Queensland’s revenge? Palmer and Katter’s anti-systemic double act
Populist politics often feed off perceptions of geo-spatial neglect, intertwined with class grievances (from classes that are not conscious of being such). Hence the Hanson phenomenon, largely confined to outer metropolitan and regional (not really rural) districts of Queensland, itself [...]
Gonski roundup
After the COAG meeting last Friday failed to yield an agreement with any state the question needs to be asked as to whether the Government’s Gonski implementation package will pass into legislation and how many states and other entities will [...]
European ETS
Last week when the European Parliament voted down a proposal to prop up the EU Emissions Trading System’s languishing carbon price by postponing the sale of 900 million emission allowances until the back-end of this decade the price fell to [...]
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 [...]
Guest post by Dr Sacha Blumen: All electoral systems were not created equal
As promised in a previous post, here’s Dr Sacha Blumen’s talk to the Queensland Chapter of the Australasian Study of Parliament Group: I’d like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land, the Jagera and Turrbal people, and pay my [...]
Campbell Newman’s austerity and privatisation agendas are toxic in Brisbane
Reachtel has conducted a massive poll (sample size is 36,323) for the Together Union. Being dismissed by the LNP Queensland government as “push polling”, the poll is unique in that the sample is broken down by individual electorates with average sample [...]
“Carbon tax” repeal: rhetoric and reality
On 4th April, Tony Abbott spoke to Craig Huth from Max FM in Taree, and was asked about the mechanics of rolling back Labor’s carbon trading plans should the Coalition win government in September. In keeping with party policy on [...]
Is Labor too big to fail? II
In comments on my last post, which cited Jonathan Green’s article about the potential disappearance of the Labor Party, Terry Flew pointed us in the direction of Dr Lindy Edwards’ analysis of contenting ALP ideological currents. Edwards’ piece is no [...]
Let’s talk about superannuation
“The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest possible amount of feathers with the smallest possible amount of hissing” That, I believe, came from Jean Baptiste Colbet French economist and minister of finance [...]
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. [...]
#sos13 – Saving Our Senate
John Quiggin writes: Discussion over the Labor leadership, and the government in general, is now academic, in the pejorative sense of the term. Barring a shock on a larger scale than that of 2001, Abbott is going to win the [...]
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