• 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.

Climate change, power and coal

You may have noticed it’s been a bit hot lately. In fact, if you were born after 1985, you have never experienced a cooler than average month. Let’s just read that again so it really sinks in – if you were born after 1985, you have never experienced a cooler than average month.  The UK Govern...

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Abbott’s legacy of destruction

Do you sometimes wonder how the Turnbull government has managed to get itself into such a mess?  Of course Malcolm Turnbull must shoulder much of the blame himself. A piece that I will post next week: Thirty pieces of silver attests to this. By sacrificing his long-held principles and value...

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Is trickle down economics a fraud?

The spectre of trickle down economics continues to haunt the political landscape, emerging again and again like a ghostly zombie from a dark, damp cave where it quietly moulders, refusing to die, always ready to be summoned by a believer.  Not often is the term ‘trickle down’ uttered, and w...

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Jesus wept

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse continues. In the past couple of weeks, the Commissioners have been hearing evidence from Catholic clergy. Some of the numbers are scary: In total, between 1980 and 2015, 4,444 people alleged incidents of child sexual abuse ...

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Alternative facts and transparency

Would you believe that I am a 25 year old self-made millionaire and spend my life travelling around the world — only if I can fly in an Etihad A380 equipped with “The Residence” three room suite (only plebs travel First Class apparently!). I also have bankers beating a path to my door to lend me mon...

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Selfishness is political poison

Amid the contemporary chaos of national and international politics do you wonder what's behind it all? Is there a common factor that might explain our own federal government’s failures, its incompetence, and its appalling behaviour?  Is there an explanation for the words, behaviour, and...

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Computer says ‘no’

Once upon a time, someone came up with an economic theory that robbery was good for the economy. The theory was along the lines that the robbers get some extra cash and most of it will reappear in the economy at some point soon after the robbery; the bank or shop is insured for the loss so it gets i...

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Watch this space in 2017

As with most political issues, the following few questions are inter-related: Turnbull’s future may well depend on the economy, on whether or not a new conservative party forms and whether there is a Trump-inspired trade or currency war between China and the US; our economy may well depend on ...

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In 2017 – let’s be the change we want to see

Well look at that. 2016 is finished and 2017 has arrived to present us with more challenges. To be brutally honest, 2016 wasn’t the best of years for those who prefer progressive policy, equality and fairness for all. Later this month, Donald Trump becomes president of the USA; at the time of writin...

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Happy Christmas and New Year to all our Visitors

This is the time to wish all our readers a Happy and Relaxing Festive Season with your Family, and to thank all who have sustained The Political Sword throughout 2016. First, thanks go to our writers. Ken Wolff and 2353NM, who have joined me to author countless articles on TPS and TPS Extra durin...

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The barbie bigot looks back on the year

[Editor’s note: the use of ‘septic’ in this article is from the rhyming slang — ‘septic tank’ rhymes with ‘Yank’, so ‘septic’ equals ‘Yank’.]  G’day ev’ryone. Welcome back to the barbie. The big news of the year has been elections, both here in Oz an’ in septic-land.  I’ve been a b...

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The buck stops where?

The old adage says ‘the buck stops here’ and it applies to managers, CEOs, government ministers and similar people when they take responsibility for what happens in their organisations, including mistakes. When applied in full it leads to people resigning if more serious mistakes are made even tho...

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The real bullies

A Brisbane 13 year old committed suicide last week because, according to his mother, he was being bullied. He identified as being gay and apparently was being bullied at school. Rather than join the chorus of those who instantly know what was going on and speculate for a week or so until something e...

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The rise of political staffers: how people disappeared from policy advice

Australia represented by a prime minister and a staffer! In October Attorney-General Senator George Brandis got into a stoush with Solicitor-General Justin Gleeson which ultimately led to Gleeson’s resignation. At one point Brandis attempted to turn the issue into an argument about what constituted...

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Trump’s Uncertainty Principle

Way back in 1927 German physicist Werner Heisenberg described the Uncertainty Principle that applies to quantum mechanics. It states that the more precisely the position of a particle is determined, the less precisely its momentum can be known, and vice versa. With apologies to Heisenberg and quant...

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Let’s welcome President Trump

Yes, you read the title correctly. Donald J Trump will be the 45th President of the United States of America after amassing more ‘Electoral College’ votes on 8 November 2016. It doesn’t matter that Clinton won the popular vote as the ‘Electoral College’ is where you need to outperform. The reality i...

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Aaand it’s sold

Housing affordability is perceived to be an issue in Australia. In some areas of Australia, the median price of a house is in excess of $1million and there is some justification in the common questions around how on earth can a young couple ever be able to afford a house in that market. There are a ...

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Who invents this cruelty?

In the past fortnight, the Turnbull Coalition government announced proposed legislation to ensure that each person on Manus Island or Nauru sentenced to the cruel and unusual punishment for no legal or moral reason since an arbitrary date in 2013, will never come to Australia. That’s never ever; doe...

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Inequality is an invasive global cancer

Inequality has been the subject of several pieces on The Political Sword. They have focussed primarily on income and wealth inequality, which afflicts massive swathes of the world’s peoples, consigning them to constrained lives where poverty, underprivilege, disadvantage, and lack of opportunity has...

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The problem with conservative warriors

[The bookcases that were too big to move] A lot of employers place significant levels of trust in their employees. Retailers trust their employees to charge the customers the correct amount for the products they sell and put the money into the register; airlines trust that their employees are fit ...

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