Posts on sundry matters of life the universe and everything: Culture, Environment, Life, Politics & Government, Science, Social Science and Society, Technology etc.
And Senator Abetz says legalising gay marriage would lead to polyamory and argues issue should be rejected out of hand because Opposition Leader Bill Shorten supports change.
Did the Euro die at 5.13pm on Saturday 27 June, when Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis walked out of the Eurogroup meeting of finance ministers? We still don’t know, but it is important to understand that Varoufakis didn’t ‘walk’, he was pushed. Continue reading Greece is in default arrears
In the dead tree version of the Oz, the headline read Coalition high in PM’s home state. Aha! I thought, the latest Newspoll must be good for Labor, if that’s all they can find to say! Then I saw it at the head of the table – 50-50 in NSW.
In fact the two-party preferred (TPP) number favoured Labor 53-47, but they hid the number as much as possible and didn’t mention it in the text. Continue reading Poll stuff 1/7
Millionaire pension couples are not rich! The pension changes are about middle Australia.
Van Badham reminds us that Bob Brown said the point was not to keep the bastards honest, rather to replace the bastards. In the pension deal, Van Badham says, the Greens have become the bastards. Continue reading Greens sell out on aged pensions
The Abbott Government has crossed a line by setting up an inquiry to interfere directly in the editorial processes of the ABC. That is the true obscenity of the Zaky Mallah Q&A affair. Continue reading Abbott calls for heads to roll at the ABC
Tomy Abbott told Radio National’s PM program that there are two ways of removing citizenship of people engaged in terrorism: Continue reading Stripping citizenship “happens automatically by action of law”
The story of the week was perhaps The Abbott Government’s paying people smugglers to turn back a boatload of asylum seekers to Indonesia.
Indonesia’s foreign ministry says it believes the payments were made. It seems pretty obvious that they were. Continue reading Saturday salon 20/6: late edition
Mark forecast that participating in the program The Killing Season would diminish both Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd. He was right – Gillard more than Rudd.
Anthony Albanese was also right when he said that you shouldn’t change a first term prime minister on the basis of a newspaper story and again when he said that on that night the Labor Party killed two prime ministers. Continue reading The Killing Season continues
There is a vague feeling of unease abroad about Australia’s economic future, as the mining industry peaks, the car manufacturing industry evaporates and now Woolworths announces yet another job bloodletting – this time 1200 staff to go. This unease was picked up in the Lowy Institute Poll 2015, where our economic optimism rose from 2005 to 2009, then fell from 2010 to 2015: Continue reading Australia’s Future Workforce: up to five million jobs to go
The Oz headlines Bill Shorten in its Newspoll report, and not in a good way. 54% are dissatisfied with his performance, only two less than Tony Abbott. But surprisingly 34% now think Abbott is doing a good job, compared to only 28% for Shorten. This gives Shorto a net satisfaction rating of -26 to Abbott’s -22. Continue reading Poll stuff 17/6: Lowy Institute edition
