23 November, 2011
President Barack Obama’s speech to the Australian Parliament, like those of his predecessors, was indeed an historic occasion.
Amidst the hype and ceremony, I can’t help but wonder if a couple of Labor Minister didn’t squirm a little in their seats as the President reminded us: “We seek tra...
11 October, 2011
They boldly claim “we are the 99 per cent” - it’s their official catchcry - so unless you consider yourself among the uber rich and powerful, these folks are your new voice. So they’ll be speaking for you when they wave their glib and nebulous placards declaring “people not profits” and “be th...
09 September, 2011
If once you forfeit the confidence of your fellow-citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem. – Abraham Lincoln
Perhaps the most damaging outcome of all the dysfunction wrought by the Gillard Government is the shocking loss of respect for the office of Prime Minister itse...
22 August, 2011
This week the right to peaceful public assembly got a bit of a battering. And those wielding the sticks were none other than freedom-of-speech-loving journalists.
The derision with which many critiqued the anti carbon tax rally seemed, to use one of their favourite descriptors, extrem...
03 August, 2011
Remember those rabid beta-tape aficionados of the late 70s and early 80’s?
You know, the ones who swore they had found the one true technology and held firm to their allegiance as the video library shelves became chock-o-block full of VHS tapes and the beta tapes were relegated to a d...
20 July, 2011
While the media last week fixated on the political “divide” in Australia, with vastly divergent views expressed on the carbon tax at the forums and some confrontations between people with passionate viewpoints, it’s worth remembering that every day of every week, Aussies are getting on with their li...
05 July, 2011
When the sun rose yesterday morning, optimistic Federal Labor MPs must have woken up thinking, “Monday morning – time for damage control”, their more pessimistic comrades would probably have been thinking “a new week, a new fiasco”.
The weekend announcement that some motor vehicle users wil...
21 June, 2011
The high political farce of the last few days is unprecedented. Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd are tearing each other to shreds and nameless Labor MPs are also leaping into the fray. It’s rapidly turned into a can’t-look-away episode of Jerry Springer; “Knifed in the back a year ago and still mad as h...
08 March, 2011
It’s a strategy that President Obama’s spin team employed when he was neck-deep in political hot water over an incredibly unpopular health care policy – demonise the critics.
Instead of addressing valid criticisms, damn the people making them.
Witness the way the groundswell “Tea Party” movement w...
01 February, 2011
Last weekend - while you were taking the kids to the beach, buying those extra back-to-school necessities, or for many, still counting the toll of recent devastating floods – unleaded petrol prices in capital cities rose an average 15 cents a litre at Coles and Woolworths outlets to a massive 143.9 ...
19 January, 2011
While devastating floodwaters recede in the north even as they rise in the south, Australians are understandably shocked by what has occurred in the past few weeks.
It could happen again. Photo: Getty Images.
The extent of the tragedy and loss of life, property and infrastructure is indeed numbing...
19 October, 2010
Last Monday at Parliament House in Canberra, I asked the Water Minister, Tony Burke about the impact of devastating cuts to irrigation entitlements in North East Victoria as proposed in the Murray Darling Basin Plan. Mr Burke refused to answer my question.
I have also called on Mr Burke and...
12 July, 2010
Remember Kevin from Queensland who was “here to help”?
Pre-election 2007 the Australian public were given a rock-solid guarantee that Kevin Rudd was a fiscal conservative who would lead a responsible Government with a strong hand on the till.
Thanks to Labor’s spi...
07 May, 2010
It’s becoming apparent that the Rudd Government has slaughtered the goose that laid the golden egg – all for one grand pre-election meal.
It’s not so much the $16 billion that was shaved off the share price of resources stock within the first three days of Rudd’s shameful tax-grab-masquerad...
24 April, 2010
The NSW Government is currently trialling Ethics classes for students in year 5 as an alternative to the Religious Education that has been a weekly feature of public education in that state.
In today’s fast paced world, where concepts of right and wrong are increasingly blurred in a stream ...
