Considering Joe Hockey’s farewell to parliamentary politics. How are we to explain the close alliance between him and Tony Abbott? Hockey after all was Turnbull lite in the eyes of the media with a charmingly multicultural background. Hockey supported the Republic against Abbott and continues to provide tepid support for this cause. My view is […]
Shorten, historicism & Whiggery
I have just published a review of David Marr’s Faction Man in The Conversation. I write these opinion articles very quickly which is a good discipline for academics. So some supplementary comments on my background thinking. I discuss how Shorten is an untroubled Labor loyalist unlike many intellectuals to whom political allegiance is a matter […]
John Anderson, Helen Garner & racial offense
I am writing a book with the working title of Australia after socialism that explains the Australian intellectual left since the early 1990s. Tim Rowse in a review in Arena Magazine No. 4 of Meaghan Morris Ecstasy and Economics, described her approach thus: Unlike those who practice political biography, she holds no brief for […]
Is Parliament worthwhile? Further thoughts
I have an article in The Conversation on controversies around the performance of the Speaker of the Australian federal parliament. A veteran MP from the conservative wing of a conservative party she received the Speakership as a consolation prize for not securing Ministry. Her performance has been criticized as biased, even by conservatives, and I […]
Class in Australia: further comments to my article
I have an article in The Conversation examining conservative responses to class in Australia. My inspiration was the rather clunky Anglo-Marxism of John Strachey and Harold Laski in the 1930s. They argued that as capitalism was in a phase of decline it could no longer afford the reforms that social democracy had offered – hence […]
Why bother with the ABC’s ‘Keating’ ?
I wrote recently that Australians don’t revere past politicians. But evidence against this, at least for elites, is the popularity of long-form interviews with politicians past. The most recent installment is the ABC series on Paul Keating. As a historian I consider that the value of open-form interviews with past politicians, who have had plenty […]
Mark Latham political seeker
For last year my online commentary focus has been The Conversation. I am relaunching this blog. Today I have a review of former Labor leader Mark Latham’s recent book Not Dead Yet at The Conversation. With seven respondents to Latham’s opening essay it is difficult to cover. Some additional points. The popular Labor party reform […]
Australian liberalism, Australian conservatism and trade unionism
Writing a paper about small business in Australia. An extract on the attitudes of Australian conservatives to trade unions from :
Queensland Labor’s lessons for state politics
Why is Labor’s era in Queensland coming to an end? The short answer is that Queensland is a naturally conservative state. I argue that different states may have a natural propensity to support Labor or the Coalition, levels of unionization, manufacturing employment, educational levels and ethnic diversity are significant here. However this does not imply […]
Superannuation & contraception in the US & Australia
In the 1980s Australian unions pursued a retirement income strategy that centered on the inclusion of superannuation in agreements with employers.