Archived publication for May 2008 in IPA Review article
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Editorial and Table of Contents, May 2008
It's always interesting to see how newly elected leaders respond to stimuli. And Kevin Rudd gave a clear indication of his tolerance for criticism at the beginning of April. The Prime Minister's trip abroad had a peculiar schedule. He was to visit...
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...
Reflections on the 'Howard Project'
John Howard's speechwriter on the successes and failures of the Howard message... Did John Howard have a specific ‘vision' for Australia during the eleven and a half years he was Prime Minister? I would say: ‘No'. For those who believe...
Castro's retirement brings out the narcissism of the Western left
After half a century in power Fidel Castro resigned in March this year. The opportunity for Cubans to get the political, social and economic freedom they desperately need has never been greater. But who cares? Certainly not the left wing media....
Rudd's summit misses the point of policy
Kevin Rudd's government was inspired early into its term to call upon Australia's ‘one-thousand most intelligent people' to nominate themselves to be invited to a talkfest in Canberra to harvest ideas. Leading opposition politicians quickly...
How the left made sport the new battlefield in the culture wars
Anybody who thought the election of the Rudd government meant the end of the culture wars was not looking closely enough at the summer's cricket. While many in the community had strong views about the rights and wrongs of the behaviour of both the...
Kevin Rudd's Asia hypocrisy
Contrast and compare the grandstanding of the Rudd government over Japanese whaling to its relative quiescence on the human rights crackdown in Tibet. Consider it from the viewpoint of Tokyo, and you begin to understand why there might be rising...
Breaking through medical myths
Lifting the veil of health 'stakeholders'... Earlier this year, the new Minister for Health referred to the need to ‘rebuild health services after the last decade of neglect' as only 73.4 per cent of all Medicare services were being...
Voting for the leader is the next step for Liberal reform
In 2007, the Australian Labor Party successfully created a narrative that the Howard government had lost touch with working Australians. Issues such as climate change and industrial relations reinforced this narrative. During the campaign, this...
The republic: Has Labor got the perfect wedge?
Liberal Party politicians probably only have two or three years to decide what to do about the republic issue before the federal government puts it firmly on the agenda. If they want to avoid being completely alienated from their support base,...