The News Limited distortion field, and Rudd-Gillard in historical perspective
The best commentary on Australian politics in Australia’s print media generally comes from its economics writers. But it seems that enough time in the News Limited reality distortion field can have you descending into Terry McRann-like partisan hackery disguised as [...]
Carbon price tax cuts deferred
DEFERRED, I say, damnit! The ABC had them “dumped” with Sabra Lane pronouncing: And the Minister put the best spin he could on what is effectively another broken promise. And then gave the last word to Greg Hunt. In their [...]
How low will they go?
You might recall that Julia Gillard kicked off her week in Western Sydney with an announcement of a new taskforce to combat gang crime at a cost of $64 million. If you read through her press conference, she emphasises open [...]
Australian misses actual story on Simon Sheikh and ACT Greens leaked email
Readers of The Australian may have noticed that the paper has been on one of its campaigns – drip feeding details of workers employed by state Labor governments and unions on 457 visas. Implicit in this reporting is a claim [...]
Coal Seam Gas, Four Corners, and failed governance
Last night’s Four Corners focused on Coal Seam Gas, moving between the stories of farmers and claims by a whistleblower that the governance process for the approval of Santos and QGC projects by the Queensland Government in 2010 was flawed. [...]
Accord nostalgia, Labourism and the fact challenged ‘economic debate’
A number of intriguing trajectories of argument have crossed over recently, as the Labor government continues to be under great pressure. In leaving the Gillard Cabinet, Martin Ferguson called for an end to ‘class war’ politics (see previous post by [...]
First LP blogger in Parliament?
Anna’s extremely interesting dissection of the intersections of politics and social media is very timely, as I’ve been meaning to write about the fact that a long time commenter and one time Guest Poster on Larvatus Prodeo, Tim Watts, is [...]
Public interest and the media reforms
Terry Flew, writing in The Conversation, suggests that the media reforms announced by Senator Stephen Conroy are quite modest in their scope and reach. Flew, a Professor at QUT in Media and Communications, last year completed a report for the [...]
The policy avalanche
Three days ago it was teacher training. Two days ago, it was media law reform – with a “take it or leave it” offer to the crossbenchers to either pass or reject the bill within a very short space of [...]
Chavismo without Chávez
Where the death of Hugo Chávez has been noticed in the Western media, it’s typically been framed in terms of two quite old polarities. Chávez and his movement began to encroach on the institutions of the State and of the [...]
Narratology and Newspoll in the Dark City; or a Parable for Our Times
Let’s take a little look at how the “political narrative” works. Now, polls are not Truth. They’re a snapshot of the past… But they apparently are the key tropes of the Narrative.
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