• 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.

Julia Gillard's Light on the Hill

Will commentators ever be satisfied that the Labor Party and its leadership have established an ‘overarching narrative’ that portrays what the Party and its ministers ‘stand for’? I doubt it. The quest for this Holy Grail has been going on ever since Labor came to office, and...

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Prefabricated predictions

Tony Abbott is feeling a great need to get away from it all, so he has gone over to Europe to compete in the autumnal leg of the Tour de France cycle-race. He has brought along the young Queensland LNP MP, Wyatt Roy, a fluent French speaker, for translating purposes. So, the race has s...

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The Devil is in the Detail in the Dictionary

Happy Halloween from Feral Skeleton Fellow Swordians, I know I'm a bit late in hopping on the Halloween bus, but having the flu can make you run late for your bus (and anyway I fell in love with the graphic & decided I wanted to keep it). Neverthele...

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A Prior Engagement

Channel Nine aren’t too sure if their once-popular entertainment show, “This is Your Life”, has a viable future. Eddie Maguire himself is ambivalent, but is willing to experiment to see if its fortunes can be resuscitated. So, Eddie has decided that he will be the compere. He ...

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Don’t Barney with Batwoman

You probably heard that, recently, Julia Gillard was awarded a prestigious “Brave Thinker” award. But, this is nothing new, as, for a long while in Gotham City, she has been famous for her courageous role in fighting organised crime. There, she is called, “Brave And Thinking Wo...

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The enigma of the ‘overarching narrative’

Here we are again – looking for the elusive overarching narrative, or as Paul Keating describes it in his latest book After Words: ‘an overarching and compelling story’. What is it about this concept that for so many defies description? Is it simply blindness among commentators who...

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Junk-yard Japes

When he was cutting his teeth in student politics all those years ago, Tony Abbott used to refer to himself as “the junk-yard dog”. And, even today, he is still playing that same role, guarding the junk-yard, in Oil-drum Alley, of that old Liberal codger, John “Albert Steptoe&rdqu...

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Australia’s King Canute: Tony Abbott

  Has there ever been a more destructive politician in Australian political history than Tony Abbott, Leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition? His ‘give me what I want or I’ll wreck the place’ approach has been documented from the day he missed out on becoming PM aft...

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It’s time to lock the gate on the Barbarians before the reasonable get trampled underfoot

It's time the men and women of Australia stopped treating our Prime Minister like she is beneath contempt. I should know, I can smell it a mile off. I have two teenage boys, and they tell me how their mates behave towards women who have done nothing more to deserve their contempt than be nice to...

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Cross-breed Purposes

The Assistant-Treasurer in the Federal Government, Bill Shorten, is in his Melbourne office pouring over reports on the Tax Forum, when his mobile rings. Bill: Hallo, Bill Shorten here... Caller: Hi, Bill...it’s Chris Uhlmann here...I hope I haven’t caught you at an inconvenient moment...

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Why are Australians angry and scared out of their minds? Ask Tony Abbott

Melbourne is rated as the 2011 ‘most livable city in the world’, Sydney is sixth, and Perth and Adelaide are equal eighth. We have almost half of the most livable cities in the top ten in the world. And we have the most awe-inspiring country in which to live, ‘the lucky country&r...

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The Crass Collectors Come a Cropper

The Collectors program on the ABC has been a favourite of many for a number of years now. However, the ABC has fallen on hard times and the show has got the axe. So, unfortunately, the three presenters, Claudia, Gordon and Adrian, have been put out to grass. But, Sophie Mirabell...

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Is Robert Manne right about ‘The Australian’?

For a long while, many who write and comment here have expressed the view that The Australian newspaper has a strident anti-Gillard, anti-Government orientation, and is pursuing a campaign to persuade the electorate to remove the Government as soon as possible. The Australian, and indeed News Limite...

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What a Y-Frontery!

According to the promotional blurbs sent out to advertise his new TV show, Y-Frontsline, Tony “Mike Moore” Abbott is such a hit as the Leader of the Opposition, he can afford to share out a bit of his presence by also entertaining the TV masses while he’s at it. To be truthful, ho...

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Holy Rollin’ Politics, Batman!

  In the 21st century, contemporary Conservatism has surrendered to a virulent, dystopian and pathologically hyper-individualist state of mind and populist Right Wing ideology. From the proclamations and intimations by Conservative politicians that the unemployed are poor because they lack ...

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Rugby World Cup Wobblies

The Rugby World Cup is in full swing in New Zealand and all the spectators, global TV viewers and radio listeners are having a ball. And, keen to get some political mileage from the event, in Australia Julia Gillard has organised a PM’s XV to play an exhibition game at the Woop Woop “S...

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Mr Abbott and the Five Concerned Liberals

The Leader of the Opposition graciously granted an audience to some life-long Liberal voters: three gentlemen and two ladies. They asked to see him because they felt concerned about some of his policies and needed clarification; they also wanted reassurance about some of his actions and a bette...

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Scarecrow Scamps

Fans of the quirky “Worzel Gummidge” TV series, featuring the rascally scarecrow, will know that he has different heads for various occasions. However, more recently, in the absence of his Creator, The Crowman, Worzel has got into even more strife than usual. You see, The Crowman has gone...

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Is Julia Gillard entitled to a fair go?

There are a gathering number of columnists who are writing off Julia Gillard as PM, and the Labor party as terminal. Even previous Labor parliamentarians such as Graham Richardson (Richo) have not just dumped her, but in most derogatory terms; an old Labor stalwart in Phillip Adams is telling her t...

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It’s time for the Government to play a game of Musical Chairs

Finally, an issue that stirred up the juices again. Something that I felt I could write about for you here. Now, recently I have speculated, as have others in the media and blog diaspora, upon the fact of whether it would be a good time for a Spring Clean of the Ministry by the Prime Min...

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