One of the advantages of being a reporter, media presenter, commentator or academic is that you rarely, if ever, have to make decisions for which there are policy consequences. In short, critics say rather than do. On Thursday, Josh Frydenberg appeared on the ABC-TV News Breakfast program. Towards the end of the interview, the Treasurer [...]
On Wednesday, ABC Radio National Breakfast presenter Fran Kelly spoke to opposition Treasury spokesman Jim Chalmers, followed by Josh Frydenberg, about the Australian economy during the current Covid-19 lockdown in NSW. It came as no surprise that the former received a soft interview while the latter was consistently challenged and interrupted. What was surprising turned [...]
It must surely pass for one of the softest political interviews in Australia this century so far. The reference is to the discussion between ABC 7.30 political correspondent Laura Tingle and former Liberal Party and independent parliamentarian Julia Banks. The interview took place on 7.30 on Monday to coincide with the publication of Julia Banks’ [...]
These days only Lunar Right ideological extremists and/or the genuinely deranged identify with fascism and Nazism along with Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler, the respective leaders of these movements. But there are plenty in our midst who are still attracted to communism. The Australian Labor Party in Tasmania was in enough trouble at the start [...]
There is a wise saying known to participants in, and observers of, leadership challenges that take place within the Westminster political system. Namely, the only colleagues whose promises can be trusted are the ones who readily declare that they will be supporting someone else. They have no reason to deceive or fudge. It’s much the [...]
Four Corners last Monday was a reminder of the 1927 song, popularised by Elsa Lanchester, “I danced with a man who danced with a girl who danced with the Prince of Wales”. The program, presented by Louise Milligan with Sally Neighbour as executive producer, was titled The Great Awakening: A family divided by QAnon. Put [...]
Scott Morrison is in Cornwall, the place of birth of the man he terms his fifth great-grandfather, who came out to Australia with the First Fleet as a convict. The Prime Minister has been invited by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the host of this year’s conference of the Group of Seven – comprising Canada, [...]
And so it came to pass that Christian Porter’s defamation action against the ABC resulted in a settlement, going the way of many libel actions. Both sides had said they would fight the case until victory was resolved, and both sides backed off before the proposed hearing in the Federal Court. Some commentators believe Porter [...]
There was a world of difference between Diana, Princess of Wales (nee Spencer) and Neville Wran. The former was born into the titled English upper class and, for 15 years, was married to the heir to the British monarchy. The latter was a product of the working-class Sydney suburb of Balmain before what Paul Keating [...]
It’s a long time since the media in Western nations was primarily sympathetic to Israel. This was the case in 1967 when there was widescale support for the Jewish state in the West during what became known as the Six-Day War. Israel, established by the authority of the UN in 1948, was less than two [...]