Yet another ‘debate’ about the role of the Communist party in Australian history. It’s like most contemporary political debates purportedly about past events: largely meaningless in the absence of any criteria for making evaluations, in the absence of such criteria history simply becomes a stock of anecdotal examples. Contemporary discussion of Australian Communism almost entirely […]
Liberals, conservatives, deficits and the EITC
Interesting to see that in the United States liberals seem to be more divided about fiscal policy than conservatives, but would conservatives push for if they engaged with the fiscal policy challenges?
Sex Discrimination and Emissions Trading: Nationals then and now
Commentators on Australian politics have long maintained a death watch on the National Party and its current woes have seen this topic attract renewed attention. Thinking about this topic, and in particular the Nationals’ appeals to an imagined mass conservative constituency.As as I prepared my lecture on feminism for Modern Political Ideologies. In discussing liberal […]
Ghosts of John Elliott and Katherine West
Malcolm Turnbull’s basic problem is that like John Howard Mark I he is out of step with his own party. Howard won the Liberal leadership in 1985 due to missteps by Andrew Peacock rather than any strong base of support. Turnbull, once Peter Costello was gone, was the only credible candidate once Brendan Nelson fell […]