February 14, 2012 | Graham

Julia, if you can’t run your own office, how can you run the country?

I would cut the Prime Minister more slack than that, but I’m sure the opposition won’t.

Julia Gillard is starting to look like a serial offender. Succeeding a PM who had a reputation as a micro-manager she appears to be leaning so hard the other way that perhaps the word […] Continue Reading…

Posted by Graham at 8:39 am | Comments (7)
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February 03, 2012 | Ronda Jambe

Under the Moruya Moon (13)

The last few months on the south coast of New South Wales have been peaceful, content, full of activity, and a few fresh challenges. It was good to be far away last year, and wonderful to be back in such a benign part of the world. No desperate boat […] Continue Reading…

Posted by Ronda Jambe at 2:46 pm | Comments (1)
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January 26, 2012 | Nick

The boundaries of legitimate protest

As far as I can tell from the news reports, Julia Gillard wasn’t subjected to any actual violence today (unless you count being dragged to the car by her coppers), but we’ve never seen a Prime Minister being dragged by security like that before.  It is reasonable to infer […] Continue Reading…

Posted by Nick at 7:26 pm | Comments (41)

January 26, 2012 | Graham

Newman has bad Australia Day

The chances that Labor might hold Ashgrove at the next election just rose after Campbell Newman’s Australia Day performance in the electorate.

While he handled the predictable photo-op with incumbent Kate Jones appropriately, that seems to be where it stopped, at least on the basis of those segments run by […] Continue Reading…

Posted by Graham at 7:05 pm | Comments (1)
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January 25, 2012 | Graham

So this is what desperation looks like

Anna Bligh has called the state election for March 24, one week before the council elections were due to be held. As a result the government (she) is going to reschedule the council elections until late April early May. This is not just a cynical political ploy, but it […] Continue Reading…

Posted by Graham at 10:14 am | Comments (1)
Filed under: Australian Politics

January 22, 2012 | Ronda Jambe

The unctuous business of peak oil

Governments hiding information that we taxpayers have paid to produce is nothing new.  It is practiced by both sides of politics, and was one of the issues that sometimes brought me to grief as a public affairs officer in Canberra. The other side of the coin, throwing publications at […] Continue Reading…

Posted by Ronda Jambe at 3:52 pm | Comments (4)
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January 13, 2012 | Graham

Dark continent holds insight into Hendra virus

Researchers at Cambridge University, the Zoological Society of London and CSIRO have over-turned theories on Hendra virus in a study of an isolated colony of straw-coloured fruit bats on islands off the west coast of Africa and found that some African bats carry anti-viruses to the disease.

Previously it was […] Continue Reading…

Posted by Graham at 8:00 am | Comments (2)
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January 12, 2012 | Graham

Newman applies pressure to Bligh for timely election

Campbell Newman is stepping up pressure on Anna Bligh to call an election later this month by scheduling a very early campaign function for next  Tuesday.

It is a breakfast function where he is advertised to “be setting out his vision for 2012 in a year where Queenslanders will be […] Continue Reading…

Posted by Graham at 6:02 am | Comments (3)
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January 05, 2012 | Graham

Canonising a roadside shrine

I not infrequently drive down Moggill Road in the mornings, and since October or so last year I’ve been intrigued by this roadside shrine. It’s like many that have sprung up around Queensland on the sites of road accidents, but more substantial than any others that I have seen. […] Continue Reading…

Posted by Graham at 7:45 am | Comments (1)
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December 29, 2011 | Graham

Straits of Hormuz – you read it here first

Iran’s threat to close the Straits of Hormuz has only just hit the news tonight in Australia, and it looks like Australian coverage is pretty much in line with the international news organisations, judging by my google search.

It says something about how denuded mainstream media have become of genuine overseas […] Continue Reading…

Posted by Graham at 11:15 pm | Comments (6)
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