Category: Uncategorized

IN 1975 the then Liberal Opposition Leader, Malcolm Fraser, formulated a doctrine that an Opposition which controlled the Senate could refuse an elected government Supply (the money to govern) if the Government engaged in “reprehensible conduct”. Continue reading “People’s recall better than royal sackings”

OPPOSITION Leader Tony Abbott is on to something in portraying the Government’s climate-change policy as a great big tax and in ruling out an emissions trading scheme or any carbon impost. He is cleverly tapping into behavioural economics theory, whether consciously or not. Continue reading “Rational appeal to the irrational on climate”

IT IS broke and it should be fixed.

The double-dissolution mechanism in the Constitution is flawed. This week’s second rejection of the climate-change legislation and previous cases prove the point. The double dissolution is a sledge-hammer to crack a walnut. It requires expensive national disruption to resolve legislative impasses. We should be able to craft easier ways. Continue reading “Climate stalemate shows Constitution is broke”

IT IS hard to work out which cliché best suits the position of News Ltd, and indeed many newspaper companies. Is it between a rock and a hard place or is in on the horns of a dilemma? Continue reading “Murdoch gives ‘para-site’ a new meaning”

NEWS Ltd did not look down and shuffle its feet a bit. There was no sense of embarrassment or even bemusement.

This fortnight’s regular Newspoll published on Tuesday revealed an astonishing increase in Labor’s vote and a dramatic decline in the Coalition’s. The two-party preferred vote swung four per cent to Labor from 52-48 to 56-44 from the Newspoll a fortnight before. Continue reading “Too much riding on the polls”

FORMER NSW Premier Bob Carr and the cohort of conservative commentators who are wary of judges usurping elected representatives if we have a charter of rights should read a judgment brought down by the High Court this week. Continue reading “Judges can be trusted with rights charter”

YESTERDAY was the 10th anniversary of the defeat of the referendum on the republic. If successful, the referendum would have ended the last vestige of legal discrimination against Catholics and women in the Australian political system. Continue reading “Objections to monarchy still powerful 10 years on”

THE media does not mean to distort. The vast bulk of journalists honestly try to get it right.

Indeed, when you look convictions for dishonesty and corruption, journalists do not feature much. But the media does distort. And the distortion costs Australian society dearly in the way of poor policy making by politicians who cannot help but keep a warier eye on the ballot box than the overall long-term public good. Continue reading “Rudd’s trouble with people”

‘WERE’S the money coming from?” is the theme of the mammal v dinosaur stoush between ABC managing director Mark Scott and News Ltd’s Rupert Murdoch. It is a battle of survival because without money there is no survival. Continue reading “Dinosaur News Ltd v Mammal ABC”

SO THOSE those right-wing ideologues have their noses out of joint because they do not think that Barack Obama deserved the Nobel Peace Prize. But imagine how far further their noses would be out of joint if he actually did the things that would make him truly worth it. Continue reading “What Obama should have done for his prize”