People & associates
Christian Kerr
End the Nanny State to win
As the polls plunge and a tide of sleaze threatens the government, Labor has responded with a storm of class war rhetoric unseen in decades. The prime minister has declared the next election will be about ‘whether you stand for the...
What have the neo-liberals ever done for us?
The Life of Brian is not the best Monty Python film.* Its satire of religion, unlike general Python jibes against authority, looks dated. Its political satire though-‘What have the Romans ever done for us'-is an entirely different matter....
So where is our GasBuddy? Can't mates be buddies too?
There is a ruthless efficiency about Kevin Rudd. The man who bewailed Brutopia's coming is as ruthless as his own caricatured ‘neo-liberals' and market forces. Even more ironically, market metaphors best describe the Prime Minister's...
There are few easier stories to report than a change of government
Attraction is bound to wane if it is based on who you aren't, not who you are. And so it has been with the affair between Kevin Rudd and the Canberra Press Gallery. Former Liberal leader Brendan Nelson had a go at analysing it all when he appeared...
Try to remember: when you're in opposition, it's not about you anymore
‘If you don't understand the GST, don't vote for it.' That was Paul Keating's message days out from the 1993 election. It helped turn the poll around. Like all successful political lines, it was both shorthand and subliminal. What Keating...
FuelWatch is the sort of stunt only a state government can try
Why is petrol so politically potent? It might not just be because of price. There seems to be a whole psychology of purchasing petrol that gets ignored. If you read the IPA Review, it probably means you believe in freedom of choice. But how much...
Budget holidays matter, of course
Canberra local politics barely registers outside the ACT, but Liberals around the country may be taught some rude realpolitik by a group of local party dissidents. While Western Australia could go to the polls from late June, the next scheduled...