IN recent days John Laws has demonstrated two things. Firstly, he has not entirely lost his enthusiasm for radio after 51 years, and, secondly, talkback radio remains a powerful political medium. It’s been compelling listening as John Laws has taken on the NSW Labor Government, and the far too influential shopping centre giant, Westfield. His […]

The appointment of Kim Beazley as ALP Defence spokesman shows that Labor’s election strategy is in disarray. It is the worst foreign affairs mistake that Latham has made since holding a press conference in front of the US flag. Here’s why. Beazley lost the last election because he couldn’t fix Labor’s foreign affairs problems, and […]

If a chip on the shoulder is mandatory couture for Australians, a bit like epaulettes are for soldiers, then Queenslanders are the power dressers of the Australian inferiority complex. And maybe we have cause. This morning when I logged on to my Messenger service the unavoidable pop-up came with an advertisement for The Bulletin magazine […]

If I hadn’t been so busy sleeping and had instead read the Fin Review rather than relying on the ABC on my clock radio, I would have had an alternate source of irritation this morning to Richard Armitage. Can I say how sick and disappointed I am that Paul Keating did not give a clip […]

The reaction to Richard Armitage’s comment that the Australian Labor Party is split on its policy of withdrawing troops from Iraq by Christmas seems a bit hysterical. If anything, his comments will probably help the ALP vote. I cannot see any rational objection to anyone anywhere commenting on the internal state of the ALP, be […]

It appears that my warnings about the Housing Summit were more dire than they needed to have been. The only recommendation of any substance to come out of it was a call for a national Housing Ministry. This is really no bad thing. Chair of the Summit, Professor Julian Disney, claimed on ABC Radio National […]

THERE is a meanness of spirit in government – and particularly local level government – that is unhealthy and contrary to the Australian tradition. I saw it again over the weekend in a “Sunday Mail” story on the move by councils to ban, or severely restrict, “memorials” placed at fatal road accident sites by the […]

Just as I predicted the National Summit on Housing Affordability is developing into an eyrie of bird-brained schemes that will make the affordability “problem” worse, not better. It is also encouraging others to come out independently with their own deficient proposals. Yesterday’s Sunday Mail carried a story headlined “Rent crisis hits elderly – Poverty and […]

It promises to be an orgy of self-interest – property developers and the welfare industry getting together to fix a problem which doesn’t exist – the housing crisis. Next week in Canberra there will be a National Summit on Housing Affordability sponsored by the Housing Industry Association, the Australian Local Government Association, ACOSS, the ACTU […]

THE national media spends too much time looking at broad opinion poll figures and not enough time looking at what is happening in individual seats, and regions, right around Australia. For as long as I can remember, uniform swings have not been the order of the day in federal elections. I can remember the 1972 […]