Is Australia becoming a guided democracy?

16/03/2014
2353

On 8 February 2014, there was a by-election for the federal seat of Griffith due to the resignation from politics of the former member Kevin Rudd. Terri Butler, representing the ALP, won the seat. This comment was posted on the Fairfax Media’s on-line coverage of the event: I think I'd prefe...

9/03/2014
Ken Wolff

Gross National Happiness, people power and Labor In Part 2 of these articles I discussed the Left’s approach to the new world in which we now live and suggested that adopting a measure such as Gross National Happiness (GNH) could help create a new approach to economics. I intend discussing th...

5/03/2014
Ken Wolff

A new world for the Left The break-up of the Soviet Union, the Velvet and Orange Revolutions and the Arab Spring show that mass movements can still achieve social and political change, with or without violence. But the capacity of the State is a key factor in such circumstances — whether it h...

2/03/2014
Ken Wolff

A History Lesson: the revolutionary period My politics was moulded in the late 1960s, a great time in my view for the Left. The ’60s (into the ’70s) was dominated by revolutionary and liberation movements around the world — an era when Africa was completing its decolonisation. For...

27/02/2014
James Wight

Human-caused global warming is the single biggest threat facing humanity today. Solving it requires a rapid worldwide transition to renewable energy economies, leaving the vast majority of fossil fuels in the ground. Preserving a habitable climate depends on decisions made in this decade. At less th...

23/02/2014
David Horton

'You have come down here to see an election - eh? Spirited contest, my dear sir, very much so indeed. We have opened all the public-houses in the place. It has left our opponent nothing but the beer-shops — masterly policy, my dear sir, eh?' The little man smiled complacently, and took a lar...

16/02/2014
2353

Two events occurred in January that have alarming parallels. The Book Thief was released in cinemas across the country and Education Minister Christopher Pyne announced yet another review of the school curriculum. The movie is based on the book by Australian author Markus Zusak. A synopsis of the ...

9/02/2014
Ken Wolff

Dear Mr Abbott, You promised to take us back to the halcyon days of your Liberal Prime Ministerial predecessor John Howard and, like him, hoped to put sport rather than politics back on the front pages. I fear, however, your time machine has overshot the mark and we are heading rapidly towards the ...

2/02/2014
jaycee

I read that opening stanza of the old rhyme as a metaphor of the continued and repeatedly frustrated human progress toward social advancement. It is the most disappointing certainty that as soon as the human collective gets its act together and starts to achieve really useful advances in all things ...

1/01/2014
TPS Team

Welcome to 2014! And we welcome you to your next ‘open thread’, which will run until the 2nd February, when our conversation starters, and Casablanca’s Cache, will return. It seems to be traditional at this time of the year to reflect on what has been, and to look forward to what...

15/12/2013
TPS Team

From this week The Political Sword goes into recess for the summer period until the 2nd February 2014. Well, its authors, and Casablanca’s Cache, will have a break, but all of you who love to comment and share links and thoughts and fun on TPS don’t have to do the same. Comments on thi...

8/12/2013
Ad astra

Cock your ear at your local watering hole, listen to the boys as they clasp a frosted schooner of VB, and you’re bound to hear: ‘They’re all the same these pollies. Ya just can’t trust em’. Of course they are right to some extent. The deception and deviousness we see da...

4/12/2013
2353

In the Abbott Cone of Silence since the 2013 election, the media has actually been looking around for other things to report on. There are two issues that caught my interest recently. The first was the reporting of a survey conducted by Monash University and funded by the Scanlon Foundation. The s...

1/12/2013
jaycee

In the closing days of the Second World War, the name ‘Lord Haw Haw’ was synonymous with the cry: ‘traitor!’ In those days a traitor was seen as a clear-cut thing. In The Meaning of Treason (Penguin, 1965), Rebecca West identifies him as a traitor: ... by broadcasting betwe...

24/11/2013
Ken Wolff

If you want an alternative to the Abbott future for Australia, this book is for you. It has the ideas and policy approaches with which to bombard politicians and opinion-makers. The publisher, the Centre for Policy Development (CPD), was established in 2007, a progressive think-tank that grew out of...

17/11/2013
David Horton

The last time an Australian Labor leader came up with a phrase that was both memorable and of positive benefit to the Party was Ben Chifley's ‘Light on the Hill’. So good was it, in fact, that the media have deliberately tried to turn it into a joke phrase. Oddly, the phrase is part of ...

10/11/2013
Ken Wolff

Prior to the election, Tony Abbott claimed that the election would be a referendum on the carbon price and Julie Bishop repeated this the day after the election (8 September). Since the election both Abbott and Environment Minister Greg Hunt have claimed people voted to repeal the ‘carbon tax&...

3/11/2013
2353

Australians are unfortunately used to headlines that another ‘boatload of asylum seekers’ has called for help near Christmas Island. All too frequently the Australian Navy is called upon to rescue people from boats that were not seaworthy enough to make the journey from a port in Indone...

27/10/2013
Ken Wolff

Why are politicians reacting to polls instead of driving them? In a previous piece on TPS, I contended that politicians had granted political influence to Rupert Murdoch by believing they will ‘live and die’ by the polls and reacting to the fortnightly Murdoch (Newspoll) polls rather th...

19/10/2013
Barry Tucker

Australia needs a third, viable, major political party. This is obvious, to me. At their core, the policies of the two major parties are diametrically opposed. The Labor party is the progressive party that builds the country’s infrastructure and provides welfare programs. The Liberal party is...

His promises were, as he was then, mighty. But his performance as he is now, nothing.
William Shakespeare: Henry VIII.

It is one thing to show a man he is in error, and another to put him in possession of the truth.
John Locke

While the State exists, there can be no freedom. When there is freedom, there will be no State.
Lenin

Hateful to me as the gates of Hades is that man who hides one thing in his heart and speaks another.
Homer

Welfare is for the needy, not big and wealthy multinational corporations.
David Lewis

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As you walk into a polling booth next Saturday remember this — despite the media harassing some candidates to outline who they are ‘giving preferences to’ or party workers trying to shove how to vote cards in your hands as you turn up at the booth, no political party controls the preferences that yo... 16/05/2022

Do your job competently
Finland and Sweden are currently exploring joining NATO. The about face from long term neutrality has come about because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The ABC reported recently that there has been a significant shift in the attitude of the Finnish and Swedish Governments from ‘don’t poke the (... 9/05/2022

Clinging on to power
You should feel a bit sorry for Tim Banfield. While he did choose to become a member of Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party, then put his hand up to be the UAP candidate for the Illawarra based seat of Whitlam at the upcoming federal election, he didn’t deserve to be sacked as a candidate 24 hours... 2/05/2022

This election – you do have a say

Only labor is able to govern as a single entity. A status that has been undermined by the ABC, the loonies and Antony green for the last 10 years.

The ex-good, the determined bad and the lazy ugly arguably aided the rabbott, the copper man and Scummo with underhanded, backstabbing tac...

Vale 2020

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Do your job competently

I thought that the faceless, grey men of the parties would have picked up on the change of mood in people during the pandemic. Particularly the first year.

The seething anger evident in Victoria exists in other States as well, it is just not evidenced quite so noisily.

Pol...

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Is Australia becoming a guided democracy?

Whither the Left: Part 3

Whither the Left: Part 2

Whither the Left: Part 1

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