JASON STEVENS should be playing for the NSW Blues against the Queensland Maroons at the Olympic Stadium tonight – he won’t be but tomorrow he has perhaps an even more important assignment at the 2004 Hillsong Conference at the Sydney SuperDome. What is the Hillsong Conference you may well ask? Jason Stevens is not your […]

It has often been claimed that those who preceded John Howard and Associates in power were banished because they were distant from most Australians. Although the alleged aloofness of Paul Keating’s Labor is sometimes argued to have been chiefly economic, their commitment to supporting the advancement of groups such as women has frequently, if paradoxically, […]

Maybe they like the attention, or perhaps they are plain obstinate, or maybe even just being boof-headed, but the “team” behind www.johnhowardlies.com have struck back at my post with this letter to Crikey!. It’s not surprising, given his Liberal Party credentials, that Graham Young would seek to defend (this morning’s sealed) the Prime Minister and […]

Should John Howard sue for defamation? I would, that’s if I were John Howard and had seen the site www.johnhowardlies.com. Alternatively, I might go to this site www.afternic.com/rcom.php?ref_id=2987 where I can make an anonymous offer to buy the URL. On reflection, I’d sue for defamation, and you’d be entitled to ask why? Afterall, aren’t election […]

WHEN I was at school we were taught almost as much about Canada – and other Commonwealth countries – as we were about Australia. Times have changed, and I venture to suggest that most politicians here could not name the Canadian Prime Minister. One who no doubt can, and add the name of the Opposition […]

So the Occupation has ended in a secret ceremony! What a bathetic joke. I was tempted to write ‘So that is how the Occupation ends, not with a bang but a whimper.’ Except of course that the Occupation has not ended and there will certainly be a lot of bangs within the next day or […]

Yesterday marked the sixth anniversary of the Beattie Government’s ascension to power (gee, it only felt like five years and three hundred and sixty-five days). There would be few people who would argue that Beattie hasn’t be a good leader; his ability to meld populism with socially progressive policies has been quite skilful. Although some […]

President George W Bush’s faith makes it predictable that sex education in American schools is increasingly about teaching teenagers not to do it, rather than how they should protect themselves when they do. While public promises to abstain prior to the honeymoon gives pleasure to fundamentalist Christians, a Columbia University study cited recently in The […]

THE Rt Hon David Blunkett is one of the more interesting Members of the Blair Government in the UK. He is also one of the most powerful – and successful. Totally blind, David Blunkett has held the largest, and most complex Ministry in the UK, Home Affairs, since 2001. The Home Secretary is responsible for […]

THE credibility of the commitment by the Anglican Church to dealing resolutely with the mishandling of sex abuse issues over many decades is about to be put to a significant test. The allegations against the former Archbishop of Adelaide, Dr Ian George, cannot be allowed to die forever with his forced resignation just six weeks […]