• Time to say goodbye
    To me, Ad Astra, “Time to say goodbye” are among the saddest
    words in our language. Yet say them now we must. I chose Ad Astra
    as my moniker because my secondary school’s motto is ‘sic itur ad astra’,
    which can be liberally interpreted as: “Here is the way to the stars”.
    How inspiring these words have always been to me.
  • Have we got a deal for you
    There is a conspiracy theory that suggests that birds (in the USA
    at least) aren’t real. The claim is that all the birds in the USA were
    hunted down by the government between the late 50’s and early
    70s and replaced with bird like drones to spy on you.
  • Get out of the gutter
    You may not have heard of Mike Rinder. A Scientologist for most
    of his life, at the age of 52 he walked out, and as a result lost his
    family, friends, employment and pretty well everything else in his life.
    RInder has written a book on his time in Scientology, runs a
    website that questions Scientology beliefs and practices...
  • Was Amtrak Joe derailed?
    Prior to becoming President, Joe Biden was a US Senator for around
    36 years. He is known as Amtrak Joe as he routinely took the daily 90
    minute each way train trip (on the USA’s national passenger train network
    - Amtrak) from his home in Delaware to Washington DC to represent his state.
  • If employers can measure well-being...
    Last September, you might have seen Qantas CEO Alan Joyce
    received a pay increase of $278,000 per annum. It seems that Joyce
    has met or exceeded the performance goals set by his employers and
    contractually has earned the reward. It does, however, raise a larger question.
  • Coming back to haunt you
    In his recent Budget reply speech, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton
    laboured (pun intended) on the increasingly difficult to achieve promise by
    Prime Minister Albanese that power bills will be $275 less in 2025. While the
    government is claiming the modelling done in 2021 supports the accuracy of
    the promise, 2021 modelling doesn’t account for changes in circumstances since then.

The Political Sword

Get the inside track on the media and government.

Will the real Malcolm Turnbull please stand up?

When Malcolm Turnbull first entered parliament he cut an impressive figure.  Good looking, personable, articulate, experienced, knowledgeable, well informed, and credible.  His utterances exuded common sense.  He said what he thought, and it sounded convincing.  He came with a ...

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The hardest job in politics

How many times have we heard that ‘being Opposition Leader is the hardest job in politics’?  Almost since the day Brendan Nelson was elected we have heard this mantra from Coalition members, increasingly in recent months as Nelson’s performance failed to improve.  There...

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Peter Costello’s painful parting

What happened?  Why?  What’s next? are questions we all ask.  Peter Costello has given us his answers to the first in The Costello Memoirs.  But not why, and what’s next? Why did he never challenge for the leadership?  Why didn’t he accept it after the...

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In search of the political Holy Grail – the Rudd Government narrative

Part 1 – What is a political narrative?  The recent media obsession with finding Kevin Rudd’s ‘narrative’ came to a head last month with Jack the Insider’s blog in The Australian In search of the Rudd narrative.  It attracted 386 comments. But so far n...

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Welcome to The Political Sword blog

This is the first posting of The Political Sword blog. Its focus is Australian politics.It is intended to give expression to those who have opinions about contemporary political events.  In particular it will provide a forum for exposing deception among politicians, bureaucrats and commentato...

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