Abbott’s fall and Turnbull’s ascension was the first news we got from home, via a text from our son.
I must admit I didn’t see it coming. I’d written Turnbull off as unacceptable to the Liberal Party. Now suddenly he’s there and Shorten looks like a dead man walking.
Mark has a piece in the Guardian. Continue reading Saturday salon 17/10: late edition
Four of the Bahnisch siblings and their partners have decided to meet up and invade Europe again. Back in 2008 it was the Rhine, this time the centre-piece is a trip down the Danube, if it has any water in it. I’ll be away from 8 September to 13 October.
This time I think it best for the blog to lie fallow. John D has been busy doing good works, and there are no other active bloggers to keep the site going.
I’m expecting my posting to taper in the coming week. We’ll see.
I think the idea may have come from former Labor minister Craig Emerson and Nick Cater, the Director of the Menzies Research Centre. The National Reform Summit was sponsored by The Australian, The Australian Financial Review and KPMG and everyone that mattered was there – business groups, community groups, the unions, addressing all manner of social and economic issues, and apparently reaching furious agreement.
Laura Tingle says the key question is now how the debate now feeds back into politics. My feeling is that the ideological fissures will again reappear as we get back to sound bites and point scoring.
Joe Hockey said we can’t go into the future looking out of the window od a Holden Commodore. I’d just like a government with its hands on the wheel. Hockey said consumers will lead the way.
Martin Parkinson said we are sleepwaliking into a real mess if we don’t get a grip.
Roy Green and John Hamilton Howard tell us what we need to do to ensure Australia remains an innovative nation.
I couldn’t believe what seemed to be going on. Something called Border Force. People who looked like cops. Stopping people at random on the street to see whether their visa was in order!
Under the Migration Act, an authorised officer can ask for information from someone the officer “knows or reasonably suspects is a non-citizen”.
The information can include evidence of being a lawful non-citizen and personal identity papers. The person must comply with the request within a time period “specified by the officer”.
If the officer “knows or reasonably suspects” the person is an unlawful non-citizen the officer must detain that person.
In effect the immigration system was being militarised.
Any way it seems to have stopped before it started.
That was 1600 years ago on 24 August:
It was the first time in 800 years that Rome had been successfully invaded. The event had reverberations around the Mediterranean.
It must have seemed like the end of the world at the time.
Gillard has been getting a bit of a razz for saying that she now supports same sex marriage. A bit bloody late, they say.
Actually she’s repeating what she said in her book some time ago. Her position has been misunderstood, by people who either don’t listen or hear only what they want to hear. There is a statement in the link, but let me try again.
Gillard as a young feminist saw the institution of marriage as hopelessly patriarchal and wanted it nixed in favour of civil unions. She would do nothing to support the institution.
She has come to realise that history has spoken. The institution of marriage will endure and even be cherished. That being the case she now recognises that it should be open to all.
She has been seen as strangely conservative, or sucking up to conservative interests, whereas she was actually more radical than most.
Because of the way the blog currently presents posts on the home page I think it’s better to remove the introductory material to a different place. For new readers, here’s the rationale for this space.
An open thread where, at your leisure, you can discuss anything you like, well, within reason and the Comments Policy. Include here news and views, plus any notable personal experiences from the week and the weekend.
For climate topics please use the most recent Climate clippings.
The gentleman in the image is Voltaire, who for a time graced the court of Frederick II of Prussia, known as Frederick the Great. King Fred loved to talk about the universe and everything at the end of a day’s work. He also used the salons of Berlin to get feedback in the development of public policy.
Fred would only talk in French; he regarded German as barbaric. Here we’ll use English.
The thread will be a stoush-free zone. The Comments Policy says:
The aim [of this site] is to provide a venue for people to contribute and to engage in a civil and respectful manner.
Kathy Jackson who once posed as a whistleblower has been exposed as a liar, a thief and a hypocrite. The $1.4 million she lifted from the Health Services Union makes Craig Thompson look like a petty thief. Continue reading Saturday salon 22/8
That’s the view of Laura Tingle in the AFR. She has plenty support.
Judges have to appear impartial. Justice Dyson Heydon has said so very forcefully in the past as a judge. Continue reading Saturday salon 15/8
As I compiled the 12 posts on our Simpson Desert crossing photos from the other nine cameras drifted in. Those from Patsy and Don, however, arrived after the series was complete. Their collection contains some excellent landscapes I certainly would have used, had they been available. This selection tells the story of our crossing with links to the earlier posts in the headings. Continue reading Simpson Desert crossing: photos from Patsy and Don
Bronwyn Bishop will have to get by on a pension of $255,000 plus 10 free domestic return flights a year if she were to take the Prime Minister’s hint and quit Parliament at the next election. Continue reading Saturday salon 8/8
Last week’s Morgan poll had Labor ahead 54-46, Essential continues at 53-47. There was no Newspoll this week but the Abbott Government’s political fortunes remain decisively buried. Interest turns to how the leaders are tracking. Here the news is that “Don’t know” and “Anyone else” are performing very well indeed. Continue reading Poll stuff 5/8
Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 disappeared in March last year with 239 passengers and crew onboard. Now 16 months on, what appears to be the wing section of a plane has been found washed up at Reunion, a small French-owned island east of Madagascar. Continue reading Saturday salon 1/8
Turning back asylum seeker boats can only be done legally and ethically, in my view, with the agreement of transitional countries, such as Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand. Unfortunately the form of the decision made at the ALP conference makes clear that the ALP would seek to act without such agreement. Continue reading Turning back boats – only by agreement
On Wednesday, prior to COAG on Thursday, our political leaders held a summit or retreat to dicuss taxation and the future of the federation. By all accounts they enjoyed the talkfest – Jay Weatherall said it was “very positive” and that “in my sense and my operation in COAG over the last five years, this is probably the most constructive I have ever seen”.
Despite that there is no evidence they actually decided anything except lowering the threshold at which the GST applies to offshore online purchases. Continue reading Saturday salon 25/7
It can’t be true. In the UK unemployment is being redefined as a psychological disorder as part of an effort to cut the welfare bill by $12 billion. And, says an article in the New Scientist (can’t find the link), the UK
They say “claimants must demonstrate characteristics deemed desirable in workplaces, like confidence and enthusiasm, in return for welfare.” Continue reading Pathologising unemployment
