Latest Opinons on The Punch
During election campaigns, Canberra is to national politics what a hole is to a doughnut - defining, but of no interest.
That changed with a rush in the wake of the closest result in a century. With neither side able to claim a majority, both leaders rushed back to the national capital to court a suddenly pivotal troika of independents, Bob Katter, Tony Windsor, and Rob Oakeshott - all former Nationals members.
But rather than filling in the ``hole’‘, the unedifying horse-trading now underway Canberra has done the opposite. Bluntly, the nation is in danger of being dropped right in it.
Continue reading "Dawn of a new democracy? More like a siege" »
Note: While technically this piece qualifies as nepotism I am sick of writing about the election and Uncle Ken is a top bloke who has done a great thing.
Furniture is not commonly associated with politics. Bob Geldof did not try to feed the world with a chair.
My Uncle Ken Pfitzner is a gifted Adelaide cabinetmaker who spent a life-changing year of his adolescence travelling through Africa where, among other things, he was memorably attacked by a baboon.
Since then he has led a quieter life creating and restoring amazing pieces of furniture from his shambolic workshop in Edwardstown.
Continue reading "My uncle’s tribute in timber to the people of Africa" »
Latest 2 of 2 comments
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Ziggy says:
Good and noble sentiment and deeds. Wish him well. Africa is a basket case and I despair of how to help solve the problems. I spent much of my life fighting wars in Angola, the Congo,Zaire,Zimbabwe and Rwanda. I became badly depressed by all the horror and lack of any… Read more »
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Jaimes says:
Good on you Ken You’re right when you say that “many Australians aren’t familiar with” suffering and starvation in Sudan ... likewise many other impoverished nations, a large number of them in Africa. You’ve created a beautiful piece to raise awareness, and I wish you the best of luck Read more »
With the whole nation absorbed in post-election intrigue, I’m declaring today’s reading list a politics-free zone. But before I do, I’d like to nominate my favourite ‘what the?’ moment from the coverage of the election campaign.
I rule out going with Mark Latham’s transformation into a ‘journalist’ because it’s far too obvious. An in-depth analysis of the size of Julia Gillard’s earlobes is a hot contender but also too predictable, given the fun cartoonists have been having with that issue for years.
A front page profile of Rhys Muldoon certainly caught my fancy, complete with its ‘Underbelly’ style photo, implying that the ‘Playschool’ actor had some sinister inside influence in Canberra. But to my taste, nothing topped this rolled-gold quote in a revealing profile of Kevin Rudd:
Latest 2 of 14 comments
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Jaimes says:
Top reads as always - the New Yorker never fails to impress, the article on end-of-life choices was insightful and more than a little teary. I wasn’t aware that Christopher Hitchins had been diagnosed with cancer, I’m a huge fan of his writing - I will be following his struggle… Read more »
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Oz Ocker says:
RE Mark Latham as a journo. Some years back British MP John Profumo was caught in a call girl scandal. The aforesaid call girls were described in the media as “models”. The head of the Models Association released a press statement saying her members regarded the call girls as “journalists.”… Read more »
Julia Gillard’s office has just released some letters she sent to Tony Abbott regarding caretaker conventions and one of the most interesting things about them was the signature. Here’s her signature from the letter dated August 25.
And here’s what she wrote two days later on August 27.
I have to admit the unsightly scrawl I call my signature changes almost every time I write it. But I wonder what the hand writing experts would tell us about this.
Latest 2 of 81 comments
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Gerard says:
At least we know now that she hasn’t just given someone in her office a stamp with her signature, a la Fishnets Downer. Read more »
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Julie Coker-Godson says:
The second signature of later date looks a bit wobbly as if the author of it was uncertain of signing. But that’s my HO only of course. Read more »
The Greens might not have the balance of power in the Senate until next July but one of Bob Brown’s proposals, a parliamentary debate on our military commitment in Afghanistan, should be indulged well before then.
Nine years into a war that has recently grown much more dangerous for our troops the two major political parties have fallen back on a bit of a “just because” argument for why we should remain in such a Hell hole.
It’s an accepted reality that both sides are in unanimous support for our mission. But as public unease with the growing Australian toll intensifies, our leaders have failed to properly articulate much beyond championing our training role and that “progress is being made.”
