By John van Tiggelen on the 1st of October 2013
In January, Julia Gillard announced that the federal election would be held on 14 September. As an attempt to lock in her agenda and lock out Kevin Rudd, it failed on both fronts. At the Monthly, we were settling in for a long year, with Mungo MacCallum beginning our February issue as follows: “If it does nothing else, the election year of 2013 will vindicate some political careers and...
By Michaela McGuire on the 27th of September 2013
The new Education Minister has been the subject of some rigorous schoolyard bullying this week, as his plan to reintroduce a cap on university places has been met with a resounding chorus of ‘Liar, liar, pants on fire.’ Just two months ago, Christopher Pyne assured 7.30 that, “We have no plans to restore the cap. We do believe that the more students who are doing university, the...
By Michaela McGuire on the 24th of September 2013
Those of us who rolled our eyes or flung our remotes at the television screen whenever Tony Abbott made his earnest, impassioned campaign-winning promise that “We. Will. Stop. The. Boats.” were rewarded with a healthy dose of smug satisfaction when three boats arrived in Australian waters within the first five days of our new Prime Minister being elected. As to whether any boats have...
By Mungo MacCallum on the 23rd of September 2013
The government’s latest strategy to keep us from being surprised (or indeed, informed) is the well tried and simple one of shooting the messenger.
Thus Tony Abbott has abolished the Climate Change Commission and expunged the commissioner, Tim Flannery, from the public payroll. This has the advantage of removing Flannery’s official standing and platform, but is most unlikely to...
By Richard Cooke on the 19th of September 2013
I once asked a right-wing poet (they exist) about the pitifully low number of female contributors published by conservative magazines. Why was it so? In response he took me on a long tour of the weak excuse department, trying everything from the historical gender make-up of writing course graduates to the importance of selecting on merit alone.
Of course it was all bullshit – Quadrant...
By David Marr on the 18th of September 2013
The presbytery of St Alipius is a redbrick gothic bungalow built when gold money was still washing through Ballarat. It sits in a Catholic compound of brick and granite schools and convents where the road from Melbourne reaches town. White crosses stand on the gables of the house as if to ward off evil from all points of the compass. The plan, if that was indeed the plan, failed spectacularly....
By Mungo MacCallum on the 16th of September 2013
The Labor Party is having a real election to choose its new leader, which is a good thing, although a lot of the commentators don’t seem to think so.
They are worried that the caucus and the membership may not agree about the best candidate for the job, and that this will create problems and tensions. Well, it shouldn’t: this was precisely the problem for most of the last three years...
By Bill McKibben on the 11th of September 2013
An extract from Oil and Honey: The Education of An Unlikely Activist (Black Inc.) by Bill McKibben, out now.
I first met Kirk Webster in the fall of 2001. Newly ensconced at Middlebury College in Vermont, I’d offered to teach a course on local food production. There were two problems. One, I can’t really grow anything — my heart is green, but not my thumb. Two, this was...
By Judith Armstrong on the 11th of September 2013
There are currently two productions in Melbourne, one a film, the other a play, both presenting a classic text in modern dress.
Joss Whedon's Much Ado About Nothing shows Shakespeare’s comedy filmed in black-and-white and set in a spacious, modern two-storey house somewhere in the countryside. It could be Italy (supposedly Messina) or America (somewhere in California?). The...
By Mungo MacCallum on the 9th of September 2013
For the moment, of course, all eyes are on the triumphal Tony Abbott and all the speculation is about how he and his government will perform. But we should also check out the Labor side, and what it does – and what it fails to do – to repair the damage and look, wistfully, towards 2016 and beyond.
During the campaign I had the privilege of a brief talk with the party’s great and...
By John van Tiggelen on the 6th of September 2013
Abbott’s grasp of the complexities ahead is weaker than Rudd’s, writes John van Tiggelen in the Financial Times
View the original article here
Or click here to read the PDF
By The Monthly on the 4th of September 2013
No matter who takes home the parliamentary seats on Saturday night, everyone can still be a winner with the Monthly’s election night bingo. Click below to print out and play at home.
Click here to download the PDF
By Michaela McGuire on the 3rd of September 2013
ABC’s Vote Compass has already provided some insight into what’s in the hearts and minds of the voters in the country’s key political battlegrounds, but what will be in their stomachs on polling day? The answer is handily provided by the 2013 Federal Election Day Sausage Sizzle and Cake Stall Map, which allows voters to key in their address and click through the descriptions...
By Mungo MacCallum on the 2nd of September 2013
In the end, it was a simple case of overkill. Labor was gaining traction over the coalition’s refusal to release its full costings, and Kevin Rudd knew it.
So when the shadow Treasurer finally released a partial list of his planned savings, it looked like a chance too good to miss. Rudd was ahead on points, but he wanted a knock out. And he went for the king hit, apparently forgetting that...
By John van Tiggelen on the 1st of September 2013
They say democracy is a serious matter. I wouldn’t know; I’ve never voted.* As a non-citizen for many years, I couldn’t here, and Dutch democracy – with its multi-party governments, supported and criticised by a vigorously diverse press, and consistently high levels of voter turnout despite them being free to stay home – hardly needed me to contribute from afar....
By Nick Feik on the 29th of August 2013
Since no one is pretending that News Corp political coverage isn’t biased, we won’t either.
The only amusing thing about News Corp’s pre-election assault on Rudd has been hearing the justifications of this pure exercise of power, and then looking at the work itself.
Three main justifications for their overt bias are tossed out by News supporters.
First is the free speech...
By Evan Williams on the 26th of August 2013
If you think it’s hard telling the prime minister and the opposition leader apart by their policies, try telling them apart by their Quarterly Essays!
Below are fifteen essay extracts from Rudd v. Abbott; see if you can guess whether they are from the Quarterly Essay on the prime minister, or the Quarterly Essay on the opposition leader. (Answers at the bottom.)
1. And the party was...
By Mungo MacCallum on the 26th of August 2013
All but the most fanatical Labor supporters (well, and Kevin Rudd) must now accept that it is too late to turn the polls around by any rational means. The anti-Labor sentiment which was cemented into the electorate so thoroughly and for so long has now returned, and very few of the voters say that they are likely to change their minds in the last few days.
So, when all logic and reason say that...
