Journalism and other writing
(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”
FRIENDS and acquaintances have been citing Dorothea Mackellar and Hanrahan in recent days, as fires, droughts and flooding rains sweep the continent from one far horizon to the other. Continue reading “On electoral and climate change”
Old stuff scanned and put on the web. This one from 1997.
AT FIRST I thought it was a paradox. Travel in Mexico is either dogged by the manana mentality with endless delay or it is done at break-neck speed risking life and limb. Continue reading “Fast lane in slow manana land”
ON ONE, ideology goes out the window. Principle is of no moment. Political foes become expedient friends. That matter is the electoral process. As a rule, political parties will ask only one question about changes to the electoral law: will this benefit or hurt my party. Nothing else matters. Continue reading “Electoral advantage — they’ll vote for that”
COULD you imagine Paul Keating or Malcolm Fraser making the following the core of their New Year speech (take a deep breath and wade through to the end of the three paragraphs please): Continue reading “Entitlement mentality leads to paralysis”