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THERE is more than a technological difference between the Coalition’s new broadband policy and Labor’s National Broadband Network.
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STEPHEN Conroy and Malcolm Turnbull have something in common. The Communications Minister and his Opposition counterpart are each responsible for destroying worthwhile changes in Australian society by adopting the crash-or-crash through approach. Continue reading “Why media change and republic crashed”

MAJOR Ting Li has created a disturbance. Well, that is at least according to three of five Federal Court judges. Continue reading “Disturbance in the ranks”

DEPUTY ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr has asked rhetorically, “Is it really necessary for the government to maintain a register of real estate agents?” Well yes, and I’ll tell you why it is, Mr Barr. It is because ACT real estate agents handle an enormous amount of the public’s money in the form of deposits on houses pending settlement. Continue reading “Watch estate agents, for charity’s sake”

(This article did not make it to the web sitr when it was published in The Canberra Times last January)

I HAVE just finished reading Our Father, my sister’s wonderful biography of our father, Robert Edward Davison Hull, who was, among other things Anglican Rector of Beechworth, Victoria, from 1959 to 1977 — our formative years. Continue reading “Genealogy becomes an internet industry”

UNTIL the late 19th century, pharmacists made up their own medicines – in powders with pestle and mortar and with liquids. Then an invention to compress graphite to make better pencils was applied to medicines and little pills resulted. Pharmacists called them tabloids. Continue reading “Read all about it — going tabloid”

ARE the fat cats lining themselves up a final plate of cream before the Abbott axe falls in September? A look at the most recent ABS average weekly earnings figures suggests so. Continue reading “As you spend so shall you reap”

DUTCH politician Geert Wilders has certainly offended and insulted a few people this week on his short visit to Australia. And in doing so has unwittingly done us all a favour. Continue reading “Tolerating intolerance better than bans”

LAST week I mentioned Victorian Democratic Labor Party Senator John Madigan. He won his Victorian Senate in 2010 seat purely on the freak distribution of preferences after his party obtained just 2.3 per cent of the primary vote. Two elections previously, Victorian Family First Senator Steve Fielding similarly won on 2 per cent of the primary vote. Continue reading “Shrapnel candidates to muddy Senate vote”

In 2002, a Liberal insider told me that the ACT Liberal Party “is rolling on logs at the moment and someone is bound to fall in the water”. It was Keatingesque in its pictorial accuracy and a decade later the ACT party is in the same position. Continue reading “ACT Libs rolling on logs”