• 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.

The Tragic Magic Pudding

It’s been over a year’s hard Labor for Tony Abbott since the Indos went along with Julia Gillard and not him. And to say the least, he’s getting a bit toey. He knows that he needs to swing their support his direction, so as to get into the big chair. But, to make things worse at the moment, he’s...

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Slowing down the blur that is the colour and movement of a Tony Abbott speech

Tony Abbott giving his speech to the 55th Annual Liberal Party Federal Council, 2011 In the perpetual present that politics has become, worldwide, and especially in this country since Tony Abbott became Opposition Leader, where what happened and what was said yesterday is so last week, ...

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Putting the Squeeze on Mr Squiggle

Everybody knows the ABC has gone to the dogs, and it’s not just its News and Current Affairs Department we’re talking about. In fact, their Children’s Programming Section is badly in need of a facelift also. But, at least there, they are trying to do something about it. The powe...

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What Julia Gillard DOES stand for

Are you as tired as I am of the words: ‘What does Julia Gillard stand for?’ There seems an endless stream of journalists, bloggers, and of course members of the Opposition who repeat this question over and again, until it sounds like a mantra chanted mindlessly. What does it actually me...

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A tribute to Greg Jericho

Knowing how much visitors to The Political Sword have appreciated the writings of Greg Jericho on Grog’s Gamut, this short piece is to thank you Greg for giving us such delight for so long. Your contribution to political discourse has been outstanding. We have enjoyed your forensic dissection o...

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Extreme Makeover Takeover

Tony Abbott reckons questions about his leadership and (lack of) policies could come thick and fast any day now, so he has bummed the money off Lindsay Fox to take out a lease on the ramshackle Nauru asylum-seeker centre. Being in such a state of disrepair, it makes the house that jack built look l...

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If you are not scared about the effects of global warming, you ought to be

As if there isn’t enough to be scared about on the physical plane, and we saw even more this week from New Anthropocene covering the ‘State of the Ocean’ report that shows that the seas are dying and time frames for actions are ‘shrinking’, now we have scary economic ne...

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Looking down from the grandstand - where the experts are

We are in a vast grandstand looking down on a match between traditional rivals. There are rusted on supporters for both teams who could never barrack for anyone else, and who urge their teams on and loudly abuse the other, no matter how well the opponents play; they can do no good. The umpires &nda...

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Getting sucked in by a séance

It’s Friday arvo, close to tea-time, and the Minister for Climate Change, Greg Combet, is walking down St Mary’s road in Sydney. Suddenly, he notices, on the other side and walking in the same direction, Tony Abbott. For his part, as he reaches the Catholic Cathedral, Tones veers off a...

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Is your moral compass better than mine?

Isn’t ‘moral compass’ a catchy phrase? And isn’t losing it a pretty serious indictment? It suggests that anyone who has lost his or her ‘moral compass’ is to be looked down upon as an unworthy reprobate. Andrew Wilkie introduced the term to label PM Gillard and...

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Fair and balanced discourse – is that what we want?

The skirmish that erupted here on The Political Sword last week with one blogsite labelling this one as exhibiting "unremitting one-eyed left wing bias", and another accusing the site of ignoring or demeaning opinions that conflict with those held by the majority of those who comment here, warrants ...

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Strutting the catwalk in Carbon Alley

Life used to be simple in Carbon Alley. The Fat Cats, Gina ‘Ginger Mog’ Rinehart, and Clive ‘Cheshire Cat’ Palmer, have been running the place, aided and abetted by their cronies, Officers Dibble (Tony Abbott) and Dribble (David Bushby). However, many of the alley cats, led...

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What have we done to deserve an Opposition Leader like Tony Abbott?

I’m fed up with Tony Abbott and most of his Coalition team. I’m fed up with his unremitting negativity. I’m fed up with his destructiveness. I’m fed up with his nastiness. I’m fed up with his attitude towards women. I’m fed up with his rabble-rousing tactics. ...

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The Waltons get the willies

As one of the foremost Forgotten Families, the Coalition Waltons have nothing better to do than to retire early for the night. However, still active behind the scenes, John-Boy (Howard) Walton can’t sleep. John-Boy: Psssst...Tones! You awake, son? Tones: Yeah, pa – can’t sle...

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‘Post-Truth Politics’

Or, How the ALP Should Play the Game of Political Pragmatism, Just Not as the Hollow Man Abbott Does. So, you will by now have had seared into your brains the immortal words Tony Abbott uttered to his party room this past week: “In a choice between policy purity and political pragmatism, ...

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Julia Gillard’s Fireside Chat - Your Heath Mark 2

This is a second attempt to craft a set of messages about health that PM Gillard might transmit, modified in the light of your comments and suggestions, some of which have been included verbatim. An attempt has been made to generalize and personalize the ‘chat’ using ‘we’, &l...

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Julia Gillard’s Fireside Chats – Your Health

This is the second of a series in which contributors to The Political Sword are attempting to fashion examples of messages that our Prime Minister might give in her 'Fireside Chats'. The idea of Fireside Chats came from David Horton in a piece titled: The ragged trousered philanthropist on The Wate...

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A Minder, kinder, gentler polity

It’s an early morning start for Tony “Arthur Daley” Abbott at his ACTION MOTORS car-yard (“Arthur’s Commodores – Trade-Ins Or Newies”). However, as he alights from his car, he can’t help noticing that his rivals across the road (Gillard’s ...

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Julia Gillard’s Fireside Chats – A Price on Carbon

Introduction by Ad astra In a piece titled: The ragged trousered philanthropist on The Watermelon Blog, it was David Horton who suggested that PM Gillard should consider instituting ‘Fireside Chats’.  Quoting from Wikipedia, he related previous attempts at ‘fireside chats&rsqu...

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The curse of the leading question

It is often the nature of the question that determines the answer. Moreover, no matter what style of question is posed, the authority of the question is conditioned by the power relationship between the questioner and the questioned. People in a submissive position are more inclined to give the expe...

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