• 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.

Mummy, I’m bored

Like kids at the end of the school holidays, some of our journalists are bored stiff.  They want some excitement to make their dull life a little more bearable.  The Press Gallery sits in Parliament, hangs around the precinct looking for doorstops, dwelling on the occasional press confer...

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The Turnbull ETS wild card

 This week’s Newspoll must be a worry for the Coalition, showing as it does the same 2PP of 58/42 as the poll in early February.  Since that poll the Opposition has made a display of what it believed was economic responsibility by opposing the fiscal stimulus package, a move it hop...

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Malcolm Turnbull’s intelligence

There seems to be little disagreement, even amongst his detractors, that Malcolm Turnbull is highly intelligent.  It almost goes without saying. Yet how can someone with his purported intelligence do such dumb things all through last week?  Is it because intelligence is not a homog...

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Advice for The Opposition

 On Friday last Possum Comitatus on his Crikey site Pollytics in a piece titled Unleash Your Inner Liberal Strategist asked readers to devise a Liberal Party strategy to become electorally competitive again.  So far 38 have commented.  Here was my contribution, minimally modified, [...

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A heart-warming remembrance

The National Day of Mourning for those affected by the February 7 bushfires in Victoria has been crowned this morning by a moving heart-warming event at Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne.  With Ian Henderson of ABC Melbourne TV as the dignified MC, the service proceeded faultlessly through music, ...

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The problem with economists

The central problem with economists is that not one of them fully understands how the world economy came to be in the mess it’s in.  They can give partial explanations that describe a series of events and actions that have brought us to where we are, but these explanations are always in...

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Matthew Franklin’s having a bad ‘scare’ day

First he confidently predicted that Julie Bishop was safe in his piece in this morning’s Australian Bishop retains Turnbull backing only to have her quit her Shadow Treasurer role within hours.  His opening sentence “Liberal frontbencher Julie Bishop looks safe as the Opposit...

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Devine, van Onselen and Shanahan sit in judgement

The Australian on Friday 13 February and this Weekend Australian carried pieces by Frank Devine, Peter van Onselen and Dennis Shanahan, all directing acerbic attacks at Kevin Rudd.  Devine’s piece attacks Rudd’s article in The Monthly, the others Rudd’s ‘connection of ...

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At last Julie Bishop exits the Shadow Treasurer role

After media speculation that intensified over the weekend, Julie Bishop has just announced she is stepping down from the Shadow Treasurer role, and will take up the Shadow Foreign Affairs job.  No mention yet of what Helen Coonan will do or who will take Bishop’s job.  Joe Hockey a...

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Why did Janet Albrechtsen write ‘Who is the real Rudd?’

First you may wish to read her piece in The Australian on 10 February. What is the message she sends about Kevin Rudd?  Her conclusion spells it out: “With philosophical principles impossible to pin down, his only consistent and coherent belief is in political power. Every Rudd po...

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What is Malcolm Turnbull up to?

An alternative title could have been ‘What is the Coalition up to?’ but it seems as if opposing the Government’s  economic stimulus package is Turnbull’s initiative, possibly urged on by the young turks in the party room who want to take the fight up to Kevin Rudd.&nbs...

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Kevin Rudd’s essay on the global financial crisis

This Wednesday past the February issue of The Monthly reached the newsstands.  The lead article, Kevin Rudd’s The Global Financial Crisis, is informative.  Few will read it; those interested in economics and the current crisis should if they want insight into Rudd’s thinking....

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What does the Opposition believe should be done about the GFC?

The Government has released its latest stimulus package.  The Opposition knew it was coming.  So what did it do to contain the positive political advantage the package is already bringing to Kevin Rudd and his Government?  Let’s look at what it said before the package was rele...

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I have a dream – no, I have a hope

It would be presumptuous to use Martin Luther King’s 'I have a dream’ theme; modesty dictates I use ‘I have a hope’. I have a hope that one day the MSM will understand the use of language in Australian politics; I underscore Australian, because language here is un...

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The Political Sword 2009

The Political Sword resumes usual activity today.  With the resumption of Federal Parliament tomorrow, there will be plenty of political activity upon which to comment.  The prime focus of this site is Federal politics, the reporting of it, and the comments and opinions expressed i...

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Added features on The Political Sword

I have added two features to Blog Watch – Government Watch and Opposition Watch.  They are located in the right margin under 'site pages'.  Despite the ridicule to which the suffix ‘Watch’ has been subjected by the media (it’s almost as gross as addin...

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Time for hibernation

The last week before Christmas is upon us.  Let’s hope Kevin 24/7 hasn’t morphed into Kevin 24/365, and that for the sake of his health he takes a long break, and a real one, and gives all we political tragics a spell for a few weeks. It’s been a long and frantic year....

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The convoluted politics of climate change

 It started about 18 months ago when Kevin Rudd, with the state premiers, commissioned Ross Garnaut to address climate change.  Yesterday the long-awaited White Paper was launched.  It will form the basis of legislation to be introduced into parliament next year. The reaction ...

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Year end – how do the parties stand?

Kevin Rudd and his Government have had a good year.  The catalogue of achievements is vast, from the symbolic to the substantial, from the carefully considered moves to the emergency measures taken in response to the GFC.  There’s no need to elaborate; the public can see what the G...

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Opposition ship docks for repairs

Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition is steaming slowly into port for a period in dry dock after skirmishes in open waters not far from the coast.  Hopes were high that routine maintenance would be all that was needed, but several recent encounters with the good ship Her Majesty’s Gover...

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