The Australian Historical Association is holding its 2006 Conference at the Australian National University on July 3-7 The program includes items such as “Pool Politics: the emergence of a distinctive swimming pool culture in suburban Sydney” and “The early Chinese Restaurant and ‘White’ Australia”. One item of note is the session 11 am to 12:30 […]

Septuagenarian Rupert Murdoch graciously shared some advice for sextuagenarian John Howard with the world – go while you’re on top of your game. Advice that Rupert is sure to heed himself. No-one is inexpendable after all! In fact, as our latest “What the people want” polling shows, according to public opinion John Howard is the […]

Crikey calls him “Dollar Sweetie” but I prefer to call him “Prince Charles”. Not just because “Charles” and “Costello” start with the same letter, but because John Howard is starting to get that familiar-comfortability that Queen Elizabeth has. We’ll have to reimagine England after her, because without her England has really become unimaginable. Howard’s similarly […]

If Bill Shorten is any sort of political seer, it appears that Kim Beazley will lose the next election, but he has Bill’s support to remain as leader. In the introduction to yesterday’s The National Interest, new presenter Peter Mares referred to the “…deep malaise that keeps the ALP out of power,” before proceeding to […]

One of the reasons given by Senator Julian McGauren for his decision to switch to the Liberal Party is that the National and Liberal Parties are virtually indistinguishable does not measure up with a state-by-state comparison of party relations. Indeed, at the state level, it has been a long time since relations have been more […]

I was surprised that the community’s reaction to the hanging of Van Nguyen was not more overwhelmingly against what is a barbaric form of capital punishment than it was and given a generally sympathetic media coverage to his plight. Listening to a range of open line programs, and talking to a reasonable cross section of […]

The drama, the excitement, the shiver of shadenfreude has passed with the wind. Katrina? long gone, months ago now, just another major crisis somewhere else. Not much mention anymore about the ongoing problems, the health complaints of the over-stressed returning refugees. Like Kashmir, these can be forgotten, now that they are off the media radar […]

Last week’s debate about the dismissal of the Whitlam Government 30 years ago completely overlooked one critical aspect of the events leading up to 11 November 1975. And that is simply this – the appointment of the Right Honourable Sir John Robert Kerr as Governor General of Australia by the Honourable Edward Gough Whitlam was […]

As Canberra gets colder, the coast beckons. Just over 2 hours away, you can count on temperatures 4-5 C warmer. And the possibility of rain is a lure on its own. Repeatedly I am taken aback in Canberra by middle aged women who tell me of their distress at the lack of rain. A doctor’s […]

I worked for a senior Liberal Minister in the early years of the Bjelke-Petersen Government so I knew him relatively well. He was ever courteous to me – but that was before the Liberals became as much as the enemy as Labor always was. The current debate about his record and legacy is interesting. But […]