We’ll know how badly Peter Beattie is doing over the health issue shortly because we are conducting an online poll into his handling of it. That said, the signs are not good for him. This morning’s Courier Mail carries the headline “Beattie fights revolt”. It then goes on to how he is giving himself “greater […]

I’ve been given a guided tour of fascism, or at least how fascism works, by responses to my OLO article Why it matters that Greenpeace lied and the press doesn’t seem to care. Despite clear video evidence that the Greenpeace Arctic Sunrise rammed the Japanese Nisshin Maru, any number of people have been claiming that […]

One of my heroes is Edmund Burke. He is claimed by the conservative tradition, but is persuasively portrayed as a liberal by Connor Cruise O’Connor in his The Great Melody. He spent his last 12 years in parliament working to impeach Warren Hastings. I can’t quite work out the relationship between corporation and state from […]

The defection to the Liberal Party of Victorian Nationals Senator Julian McGauran makes things harder for John Howard in the Senate. McGauran’s defection is unconscionable. Senators are elected on a party vote. Hardly any one votes for them in their own right. Therefore, as Nationals Leader Mark Vaile says he should resign if he feels […]

Terence Cole QC was the uncompromising head of the Royal Commission into the Building and Construction Industry. He found evidence that fraud, bribery, corruption and stand-over tactics were endemic in the industry. No surprises there. For his troubles he was villified by the some in the union movement, as well as Labor members of parliament, […]

Most Australians would be insulted to be called “conservative”, and while some Australian politicians, like John Howard, are conveniently branded as “conservative” just about all of them have a bias towards “progress”. But what happens when so-called “progress” becomes at best merely “change” or at worst “regress”? Name me one politician who is prepared to […]

George Bush has been having some problems negotiating an extension of his Patriot Act through the US Senate. In the latest manouevres the Act has been extended, but just for one month. Bush’s problem has been obvious for a while, and should have informed part of the debate on Australia’s new terrorism laws. Afterall, if […]

I’ve been on a beach holiday, watching the Cronulla debate with bemused interest, but with my brain too disengaged to want to blog. Now I’m back from the traditional mystical Australian Christmas ritual, and I could have been on sabbatical for ten years, rather than just a week. Almost a decade on from the One […]

As with large software projects, the only way to test Howard’s new laws is to run them in real time. If I went about threatening men of other cultural backgrounds because I took offense at their dress, manners, or choice of facial hair and headress, I would expect (even before the new laws were passed) […]

It has long been my belief that one of the duties of the Opposition is to defend the supremacy of the Parliament in our system of Government. That is why the statement yesterday by Lawrence Springborg that the former Health Minister, Gordon Nuttall, should be charged before the law courts with an offence arising from […]