Category: Liberal Party

23 Sep

25 Comments

The modern crisis of Australian Laborism (Part 2)

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What happens now?

By MARC NEWMAN This article continues the analysis of Labor’s crisis — especially in terms of its meaning for trade unions and social movements — begun here. Despite the defeat of the ALP, the election was not a crushing victory for the conservatives. Fewer seats fell than expected, and some of the LNP gains in the lower [...]

11 Sep

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Caught up in Labor’s crisis: The Greens in 2013

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Bandt

My post-election analysis, including the contradictions of the Greens vote, went up at the Overland website on Tuesday. Lots of good discussion and debate in the comments, also. The Greens’ entry into the alliance was made possible because it took advantage of the rejection of both major parties in 2010, but with the ALP in [...]

31 Jul

2 Comments

Opinion polls, asylum seekers and Rudd’s strategy

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Rudd in charge

My latest piece at The Guardian, on how polls and public opinion have little to do with Rudd’s quest to establish political dominance: Again, the refugee issue clarifies Rudd’s approach. Central to his strategy is the use of regional (international) statecraft to establish authority. By having Indonesia expose Abbott’s plan to “turn back the boats” as a dangerous [...]

18 Jun

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Behind ALP crisis, elephant in room is Abbott’s weakness

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More the outsider than ever

Continuing my analysis of the Right of Australian politics, my first op-ed for The Guardian’s new Australian website is up today, and can be found here. The lack of enthusiasm for the conservatives was borne out in a remarkable poll of 24 marginal seats in March. It found a two-party preferred voting intention of 59.4% for the Coalition, [...]

09 Jun

6 Comments

How having the Left in government made life easy for Abbott

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Unceremonious bundling out

Here is an edited transcript of the speech I gave at the Secure Jobs in a Green Future Conference. Thanks to the Search Foundation for inviting me along, and to the other speakers on the panel: Sally McManus, Andrew Giles, Cate Faehrmann, Nick Martin and Hall Greenland. You can now access many of the presentations [...]

10 Apr

7 Comments

Thatcher, the ALP & the dregs of neoliberalism

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747387-thatcher-hawke

If there’s one thing the entire Australian Left agrees on right now it’s that “Thatcherism was a very bad thing”. But beyond that, it may be appropriate to ask what exactly it is that people think was a bad thing. The answer to that question rests on one’s interpretation of what exactly was going on [...]

23 Feb

6 Comments

After the divorce: Contradictions of Greens strategy

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Choices, choices...

With a sense of crisis swirling around the government, last Friday’s post on how the ALP’s problems run much deeper than a faulty “narrative” was republished at ABC’s The Drum. Then Christine Milne announced the end of the Greens-ALP agreement, and The Drum commissioned the piece below on the Greens. Now that comments are closed at the ABC website, we’re [...]

15 Feb

16 Comments

Truth, lies & narratives: What ALP’s crisis is not about

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Momentum

In a considered piece at ABC’s The Drum on Thursday, Jonathan Green highlighted a phenomenon that seems to overwhelm Australian politics — the inability of simple facts about the Gillard Government’s performance to overcome the stench of crisis hanging over it. He is correct to point out “that in assuming that the mere facts of its [...]

20 Mar

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Malcolm is not so in the middle

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Malcom

Here’s my latest for ABC’s The Drum website, published yesterday. Australian politics has a strange ‘centre’ at the moment, and the dial seems increasingly to fall at the feet of Malcolm Turnbull. His presence on shows like Q&A results in both calls for him to reassume the Liberal Party leadership, and the suggestion he is an ALP member in disguise. Analogies [...]