Still searching for 2001

Friday, 30 October 2009   Media analysis   8 comments 

The media dived into this issue two weeks ago expecting a rerun of 2001. When none occurred, it conducted it on its own, starring in a morality play of one.

Another Howard bubble finally bursts

Monday, 26 October 2009   Tactics   5 comments 

Rudd was calling the bluff that Turnbull and the Liberals had been playing, namely that Howard had a real policy that they could return to rather than a political game whose time had passed.

A losing game for Labor – an update

Thursday, 22 October 2009   International relations   4 comments 

While Rudd’s Indonesian solution looks like Howard’s Pacific one in practice, in political terms it indicates a shift.

A losing game for Labor

Tuesday, 20 October 2009   Tactics   5 comments 

What’s worse, earning a trade out of human misery or making politics out of it?

A pathetic attempt to look in control

Thursday, 15 October 2009   Tactics   3 comments 

Chris Uhlmann castigated Rudd for not using his political capital to take a less populist line on asylum seekers, but in reality there is no political capital.

Howard/Nelson/Turnbull is not the problem

Monday, 12 October 2009   State of the parties   4 comments 

At no time has the party ever had its leadership calculations so openly determined by their complete loss of confidence in their ability to recover government in the foreseeable future.

Tony Abbott: too clever by half

Friday, 9 October 2009   Political figures   8 comments 

The irony is that Abbott is doing what Turnbull did in reverse, but with the same negative consequences.

A staged implosion – Round 2

Thursday, 8 October 2009   State of the parties   6 comments 

Now when Turnbull, the only one in the Liberal Party who seems to have actually wanted to lead it over the last few years, is gone, the vacuum is likely to come back with a vengeance.

It’s the Coalition that’s on a suicide mission, not Turnbull

Tuesday, 6 October 2009   Media analysis   8 comments 

Unless Turnbull actually wants to lead the Liberals for the sake of it, which is unlikely, his threat over the Liberals adopting a negotiating position on the ETS is not a death wish but simply a matter of fact if the Coalition is to have any hope of getting a reasonable result at the next election.