Continue reading "What exactly are we aiming for in Afghanistan?" »
Latest 2 of 142 comments
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Gregg says:
Well Chongy, Not that I’m not surprised but for starters have you ever thought of the word Strategy, like in Afghanistan being a strategic location to them. Their intrusion was at a time before much more strife in their Stans provinces and sunsequent independence generally. But from Afghanistan if they… Read more »
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Gregg says:
Peter, You do repeat yourself but just like Julia says moving forward repeatedly does not mean we will nor does your repeating mean what you say is any truer and you yourself have actually distorted words for ” The Japanese would have rolled over our fathers and grandfathers if not… Read more »
Should Australia make a quick return to the polls, stand by for the el cheapo election re-run, where the late night Guthy-Renker advertisements for the Sham-Wow chamois system and the Zumba high-energy dance program are interrupted by statements from a guy called Tony and a woman called Julia about their vision for the nation.
After the style of Bob Dylan’s Subterranean Homesick Blues, the leaders will spruik their major policies on a series of hand-written cardboard flashcards.
There will be no money for focus group testing.
Continue reading "The NEW! improved low-fi el cheapo election campaign" »
Latest 2 of 50 comments
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Julie Coker-Godson says:
@Robert S McCormick: Bring in the Army? Are you serious? I don’t think so: things haven’t deteriorated to such an extent that we need to even think about such a move. I’m as impatient as anyone to see the end of this farce, and it is a farce, but bringing… Read more »
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Gerard says:
I agree, the call for another poll is ridiculous. Do we just keep having one election after another until we get a result that suits the major parties? Setting aside a result on the basis that ‘the voters got it wrong’ sounds a lot like what happens in Zimbabwe. Read more »
Few of us will ever know how it feels to be as wealthy or perhaps as drop-dead gorgeous as Elin Nodergren, but plenty of people following the Tiger Woods saga will understand how it feels to be betrayed by someone you love.
In her first and only interview with US People magazine this week, Nordergen admitted to have been completely “blindsided” by Tiger’s actions, that their marriage for her was a “real one” and that she had never doubted Woods for a second.
“For the last three-and-a-half years, when all this was going on, I was home a lot more with pregnancies, then the children and my school.
“I was blindsided…I felt stupid and embarrassed,” she said of her reactions to the seemingly unending revelations of Tiger’s infidelities.
Latest 2 of 67 comments
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Ray Graham says:
Oh well another bloke caught being unfaithful. In each of these circumstances who knows that the wife has not been unfaithful as well. One thing for sure she couldn’t play golf, didn’t teach Tiger, and contributed SFA to the fortune her and Tiger accrued. Any how that’s by the by… Read more »
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Lisa says:
Godinpump, when it’s your turn to ‘father and heir’, I hope you find the woman you so richly deserve: as selfless, considerate, co-operative and responsible as yourself. People like you have made the world exactly what it is today. On the other hand, my own husband is very different. And… Read more »
The Australian Greens is a political party that comes to wreck and to not build.
Their grand plan is to turn Australia, the fourteenth largest economy in the world into Tasmania writ large.
Modern Tasmania lives off the redistributionist largesse of Commonwealth subsidies and public service salaries. Two thirds of the island State is locked up in national parks and its population growth has been historically anaemic for many decades. Through the Hare-Clarke system, development and entrepreneurialism is gridlocked – a happy outcome if you are an advocate of zero population growth and genteel poverty.
Continue reading "The Greens plan for Australia: A big Tasmania" »
Latest 2 of 63 comments
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Julie Coker-Godson says:
@Peter: ... and I wonder whether a vote for the Greens is a vote for Communism too? These people are frightening. That photo gave me the creeps - I won’t sleep again! LOL Read more »
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Eric Ireland says:
The Greens do not have a policy to reduce immigration rates. Their policy is to increase the number of places for refugees, and to lower the intake the other immigrants, so that the overall immigration rate remains about the same. Read more »
I was at a pub a couple of weeks ago and a friend asked my prediction about the election. Not much into making predictions I speculated that Abbott would do better than anyone expected and the ALP were running a campaign that could ruin them. One of my other friends jumped in and said, ‘it’s the tax, the mining tax, the idiots should never tax the one thing that makes us rich’.
An interesting debate followed that only ended when someone reminded me that it was ‘my shout’. Being a Saturday night and with the footy on the big screen, I think we simultaneously decided that this discussions about tax do not make for an ideal night out.
While the country remains in political limbo and the power brokers are cutting deals, the mining tax is one of those issues that seem to be bubbling below the service.
Continue reading "Why the Independents should dig the mining tax" »
Latest 2 of 40 comments
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James Arvanitakis says:
Hey Simon You can disagree with my position on the tax, call me a pinko or a communist… but please, do not accuse me of being in bed with the ALP: that vision makes my skin crawl! I think the idea of a sovereign fund is the way to go…… Read more »
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Gregg says:
Well Badger, Mayfair may not have been specific enough for you but not all mines will be fly in/fly out and even with the ones that are, there will be plenty of people employed in running the camps, a few of the latest ones a bit more like holiday resorts… Read more »
I voted for the first time this election. Willing to be a swinging voter in return for a competent government, I should have been the perfect target for a campaigning politician.
