Category: Uncategorized

DON’T you hate it when your computer suddenly changes its behaviour without asking? Something that has worked for months or even years suddenly stops behaving that way.
In an office you can usually rely on the resident nerd to come and fix it. In a home office it is a different story. Continue reading “Internet excelling in publicness”

HOW nice to see Prime Minister Julia Gillard so concerned with child welfare that she put a telephone call in to the teenager jailed in Indonesia for allegedly breaking that country’s drug laws. And in the same week that her government put before Parliament legislation that would have enabled the Minister for Immigration to bundle refugee children to a foreign country and wash his hands of them. Continue reading “Regugee move right deed for wrong reason”

THEY have lined up in an utterly predictable way in the week since the Federal Court brought down its judgment that Andrew Bolt breached the Racial Discrimination Act. The Murdoch punditocracy and the Federal Opposition to a man and a woman declared it to be an outrageous infringement of freedom of speech. The left, including Fairfax’s usually sound and always funny Mike Carlton, declared it a victory against racism and bigoted journalism. Continue reading “Race bar too low for free speech”

THE former Prime Minister Paul Keating once said you should always back self-interest because at least you know the jockey is trying. Continue reading “Selfish clubs and spineless MPs”

WE HAVE such short memories. One wet, cool summer and an Opposition scare campaign takes 20 per cent off support for action on climate change. Two years after the Montara oil spill and 17 months after the Deep Water Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the Government continues to hand out exploration and drilling licences for oil off-shore. Continue reading “Foolish tax breaks for dangerous oil drilling”

IT LOOKS as if the Government is about to give the tobacco companies a leg to stand on in their objections to plain packaging.

If the Government cops another hiding in the High Court it will be entirely of its own making. The successful refugee challenge, remember, related to Howard-era legislation. If the tobacco companies have a win, or a partial win, it will be in relation to Gillard Government legislation. Continue reading “Plain packaging could go up in constitutional smoke”

THERE comes a time when a garden can be a greater expense and burden than a joy, and there is no need to have a large lounge room as well as a family room. And what about the fourth/bedroom study? Continue reading “Stamp duty blocks move to down-size”

LABOR MP Kelvin Thomson made an unintentional blunder in mid 2007 that almost certainly cost him a place in the new Rudd ministry. His subsequent backbench position, however, has given him the freedom to chime into the debate over what is perhaps the most important federal policy area – population. Continue reading “Witches hats make governing too hard”

LET me think for just a few seconds. What has been “the most disgraceful thing to happen to our democracy”? Continue reading “Truckwits’ attack on democracy”

SAME-sex marriage hovered in the political background again this week as Caucus approved legislation to make Commonwealth vetoes of ACT and Northern Territory legislation more difficult. The only times the veto has been threatened or carried out has been over gay marriage and euthanasia. Continue reading “Constitutional strife with same-sex marriage”