It’s difficult to understand the reverence sections of the Australian media give to visiting, or fly-in-fly-out, commentators and intellectuals. Take Alastair Campbell, for example, who was introduced by ABC TV Q&A presenter Tony Jones last Monday as “Tony Blair’s legendary spin doctor”. Well, so he was. It’s just that Blair ceased being prime minister of [...]
Arthur Conan Doyle’s character Sherlock Holmes referred to the curious incident of the dog that did not bark. This week witnessed another odd circumstance; namely, the unwillingness of certain media outlets to report former Greens leader Bob Brown’s cry about wind farms in northwest Tasmania. On July 8, the Hobart Mercury published an article by Brown expressing [...]
Tom Keneally ‘threw the switch to alienation’ when discussing the issue of refugees and asylum-seekers with the BBC Most Australians appreciate the cut and thrust of the domestic political debate. However, when talking to foreigners all of us have a responsibility to be as factual as possible and to avoid hyperbole. Bestselling author and Booker [...]
The most important message from Sky News’ two-part documentary Bad Blood/New Blood, which aired on Tuesday and Wednesday, was provided by Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton. He said the Liberal Party was in the best position it had been in for some years. The Coalition’s defeat by Labor in March 2007 saw the incumbent prime minister [...]
Illustration: John Tiedemann What’s interesting about the ABC’s headquarters in Sydney’s inner-city Ultimo in recent times turns on that which is suddenly missing at the top of the organisation — namely, the prevalence of denial that has pervaded the public broadcaster for decades. For eons, the ABC board, senior management and high-profile staff have denied [...]
Unlike Bill Shorten, Prime Minister Scott Morrison went into the election with a modest platform. Yet it won both votes and seats. In October 1980, the Coalition under Malcolm Fraser’s leadership won its third election in a row. A bit like 2019, except the current administration has had three prime ministers — Tony Abbott, Malcolm [...]
Four decades on from the (alleged) events of February 8, 1979, a dark stain remains on the Australian criminal justice system. It involves police, prosecutors, trial judges, jurors and appeal courts — all the way to the High Court. Along with intelligence agencies, senior public servants and leading politicians. In Britain it has been accepted [...]
It was informative on election night to watch ABC television’s Annabel Crabb and Andrew Probyn, among others, blaming the opinion polls for the failure of so many journalists and commentators to predict the Coalition would prevail on May 18. Sure, the opinion polls got it wrong this time. But not dramatically so, as American psephologist [...]
Labor’s Ben Chifley lost the 1949 election after he took aim at the ‘big end of town Some say Bill Shorten did a John Hewson by losing an unlosable election from opposition. The better view is that he did a Ben Chifley, in that he led the Australian Labor Party to defeat by upsetting some [...]
The Project’s Waleed Aly Australia is a significant nation in world affairs and has been at least since the start of World War I in 1914. But it is fair to say that Australia is not well known, even in western Europe and North America. This places a special responsibility on Australia’s politicians and commentators to speak [...]