 Justin Madden – boofhead, retired AFL hero, Labor Minister and perhaps soon to be unwitting definer of the bounds of Westminster democracy
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A dispute has arisen in Victoria’s Upper House of Parliament which seems to show some promise of throwing legal light on a dim aspect of Australia’s evolved version of Westminster responsible government, namely whether and to what extent an Upper House can compel a Ministerial officer to give evidence. Read more »
Most of the initial reactions to Tony Abbott’s maternity leave proposal have focussed on its political motivation, on how it squares with his personal ideology, and on reactions of the business lobby.
As far as the politics are concerned, it looks like standard Howard era populism, seizing on the winds of prevailing opinion.
As for the financing, the interesting aspect is not that business will pay for it. In fact, it would take it a bit of detailed modelling to work out how the incidence would ultimately fall. Businesses forces to pay the levy would recover part of it from salaries and part from consumers via higher prices, with shareholders paying the balance. The cost will fall failrly broadly on the community as a whole, just as it would if it were taxpayer funded. Read more »
I always suspected that Tony Abbott was a sheep in wolf’s clothing, a bit of a wimp when it came to the crunch. Now it’s been confirmed. Read more »
The February edition of The Monthly is out, including Robert Manne’s eagerly-awaited ‘Comment’ on Windschuttle. Read more »
Gutless. The government and the opposition joined forces in the Senate to vote down Senator Xenophon’s proposed inquiry into the Church of Scientology.
Both the ALP and the Coalition have folded like cheap garden chairs in the face of organised evil. Shame on both of them.
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Regarding the Australian government’s attitude to the war in Afghanistan, Hugh White had this to say on Lateline last night:
I think they understand perfectly well that continuing to support the United States there is fairly important for our alliance management, but I don’t detect much enthusiasm in the Government to really trying to turn Afghanistan around and convert it into a stable, prosperous democracy. I think most people in the Government privately regard that as a pretty quixotic aim. Read more »
While we’re waiting for Ken’s dissertaion on the ethics of forcing minors to watch this, here are a few comments on the program.
Kevin Rudd and Tony Jones looked like twins, both prematurely white, bespectacled and beaming, standing on either side of the Speaker’s chair in Old Parliament House. Coalition partisans would have been enraged to see the two of them, the Labor PM and the government salaried Labor propagandist, using public money and airtime to propagandise to an assembly of impressionable young minds.
Rudd obviously enjoyed the encounter. You couldn’t say he had the audience eating of the palm of his hand, but the rapport was good. I don’t know how the audience was selected, but see no reason why it wouldn’t have been a representative cross-section of 15-25 year olds, in terms of political background. Rudd clearly sees himself as their kind of guy, and not without justification. Read more »
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