The confusions of anti-politics: UK edition

Tuesday, 8 September 2015    

 

Can I just finish?

The Unstoppable Jeremy Corbyn

If the struggle between Rudd and Gillard over the dead soul of the Labor party, and the hollow leadership election that followed, occasionally descended into farce, it is nothing compared to what is now going on in UK Labour. Read more …

Race

Monday, 24 August 2015    

To paraphrase a great rugby phrase ‘go you Goodes thing’ and to quote Warren Mundine ‘stop the boos’

Tweet from the very clever Scott Morrison

I just find it incomprehensible that the state of Australia is so racist that we have widespread tolerance and support for the most vicious kind of racism that I haven’t seen since the dark days of the end of apartheid

Some perspective from Marcia Langton

Probably for some the jeers are mindless, just revelling in something taboo. But increasingly, that dull drone is sounding like an assertion of power: crowds of non-Indigenous people declaring, “We will keep doing this and you can’t stop us”.

One sports writer expressing the darkest fears

Like most developed countries, Australia has a race problem. It might not take the form it does in the enlightened country this writer comes from, of cops regularly shooting black people in the streets (curiously omitted in the piece), but it exists and mostly is focussed on indigenous people.

Here are a few examples highlighted by this blog. Read more …

Leadership watch: Morrison on 730

Friday, 14 August 2015    

Smug.

They’re my personal views, Leigh, and I’m not going to impose those on the rest of the country.

Scott Morrison formulates the platform for the Australian right

Scott Morrison’s had a very good week and it’s written all over his face. Read more …

Equality

Wednesday, 12 August 2015    

I thought we were supposed to be talking about climate change today.

Julie Bishop not getting the memo

Well thank goodness that’s been cleared up.

As things stand now Australian voters have the clear choice on same sex marriage between one party that will have a binding vote that may be a conscience vote after the next election, and another party that has a conscience vote that will be binding the election after that. Of course the side that has a binding vote is being attacked for doing so from the other side by those who are, at the same time, arguing for a binding vote on their own side. Meanwhile the side that has the binding vote keeps reminding everyone that the party doesn’t really have binding votes on anything anyway and some are likely to cross the floor if it came to a vote, which they hope it won’t.

Finally, the side that’s not that keen on same sex marriage will likely be proposing a plebiscite, which given the polls, they will probably lose, while the other side that does want same sex marriage (sort of) is less keen on a plebiscite they will probably win.

Is anyone following this? Good. Read more …

Unity is death

Monday, 27 July 2015    

In 2002, the up and coming shadow Immigration Minister launched a tough new line for Labor’s policy on asylum seekers. It wasn’t popular at Conference, but the hardheads felt it was necessary. Labor had lost an election on immigration, the current leader was unpopular and seen as weak, and Labor felt the Coalition was making hay with the perception Labor was too soft on asylum seekers. Labor went on to lose the next election with what was then the lowest primary vote in the post-war period.

In 2010, that former shadow Minister, now leader, Julia Gillard (for it was she), went into an election with a new tough line on asylum seekers. It wasn’t popular in the party, but the hardheads felt it was necessary. They and Gillard were worried that the Coalition was making hay with the perception Labor was too soft on asylum seekers. She went on to achieve what was then Labor’s second lowest primary vote in the post-war period. Read more …

The hole in the middle of national security

Monday, 20 July 2015    

ZAKY MALLAH: Yeah. Yeah, sure. The Liberals now have just justified to many Australian Muslims in the community tonight to leave and go to Syria and join ISIL because of Ministers like him.

TONY JONES: Okay. I think that’s a comment we are just going to rule totally out of order.

The anniversary of the shooting down of MH17 was an unfortunate reminder of how hollow the political and media outrage was that followed it. Read more …

The New Regionalism – another update

Thursday, 30 April 2015    

I feel desperately sorry for the parents of these people. I do. All of us as parents will feel that way, but the warnings have been there for decades.

John Howard reacting to the handing down of the death sentence to Andrew Chan April 2005

I have nothing critical to say about collaboration between the Federal Police and the Indonesian police, and I back up the Federal Police.

Kim Beazley April 2005

Australia’s foreign policy should have a Jakarta rather than a Geneva focus.

Tony Abbott gets his wish October 2013

In just over the last twenty years, there have been four Australians executed in South East Asia. Michael McAulife hanged in Malaysia in 1993, Van Tuong Nguyen in Singapore in 2005, and Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran on Wednesday. And, of course, there is Pham Trung Dung, sentenced to death in Vietnam last year.

Yet while there was little outcry for the other executions, and of Pham Trung Dung (still on death row?), not a peep, it’s been the two of the Bali 9 that has caused the biggest political and diplomatic reaction from the Australian government.

There are a couple of reasons why this should be surprising. Read more …

Fraser

Monday, 23 March 2015    

Greeting the false dawn of Australian conservatism.

It’s been said that history shouldn’t be read backwards, but that’s the only way it can be done, and the furious re-writing of Fraser’s government, not least by the man himself, naturally says more about the preoccupations and defensiveness of the political scene today than what happened then. Read more …

Lifestyle

Monday, 16 March 2015    

Happier days. Photograph: Alan Porritt/AAP

What we can’t do is endlessly subsidise lifestyle choices if those lifestyle choices are not conducive to the kind of full participation in Australian society that everyone should have.

Tony Abbott being insensitive 10 March 2015

Maybe the word ‘closure’, which I did use, wasn’t the right word, but the reality is there are 282 remote communities in WA, a number of them have less than 10 people, they are not viable communities. People can still go and visit their traditional lands, there is no barrier to people going out there and living if they wish to.

Colin Barnett being sensitive 5 March 2015

The services will cease. I would say therefore the communities will close.

Colin Barnett being less sensitive five minutes later

When people say a remark is insensitive, they usually mean it’s true, but shouldn’t have been said. In the case of Abbott’s lifestyle comments it alludes to a real shift in policy on remote communities, and Abbott has not only spelt it out, but put a blunt finger on the weakness of those opposing it.

The idea of shutting down remote communities because they are economically unviable is, of course, rubbish. Read more …

Implosion

Tuesday, 10 February 2015    

I believe the team of Tony Abbott and Julia Gillard is the best leadership team for the Liberal Party and therefore part of the best leadership team of the Coalition for the country.

Kevin Andrews nails it

Consider this. In 1971, when Gorton was challenged for the leadership, Fraser had resigned as Defence Minister and openly attacked Gorton on the floor of the House as “not fit” for the PM’s office. The result was a leadership vote, a tie and Gorton resigning. In 1981, Fraser was the target this time with Peacock resigning as IR Minister over Fraser’s industrial relations policy and (something we’re not supposed to talk about these days) his refusal to withdraw recognition from Pol Pot. Peacock again used the floor of the House to openly attack Fraser in a speech accusing him of eroding the Cabinet system. The result was almost a year of open hostilities, finally ending when Fraser called a leadership vote and saw Peacock off.

Then we had what was supposed to be the third challenge to a sitting Liberal PM yesterday. This time there was no ministerial resignations, no open attack on the Prime Minister from the floor of the House, in fact no challenge at all. Nothing. Not a peep. Read more …