Nicholas Stuart
Nic Stuart is a Canberra writer.
Get with it, there's no choice but to engage with China
Nicholas Stuart No one doubts the rise of China is the biggest strategic issue Australia faces: the only difference is how to deal with it.
It's called asymmetry, stupid
Nicholas Stuart How do you choose to fly overseas? It’s tight on Air Vietnam, but Saigon’s interesting and you’re in Paris after just one (uncomfortable) night. And it’s cheap.
Afghanistan: Bright hope now just dust and ashes
Nicholas Stuart Last week Tony Abbott told a story about his first trip visiting the diggers in Afghanistan.
Who can you trust? Financial reforms turn back the clock
Nicholas Stuart What was not to like? It was many years ago and I'd just returned from studying in England. I was waiting to hear whether my application to join the ABC as a cadet journalist had been successful...
Tony Abbott's gaffes show dangerous fissures opening in foreign policy
Nicholas Stuart Tony Abbott speaks slowly and carefully. It’s a deliberate strategy, because he found that opening his mouth without thinking things through gets him into trouble.
Can Abbott escape the trap?
Nicholas Stuart Tony Abbott’s had a long, slow weekend in which to mull over Palmer’s newly critical role in the civic life of this nation.
Are we really comfortable with Abe?
Nicholas Stuart Let’s begin by stating a couple of obvious facts. Japan is a marvellous country. We want – need – to be friends with Japan.
The Senate is about to be emasculated
Nicholas Stuart Paul Keating’s line about the Senate – he called them “unrepresentative swill” – never really bit. That’s because it wasn’t true, then. It is today.
Do you want defence or, perhaps security?
Nicholas Stuart The single most important factor relating to our future defence and security environment will be decided – for good or ill – on Wednesday.
Preparing for a war unlike any other
Nicholas Stuart The big challenge for Australia's military forces is how best to structure and train for the next war.
Having a ripper time is just not good enough
Nicholas Stuart It’s no surprise that Josh Frydenberg, Tony Abbott’s Parliamentary Secretary for deregulation, is a hot tip for the ministry. He’s on his way up.
A new direction in aid, but is it the right one?
Nicholas Stuart On Wednesday this week Julie Bishop gave a speech demonstrating how emphatically she’s acted to wrestle back control of the aid agenda.
Navy breaks surface, at last
Nicholas Stuart It';s possible to date the time the navy reached its lowest point to the very second.
Oil rig in South China Sea spells end of the US as a global arbiter of acceptable conduct
Nicholas Stuart China is stating, emphatically, it has arrived in the South China Sea and it will act as it chooses.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott's vision for armed forces faces cost factor
Nicholas Stuart Politicians of all stripes have their pet hobby horses they wish to pursue when in power. For the Prime Minister that seems to be defence.
The lost art of political salesmanship
Nicholas Stuart Every successful politician struggles to reconcile two competing imperatives. The first – and most important – is retaining a grasp of the time-horizon in which they’re...
Thailand's lesson of legitimacy within a violent pressure cooker
Nicholas Stuart Governments can no longer be ordered by fiat and diktat - people's consent is necessary.
Abbott's credibility deficit
Nicholas Stuart Voters are now judging Tony Abbott on his budget, because this represents the way he's attempting to tackle the problems he inherited. The problem is it just doesn't hang together.
Tony Abbott has morphed into Bob Santamaria
Nicholas Stuart It took a long time, but Bob Santamaria’s finally done it, we’ve got our first ever DLP Prime Minister.
A budget driven by dogma
Nicholas Stuart If money talks, this budget was eloquent. Until Tuesday we only had words for what this government’s all about. Now that’s changed.