26 March, 2010
The most telling part of the Health debate this week was when a journalist questioned Kevin Rudd about the fact that what was desperately needed (and not in his shiny new plan) was more hospital beds.
Rudd responded in classic bureaucrat-speak, asserting that “the funding that we've p...
12 March, 2010
The most extensive, economically significant policy proposal to support working women in decades is put forward by a major political party… so where are the feminists and women’s groups?
Why is there such a conspicuous silence from those who “whooped” and figuratively threw streamers when t...
12 February, 2010
It’s fairly clear to anyone who watched Kevin Rudd on the ABC’s Q & A this week that a group of young Australians very succinctly exposed the shallowness and symbolism that underpins much of Labor’s “policy” argument.
These young people displayed a healthy scepticism and a...
30 October, 2009
“Life’s about film stars and less about mothers
It’s all about fast cars and cussing each other
But it doesn’t matter cause I’m packing plastic
and that’s what makes my life so f***ing fantastic
And I am a weapon of massive consumption
and it’s not my fault, it’s how I’m programmed to...
19 October, 2009
In a speech last month, our outspoken Treasury Secretary Ken Henry referred to the hitherto unknown but enticingly-titled “Treasury well being framework” as a measure of determining what is best for families and working parents.
Wow ! After years as the ultimate BBQ stopper-conversation, maybe the ...
02 October, 2009
It is just a matter of time before we once again see an outraged local community - concerned Mums, Dads and Grandparents – holding placards and rallying against having convicted paedophile Dennis Ferguson as a neighbour.
It’s happened at least 4 times in the last 5 years, and the scene will...
18 September, 2009
The antics of the Minister for Women, Tanya Plibersek, this week are the latest in a long line of Labor tactics that continue to diminish and devalue the vital parliamentary arena of question time.
The point she made so loudly and proudly about the Opposition not allocating many questions to Coalit...
04 September, 2009
Noted US Professor of Economics James Heckman is a much quoted figure by the Australian Labor Party. In these times of economic upheaval and challenge his message has a unique and appealing social angle – essentially his work outlines the economic benefits of investing well in early ch...
24 August, 2009
Close examination of the Rudd Government’s much-touted childcare reforms brings to mind the wonderful quote by Milton Friedman “the government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem”.
In this case, it may in fact be worse.
Labor’s proposals for more highly qualified staff in al...
12 August, 2009
Generation X (broadly defined as those born 1961-1981) was labelled the “me” generation by their earnest baby boomer parents – they were regarded as self-absorbed and too selfish to commit to marriage and parenting.
So what happens when the “me” generation is in charge of the next generation?
The ...
05 August, 2009
“A peculiar thing about the Puddin' was that, though they had all had a great many slices off him, there was no sign of the place whence the slices had been cut. 'That's where the Magic comes in,' explained Bill. 'The more you eats the more you gets.” - Norman Lindsay...
27 April, 2009
The news this week that the proportion of women on corporate boards and in the top management of Australia’s leading companies is actually shrinking has come as a shock to many.
Australia was once ranked second only to America in the number of top companies with a woman senior executive, and we now...
27 April, 2009
If there is any silver lining to be found in the unfortunate collapse of ABC Learning, it has to be the renewed media and community focus on both the nature and future of childcare in Australia.This is a debate we desperately need to have.Although conspicuous by her absence in dealing with the fallo...
27 April, 2009
“A peculiar thing about the Puddin' was that, though they had all had a great many slices off him, there was no sign of the place whence the slices had been cut. 'That's where the Magic comes in,' explained Bill. 'The more you eats the more you gets.” - Norman Lindsay’s “The Magic Pudding”
Gene...
27 April, 2009
“Our job as policymakers is to ensure young children have access to a calm, stimulating environment run by professionals.” – Maxine McKew, Opinion Piece in SMH 23 November 2008.
“At a time when so many parents lead stressed lives and when so many others pile on the expectations, how wonderful it is...