Budget panto goes wrong
Monday, 19 May 2014 State of the parties 37 comments
Now having reached the ultimate ritual of the Budget, and economic management, through which the last thirty years political unravelling has been understood, the depth of the government’s problems are finally becoming apparent to all.
AdWatch: Labor’s negative ads
Sunday, 25 August 2013 Tactics 4 comments
The debate showed how much Rudd, rather than maintain the aura of incumbency he so well established when he returned, has needed to take up the negativity himself. Shouldn’t the ads be doing that?
Caught in Howard’s “neoliberal” trap
Wednesday, 7 August 2013 Tactics 14 comments
Could it be that the RBA had more influence over election timing than Sussex St?
Running on empty
Monday, 5 August 2013 Tactics 11 comments
The common theme running through the message is a new way economic policy is being viewed, namely that government is not responsible for the state of the economy, rather just for protecting the electorate from the worst of it.
What a hollowing out looks like
Monday, 28 November 2011 International relations, State of the parties 10 comments
If the EU-appointed technocrat governments have no legitimacy, neither do the Parliaments that voted them in.
Illegitimate – Budget edition
Saturday, 14 May 2011 State of the parties 9 comments
Unlike Labor’s previous bouts of economic rationalism, say, as under Hawke and Keating, this time business aren’t especially asking for it.
Gillard: prisoner of the two-party system
Monday, 31 January 2011 Political figures, State of the parties 19 comments
Australian politics in 2011 centres around one question: can Gillard shrug off the backers that put her into power?
The reform pantomime
Thursday, 4 November 2010 State of the parties 21 comments
There was a time when reform didn’t used to be such a fashionable word.
Only the end of the beginning
Monday, 28 September 2009 International relations 6 comments
Before a sunrise, there has to be a sunset.
Rudd’s Road to Austerity
Tuesday, 28 July 2009 State of the parties 7 comments
These decades of stagnant real wages is the background that is usually forgotten by billionaires like George Soros and Bill Gross when they get worked up about the rise of credit.