra [...]
The Climate Change Citizens Assembly
Ad Astra over at The Political Sword has a very interesting post about Julia Gillard’s citizens assembly policy. It’s a long post and it is all worth reading. I’ll excerpt a fairly large part below: I suppose we should not be surprised that most journalists have sneeringly dismissed the proposal by Julia Gillard to convene [...]
Election Diary, Day 1
When I got up this morning, instead of cartoons on Channel Nine, there was live coverage of Julia Gillard’s trip to the Governor General’s resident at Yarralumla. The election was being called. All this week, I’ve heard “insiders” say it would be called today, so I’m sure they’ll be gratified that they’ve been proven right. [...]
A case for reforming the election of Labor leaders
Labor members are able to directly elect the Federal President, and through representative delegates at conferences both rank-and-file members and union affiliates are able to elect State Labor Presidents. The most important leadership position, that of Parliamentary Labor Leader, is solely the preserve of Members of Parliament. This state of affairs had led to leadership [...]
The refugee debate dilemma: you can’t be “too tough”
The big public relations dilemma faced by progressive asylum seeker activists is that the overwhelming view from Australians is negative. A case in point is today’s Essential Media report, which asked about the Government’s approach to asylum seekers. The most alarming figures is the high number of people who think that the Government is being [...]
The NT Intervention: a case study in dog whistle politics
I wrote earlier in the week that dog whistle politics is about saying one thing that is interpreted differently by a specific, targeted section of the community to the rest of the community. In 2007, the Howard Government was hemorrhaging support to Labor from its traditional “base” in the mortgate beltways. The Rights At Work [...]
Trust and unions: some polling
Possum Pollytics reports on the 2010 professional rankings for honesty, conducted by Roy Morgan. The rankings are part of a ten-year series and asks people to rank various professions on their “perceived levels of honesty and ethical standards”. The list is an interesting one in and of itself, but I’m particularly concerned about the ranking [...]
Dog whistles
There’s a bit of discussion around the traps to do with dog whistling. The idea is that Tony Abbott is dog whistling to the electorate on the issue of refugees by talking about “being tough on boat people” (one of his 12 point plan is “Enforce strict border security and control”). Similarly, Abbott’s ad showing [...]
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Lessons from the (Modern) Prince, Part 4: Understanding the Greens in Tasmania
- No Clean Feed campaign needs to drop their "censorship" obsession
- Alan Kohler shows he doesn't know about politics
- The Robin Hood Tax
- Seven ways for unions to use Twitter
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The Labor-Greens deal
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Blogging will recommence when the count is resolved
- Five articles I’m reading today
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Election Diary, day 35: Why I’m betting on Labor
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Good news for Tony Abbott: Off the deep end on climate change
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Jeremy: Oh, you're right that Labor hasn't been ...
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Alexander White: In the last term, almost everything that Labor tri...
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mark: Tony Abbott would like to pensioners and old austr...
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