GuyB
Beyond Kevin, beyond Julia, beyond Kevin
It was the morning of Saturday, 24th November 2007, in London. A powerful sense of impending euphoria had made it difficult to sleep. There was no plastic Christmas tree in the corner of the room, and no presents to rip […]
Westminster dispelled: President Kevin Rudd?
The tenor of the mainstream media’s election banter has changed dramatically since Julia Gillard was evicted from The Lodge by her colleagues close to a fortnight ago. Kevin Rudd has returned to lead Labor armed not with a fistful of […]
Whither dignity in an age of political hate
It has been a torrid couple of weeks: for Julia Gillard, for the honour of representative democracy and for all of us who kidded ourselves into believing that misogyny wasn’t rife in Australia. It goes without saying that a male […]
Trolling coal: jobs, climate and the Iron Lady
The pre-recorded televised tributes have ended. The street parties are over. In Britain, the outrage that swelled in some quarters over the Baroness Margaret Thatcher’s faux state funeral has died away, leaving in its wake the dull, tedious thrumming of […]
“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 […]
Abbott on the first people: just muddling through
Tony Abbott’s address to the Sydney Institute last Friday went little remarked or reported, but offered the nation a glimpse of the Coalition’s planned approach in government to the Aboriginal Affairs portfolio. This strange little wishy-washy excerpt from the speech […]
The coming death of the “high street” – and does it matter?
Embarrassingly, it was only when I initially lived in London in 2007 that the concept of “the high street” really twigged; growing up in Penrith, New South Wales, the fact that our main street happened to be called “High Street” […]
The politics of the top income tax rate
Regardless of what the national fiscal situation looks like at any given point in time, few topics divide the commentariat right from the commentariat left as keenly as whether or not the top rate of income tax should be cut. […]
Quick link: The newspaper is dead, long live the newspaper?
As we all know, newspaper circulation is falling and colossal pressures are being brought to bear on the media industry. Newspapers today need to find ways of doing more with less, to keep advertisers interested enough in their product to […]
Are you experienced? Working for free in an economic apocalypse
Since the global financial crisis shook domestic economies across the planet in 2008, the labour market in Europe has remained a buyer’s market. With austerity measures still biting hard and the Eurozone crisis rolling on without a defining resolution in […]
“Reassurance Labour” and post-Blair social democracy
Globally, the centre-left is enduring a period of public weariness and dissatisfaction. In Australia, a relatively unpopular government battles on against a red-blooded Opposition Leader, with the spectre of a leadership context lingering unerringly in the background. Between Kevin and […]