• OUT NOW

  Politics through the looking glass
  The inversion of Australian democracy.

  In the Autumn issue of Meanjin.

  

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  The last six years have shown that what asylum seekers have more to be concerned about is an insecure, out of control political class that targets the most vulnerable to make itself look in command.

  - Sovereignty

  “We will decide” was a phoney bit of Australian unilateralism made possible at a time of that phoney bit of US unilateralism, the War on Terror.

  - The New Regionalism

  How do you change racial provisions in the Constitution when the entire infrastructure of land rights is based on it?

  - Caught in a racial trap

  Politics is becoming more cyclical, but only because the nature of politics is changing from what it was in the 20th century.

  - The problem of the “political cycle”

• Essay and Book reviews

  Latham is articulating a search for a new relationship of politics to society, based not on its representation, but on intervention on a degraded basis. You have been warned.

  Not Dead Yet by Mark Latham

  In reality under this complaint about the media lurks a political argument that is highly revealing about the mindset of the political class today.

  Sideshow by Lindsay Tanner

  Here is someone working for the ABC, from a Labor background as Hawke’s press secretary, who has written about the rise and fall of a Labor Prime Minister with all the distortions and omissions worthy of the most disingenuous right wing hack.

  The Party Thieves by Barrie Cassidy

  The most bizarre defence of the two party system comes over what for Megalogenis is the most personal – immigration.

  Trivial Pursuit by George Megalogenis

  Can Australian politics be that insubstantial?

  Confessions of a Faceless Man by Paul Howes
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The media are making this into a major drama, but it may not be, at least in the way they say.

Can Australian politics be that insubstantial?

Poor Julie Bishop. Always the proxy, never the bride.

Megalogenis may lament the passing of reform, and the privileged role the media had in it, even if he cannot quite put his finger on what it was.

• 

• Key Posts of the Winter

  What we have here is the national security issue turned upside down.

  - The hole in the middle of national security

  The cave-in by the left was not because the left position’s in terms of numbers was weak, but because the leader was weak and the left leadership had to go all out to ensure that he wasn’t embarrassed.

  - Unity is death

  The first thing that should be dismissed is the idea that MPs should have a conscience vote on this, or any other issue. It’s rubbish.

  - Equality

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