February 2012 Editor's Note

Monthly Wire

Blog | 2 February 2012 | Add a Comment

The Greens have withstood a number of disruptive forces, but the one that continues to build is from within. In this issue, Sally Neighbour exposes how the radicalism of the NSW branch has never ceased scratching away at the national party's veneer of discipline, and how it is starting to thin. As if Bob Brown didn't already have enough undermined people to work with.

Also, a telling profile of Scott Morrison reveals the metamorphosis of a man native to Sydney's eastern suburbs – with the progressive liberal outlook to match – who has become a captive of his Sutherland Shire electorate. The change is not pretty. Perhaps politicians should, every term or two, be compelled to re-deliver their maiden speech to Parliament, to remind...

Prime Ministers

The Second Rudd Government?

Robert Manne

Blog | 23 January 2012 | Add a Comment

For better or for worse, unlike most commentators, my judgments about Australian politics are generally formed not by conversations with Canberra insiders but almost solely by reading history books, listening to radio, watching current affairs television and following the newspapers. As it happens, opinion polls are among my most valuable sources of information. They provide, for example, the only reliable evidence about the question I want to discuss in this blog: the relative popularity of our two most recent Prime Ministers – Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard.

Kevin Rudd governed Australia for two and a half years. Here, according to Newspoll, is the remarkable story of how his government fared, as measured in “two-party preferred” terms: 63% to 37% (once); 62...

SOCIETY

The Search for the Least Bad Asylum Seeker Policy

Robert Manne

Blog | 21 December 2011 | Add a Comment

“When the facts change I change my mind. What do you do, Sir?”
– John Maynard Keynes

On the weekend perhaps two hundred asylum seekers bound for Australia perished off the coast of Java. One key question about Australia’s asylum seeker problem was finally resolved. No one can any longer pretend that a regime of spontaneous asylum seeker boat arrivals and onshore processing does not carry with it grave and  arguably unacceptable risks. In such circumstances, a conscientious national search for a solution to the asylum seeker problem can no longer be postponed. Unfortunately such a search is made almost impossible by two different kinds of stalemate – one political, the other ideological.

The political stalemate is the more familiar. It can be...

CULTURE

Best Satire of 2011

Monthly Wire

Blog | 15 December 2011 | Add a Comment

Ten of the most amusing reads of 2011 from the Shortlist Daily.

I'm sorry I bit you during my job interview "It was great to meet with you and learn more about the company. Please don’t hesitate to call or email if you have any more questions for me."

– McSweeney's

Thirteen Observations made by Lemony Snicket while watching Occupy Wall Street from a Discreet Distance

– Occupy Writers

...