Day-Dreaming about Menzies in Wartime London
Quadrant, Vol. 59, No. 3, Mar 2015: 44-49 Over more than two decades, David Day’s grand thesis in his book Menzies & Churchill at War—that Robert Menzies returned from England in April 1941 after [...]
Tax cuts work better than public stimulus
Barack Obama recently forced through congress an extension of the Bush tax cuts for another two years, in spite of heated opposition from many Democrats. The tax cuts repudiate the President's economic policy and signal [...]
Hung parliament will get short shrift from voters
BOB Katter wants a return of tariffs, Rob Oakeshott wants to overturn the party system. And Tony Windsor increasingly sounds as if he'd like another election. After seven decades, Australians woke up on Sunday morning [...]
A modern Enid Lyons?
With Julia Gillard’s ascension last week, Australians witnessed momentous history. More than six decades ago, a very different woman became Australia’s first female member of the House of Representatives. As a conservative, Dame Enid Lyons [...]
Sink differences to keep nation afloat
OPPOSITION Leader Malcolm Turnbull and his deputy Julie Bishop have offered bipartisan co-operation with the Rudd Government in the face of a global credit crisis and looming recession. As Bishop put it to Laurie Oakes [...]
Nation’s change of heart
ELECTED in a landslide, the new Howard government quickly set in place an administration that would define its character for over a decade. The message was direct and strong; Labor had squandered Australia's good fortune, [...]
Eleven children and mother of female politics
Photos of the Deputy Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, meeting the United States Vice-President, Dick Cheney, at the White House said it all. Back home, the cabinet ministers Nicola Roxon, Jenny Macklin and Penny Wong echoed [...]
When a woman took the Lyons share, the power couple was born
Political power couples are suddenly all the rage – Bill and Hillary Clinton, Barack and Michelle Obama, while Down Under there is Malcolm and Lucy Turnbull. While Kevin Rudd’s wife Therese Rein may prefer to [...]
Spouses who Tell
Call it the result of our obsession with the famous or a new era for wives and ex-wives (even soccer WAGS have web pages during the World Cup), today’s sidekicks and partners - former or [...]