Queensland Government spends $50M to make homelessness worse - posted by Graham

It's good news for the homeless and their advocates, but bad news for homelessness statistics, making it even better news for the advocates. According to The Courier Mail the Queensland Government plans to spend $50 million upgrading "run-down hostels" and... More

Under the Moruya Moon (2) - posted by Ronda Jambe

As Canberra gets colder, the coast beckons. Just over 2 hours away, you can count on temperatures 4-5 C warmer. And the possibility of rain is a lure on its own. Repeatedly I am taken aback in Canberra by middle... More

Christian Right the morning after - posted by Graham

The latest fantastic obsession of the left is the imagined dominance of the religious right in the US, which is then projected to be on the verge of engineering the same feat here. Thus the last but one edition of... More

Corby and the battle of Waterloo - posted by Graham

Schapelle Corby has been found guilty under a system of law which is very similar to many other systems which draw their provenance from France - an indirect legacy of the Napoleonic Empire. It should be a basic human right... More

Memoirs In Memoriam - posted by Graham

I'm generally a bit of a fan of Peter Beattie's but his most recent foray suggests he's losing more than his hair. Beattie has chosen to celebrate his life by releasing his autobiography. This at a time when a Commission... More

Meet another "balance of power" senator - posted by Graham

It is amazing how many people miss the bleeding obvious, including those who should know better. Barnaby Joyce has been salivating with glee at the prospect of being able to hold the Howard Government to ransom on rural issues. (His... More

Child support advice for Federal Cabinet - posted by Graham

Yesterday's Australian revealed that Federal Cabinet is to take submissions on proposed changes to the Child Support regime. I don't have time to send them a paper-based submission, so here are my random digitally produced thoughts. First thing is that... More

Torture Blofeld - posted by Graham

There has been a furore over a paper (yet to be published) by two Australian academics claiming that torture should be legal in some circumstances. Most Aussie cinema-goers would agree, so long as the torturer was James Bond, it was... More

Google ranking Queensland Senators - posted by Graham

In a recent post I congratulated Queensland Senator Brett Mason on earning a PhD whilst being a full-time senator for Queensland. The post attracted a couple of very heated responses, suggesting that I had hit a raw nerve. While no-one... More

Deport me - posted by Graham

Could Vivian Alvarez receive $2 million damages for her wrongful deportation? According to this morning's ABC Radio National Law Report former HREOC Commissioner and Federal Court Judge, Marcus Einfeld, believes she could, at a rate of $1,500 per day (net... More

Who votes for you anyway? - posted by Graham

What big idea would you pitch to the Prime Minister and the Premier if you were caught in a lift with them for five minutes? That's the challenge put to me, and a number of other panellists, by Eidos, "a... More

Beazley's first step on the way back - posted by Graham

Beazley's budget reply is better economics than the government's budget, but more to the point it is better politics. Howard holds government in Australia by assembling a coalition of the well-off and the working poor. The last group tend to... More

Best budget analysis - posted by Graham

The best budget analysis I've found this morning is not in the pages of the daily broadsheets, but rather in two documents prepared by Saul Eslake, the ANZ's Chief Economist. His Budget Report (pdf 88kb) starts like this: Budget 2005-06:... More

Congratulations Brett Mason - posted by Graham

I heard about it last night, and it has been added to his Parliamentary biography, and according to my Google research he didn't appear to have it on the 27th February, 2001, but I can't find out when he did... More

Blair has solid Antipodean result - posted by Graham

Scale the British election results back in size to what they would have been in an Australian context, and you can see just how impressive Tony Blair's third win really was. There are 646 House of Commons seats in Britain... More

Under the Moruya Moon (1) - posted by Ronda Jambe

Moruya is a pretty but unremarkable town on the New South Wales south coast. It sits on the Moruya River, where a concrete bridge marks the entry to a small town centre. Slowly it is changing in ways typical of... More

Anthropophagai anyone? - posted by Graham

I have a problem with the inhabitants of Tuvalu and Kiribati spruiking their imminent demise from greenhouse related climate change. I have an even bigger problem with the uncritical way in which these claims are reported. Latest example comes from... More

Dinosaur extinction a result of geo-sequestration? - posted by Graham

I'm not particularly well-qualified in biology, finding it much less interesting than physics and chemistry when I was at school, so no-one should put much weight on this musing. In fact, this post was prompted by some comments I saw... More

Lynton didn't do it - posted by Graham

Lynton Crosby is a great self-publicist. This morning on ABC Radio he was given credit for the 1995 Queensland State Coalition Campaign. There are a lot of things he has done, but that wasn't one of them. He's not alone... More

HREOC to Howard's aid - posted by Graham

I'm sure it's just coincidence, but Pru Goward, Federal Age Discrimination Commissioner and wife of John Howard's biographer, is running a seminar on age discrimination in the workforce. Has she issued an invitation to Peter Costello to attend? Pru will... More

Quinn and Krause on the rack - posted by Graham

Wednesday 11th May will be a significant day for Margaret Krause. It is the day she will appear in front of what she and others refer to as the "Star Chamber" - the Queensland Liberal Party's Discplinary Committee. The committee... More

We need Joh to have a state funeral - posted by Graham

Joh Bjelke-Petersen will have a state funeral today. Many say he shouldn't including Nigel Powell and Wayne Sanderson. They're both wrong. We owe it to ourselves to give him one. Deny him a state funeral, and we are one with... More

Work till you drop John - posted by Graham

For a man who thinks we should all be working past the current retirement age of 65, Peter Costello seems to have a penchant for wanting to move the old and the wise on. Stories are that before her preselection... More

Howard calls opponent liar - posted by Graham

Anyone remember seeing this in the Australian election? No, and neither did I. So why is alleged political mastermind Lynton Crosby allowing the other Howard, Tories' leader Michael Howard, to use the line in the UK election? Look at the... More