The former Dear Leader has received his reward - something a little more prestigious than the weirdly named awards from obscure right wing think tanks he spent some time trotting over to America last year to collect. John Howard will be awarded the “Medal of Freedom” by another soon to be former leader - George W. Bush. Read more »
Over at Catallaxy, Jason Soon links to Kerry Miller’s article in Spiked about Clive Hamilton’s influence in the propagation of the idea of the “Clean Feed” web censorship plan. Read more »
No one would every accuse the LNP leader Lawrence “the Borg” Springborg of being poll driven, would they? I mean… surely it’s a coincidence that the latest Galaxy Poll on state voting intentions found Labor leading strongest on transport and the LNP releasing a transport policy for Brisbane commuters the same day? Read more »
I’m sticking to my no politics on the weekend rule, and have a busy day tomorrow, so I’m going to save up my thoughts on the first anniversary of the defeat of the Howard government and the election of the Rudd Labor government for later on. But there’s no doubt that there will be a fair bit of discussion about it, so please feel free to use this thread for posting links, and making any observations you may have. Read more »
Commenter Angharad discusses Kevin Rudd’s homelessness white paper which didn’t get much discussion because of its timing, but deserves some because of the importance of the issue. -MB
A few days before Christmas, Kevin Rudd launched a white paper on homelessness The Road Home with far less fan fare than the climate change white paper a few weeks earlier. Read more »
The Coalition has received a rather earth-shattering wake-up call as we mark the Labor party’s first twelve months in office.
According to the latest Newspoll survey, Labor now leads the Opposition by 59 per cent to 41 per cent on a two-party preferred basis.
This represents the Coalition’s worst performance since June, and its second-lowest support since the election. Read more »
On Lateline tonight, the point was made that other police agencies failed to share information with Queensland Police before the Fitzgerald Inquiry because it was demonstrated that such intelligence was leaked or sold to suspects. Can it be too difficult for the Victorian government to recognise that cops investigating cops is a bad model, and that you need an independent commission? Is it just the power of the Police Association? Or the fear that the government will suffer if systemic corruption and malfeasance is going on? Hard to read it any other way.
No doubt because Malcolm Turnbull has demonstrated his stunning grasp of economics yet again by claiming that the Commonwealth budget going into deficit is some sort of yardstick of economic failure, there’s been an immense amount of commentary on Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swan’s willingness to utter the word “deficit”. The latest instalment in the saga is documented by Peter Martin here - Rudd’s conceded that Australia may have to sustain a “temporary deficit”. Read more »
The Poll Bludger has the numbers on the latest Nielsen poll for Victoria. Labor leads on the 2PP 55-45.
The Age trumpets this result as Victorian Labor “defying the national trend”. No doubt other papers are saying the same - I haven’t looked. Read more »
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