Yet the major parties do a better job at alienating youth than including us.
The incapacity to decipher anything politicians say or mean is alienating to youth who prefer a quick sound bite that is straight to the point. For voters of every age, accessing information more substantial than if the ‘real’ Julia or Tony is out today or who has better suited ears for Prime Ministership was hard this election.
After this weekend no one can doubt Australia’s frustration with such a shallow campaign.
Continue reading "Shallow campaigns have alienated young voters" »
Latest 2 of 63 comments
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Pedantic says:
I’m just being a pedant but the seat of Melbourne isn’t actually the Greens first lower house seat. They used to have Cunningham which they once won in a 2002 by-election. It is however the first lower house seat they’ve won in a general election. That said, as someone who… Read more »
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Ryan says:
Just to clarify, the first Greens Federal MP was Michael Organ in the seat of Cunningham in NSW from 2002 to 2004, who defeated the now incumbent Sharon Bird. The only difference then was that we didn’t have a hung parliament and he was completely ineffective (as, for example, the… Read more »
- Punch on: Open thread 27/08/2010 24
- 10 new demands from the three independents 64
- The next Cousins instalment better include some remorse 94
- What could Abbott be thinking? 240
- Revealed! The secret Bob and Julia tapes 74
- Quality vinyl: the top 25 side one track ones of all time 122
- When it comes to women’s fashion, size does matter 82
- True confessions of a Neighbours addict 42
- The foreign affairs guessing game: first stop for the PM? 12
- Punch on: Open thread 26/08/2010 35
Ten rounds
All the news that's fit to click
- Gillard on collision course with indies over Greens dealings [The Australian]
- Voters in indies seats back Abbott Government [the australian]
- Bikie spy leaked police files [smh]
- Julian Assange has female enemies says his son [news.com.au]
- Man held as 'slave' by Bathurst couple for six months [Daily Telegraph]
- Newton's crack legal team ready to go [news.com.au]
- Hogan fails in bid to overturn travel ban [The Age]
- Five of the Chilean miners depressed [bbc]
- Warriors smash baby Broncos [fox sports]
- Freemantle score home final [Herald Sun]
Opinion from everywhere
- This whole thing is a circus, and the indies are to blame [Laurie Oakes, Daily Telegraph]
- Hung parliament will change Labor and the Libs [Dennis Shanahan, The Australian]
- Our economy is growing quite nicely [Ross Gittins, SMH]
- What a joke the Cousins documentary was [Miranda Devine, SMH]
- What about a bit of gratitude to Hogan? [Andrew Carswell, Daily Telegraph]
- Deporting ethnic minorities a return to dark times [Peter Curson, The Drum]
- Trapped miners advice from psychologists and astronauts [Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience]
- The case against envy [Conor Friedersdorf, The Atlantic]
- Don't ask me about pub quizzes, I know nothing [Ceri Radford, Telegraph.co.uk]
- When to use ie in a sentence [The Oatmeal]
Punch live
Up to the minute Twitter chatter
My carpenter uncle Ken made this amazing credenza to raise funds for Sudan http://tinyurl.com/27gf9gl Do your bit at http://www.timpir.org/
RT @marklittlenews: ''We advise you to be alert to your own security in Ireland". says Australian govt. http://tgr.ph/cGDaqH via @telegraph
Top story on the Nine News: Paul Hogan, now with a live cross from the airport!
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The talk of the town
- We don't need new politics, we just need a new election 318
- What could Abbott be thinking? 240
- Cut the crap, independents tell Gillard and Abbott 203
- Democracy will benefit from a healthy shade of Green 199
- What exactly are we aiming for in Afghanistan? 142
- They don't totally love us but they like us a teensy bit more 133
- Quality vinyl: the top 25 side one track ones of all time 122
- Is it Rudd to the rescue once more? 104
- The next Cousins instalment better include some remorse 94
- Humble pie anyone? Top 10 furphies of the 2010 election 91
Gentle jabs to the ribs
Gillard and Abbott get a digital makeover
Warning: this has nothing to do with politics. We thought we’d see how the Prime Minister and Opposition… Read more
The story behind the picture
An inside view of the last days of the Gillard campaign
By all accounts this election has been really boring and as a photographer I wanted to do something different… Read more
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