They say that you should never forgive, and never forget. Ken Jarrett and Robert Lacey might be forgiven for adhering to that litany, and adding another of their own – never confess. Who are Ken Jarrett and Robert Lacey? They are the members of a reasonably exclusive club of the reluctantly honest. Jarrett was the […]

My older daughter, Libby, has been reading Rotten Romans one book in a series of Horrible Histories. It explains that the Romans beat the Britons because while both the Romans and the Britons made military mistakes, the Romans learnt from their mistakes and tended to only make them once. When I was a kid growing […]

“Worst of the worst?” was the title of a Four Corners investigation into Mamdouh Habib on 20th July, 2004. Anyone wanting to weigh into the debate about his detention and then lack of trial ought to read the transcript. In showing that he wasn’t the worst of the worst the programme still demonstrated he was […]

As I predicted soon after last election – Howard government control of the Senate is likely to lead to more intra-Liberal Party activism than in previous parliaments (certainly any in the ’90s). One sign of that is the newly formed Backbench Tax/Welfare reform group co-chaired by Victorians Sophie Panopoulos and Mitch Fifield. But what does […]

The last fortnight’s shennanigans show just why Mark Latham won the Labor leadership in the first place, and why federal Labor is likely to continue to lose elections. Mark Latham was a supporter of On Line Opinion from an early stage, and one of the few Members of Parliament with any intellectual depth. He seemed […]

Former Liberal Party bagman Ron Walker wants the Federal Government to buy WMC’s Olympic Dam “in the national interest”. WMC is under a takeover offer from Swiss company Xstrata. This is the same company that recently took over MIM, and more pertinently also bought a vanadium resource from PMA in Western Australia. The stock in […]

Still waiting to see whether Lawrence Springborg is prepared to discuss alternative futures to marrying his estranged Liberal Party “sweetheart”, but in the meantime her oldest living relic – John Howard – has bought into the fray again. In an article by Dennis Atkins in yesterday’s Courier Mail Howard both rules out and rules in […]

According to The Courier Mail two days ago, the Queensland National Party is compiling a wish list of infrastructure projects on which to spend the $30 billion predicted from the sale of Telstra. From the news item it looks like they intend to spend the whole of the sale proceeds on “dam, road and irrigation […]

While I’m waiting for Lawrence Springborg to post a reply I thought I might run some Queensland gossip. Latest and hottest rumour in the Queensland Liberal Party is that Senator Santo Santoro and Councillors Caltabiano and Nicholls are heading to state parliament. The three are factional allies and exercise significant influence over the party, but […]

What’s the problem with the wool industry? Two competing theories have run in the papers over the last two days. An opinion piece (subscribers only, so no link) in yesterday’s Fin Review by the former communications manager of the Australian Wool Corporation essentially claims it’s a lack of promotion by a central marketing authority. The […]