Parliament won’t be sitting this week. Which is good, cause we can all focus on rate rises, office sweeps, and silly hats.

And while Victorian’s get a day off tomorrow, the rest of the country will have to go to work and get drunk at lunchtime.

And while we’re on Victoria, the Premier may be going to the governor today to get the writs – but no one could give shit till after Cup Day.

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First Published on The Drum 26/10/2010

If political progressives want to stop the ALP from drifting to the Right, energetically backing the decision to move women and children out of immigration detention looks like a good place to start.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Immigration minister Chris Bowen took the new minority government’s first truly brave decision last week, yet all they got was a sullen acceptance from a Left still acting like jilted lovers after the disappointments of the election campaign.

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Everything seems to be going backwards in Canberra this week.

The government is going backwards in the polls, the opposition’s fighting battles that have already been lost on the BER and the NBN, and Howard’s made a comeback, with an appearance on qanda tonight.

In terms of the polls, the Government is still losing support to the left and the right on the same issues – asylum seekers, environmental management and the war on Afghanistan still very unpopular.

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Ange Postecoglou will be fired up for a rematch with his nemesis, Craig Foster.

At last, Australian sport’s Great Rematch is upon us.

Is it the Collingwood vs St Kilda Grand Final Replay replay?  No.

Anthony ‘The Man’ Mundine vs Danny Green?  No.

Michelle Ford vs Tracy Wickham?  No.

I’m talking about Craig Foster vs Ange Postecoglou.

For readers who may not be familiar with Round 1 of this epic contest, let me paint you a picture …

It is Remembrance Day, 11 November 2006.  The Young Socceroos have just crashed out of the Asian Football Confederation Championships in the quarter finals, losing 2-1 to South Korea.  By failing to make it through to the semi-finals, they have also failed to qualify for the Under 20 World Cup – to be played in Canada the following year.

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A LANDMARK forest peace pact signed this week in Hobart between environmentalists and the forest industry has been presented the Premier David Bartlett.

Shortly before noon, Environment Tasmania director Phil Pullinger and Ed Vincent from the Tasmanian Forest Contractor’s Association, presented Mr Bartlett with a Statement of Principles to begin a longer-term agreement for the Tasmanian forest industry.

The deal marks the first critical stage in bringing an end to the three decades-long conflict in Tasmania’s ancient forests.

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First Published on The Drum 19/10/2010

As the Federal Government attempts to quell the backlash to its plans to save the Murray Darling by slowing the process to a crawl, it would do well to consider the lessons of the recently aborted Emissions Trading Scheme.

If there were a structured training program for politicians (and maybe there should be) the former Rudd government’s failure to deliver on its commitment to address climate change would be a required text.

It is a story of how tortured process can kill off reform, confuse would-be supporters, drain the public of confidence in their government and ultimately leave leaders in a no-win situation.

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The big news out of Canberra this week, as the Parliament sits back down, is that there is going to be a great debate on the war in Afghanistan.

After dissing foreign affairs as something Kevvie07 did to stay out of Canberra, now we’re getting in Paul McDermott and Andrew Denton as a part of the “great debate” of the new paradigm.

Who will be affirmative and who on the negative? Who knows – both the major parties are pretty much the same on this issue.

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EMC’s consulting pollster Vic Fingerhut has penned this memo to Democrats in the lead-up to Congressional elections. His words of wisdom ring true here too.

***
Despite the feel good messages from the Democratic campaign committees, if messaging frames and context of voter choice on election day remain as they are today, we are heading for disaster.

Two weeks ago, I sent you a memo underlining the fact that while our opponents have a simple and clear frame for the short-term issues in the current election, we have had none.

And despite the millions spent on our side…nothing has changed.

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First Published on The Drum 12/10/2010

Attempting to manage public confidence in the war in Afghanistan, the Labor Party is exposing its left flank in a way that calls into question three decades of political centrism.

These are challenging times for the ALP, with minority control in Canberra, hand-wringing election post mortems and flagging state administrations around the nation. A key theme appears to be ‘Labor has lost its way’.

But what is the ALP way? Since at least the Whitlam era, Labor orthodoxy has been that the occupation of the centre ground was a precondition for electoral success. Careers were built on the tough work of shifting Labor from ideological dogma to more pragmatic policies.

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Hassene Fkiri blows up and becomes an instant household name.

The Australian media has been quick to condemn Commonwealth Games athletes Hassene Fkiri and Shane Perkins for their televised displays of sporting petulance.  They apparently let us all down, giving people the impression that Australians are actually bad losers.

C’mon!  Why pick on these athletes, when they are simply upholding a great Aussie tradition?

Indeed, the evidence shows that we’re actually a bunch of world-class, Gold Medal-winning tantrum throwers, who love nothing more than gobbing off and flipping the bird – to officials, fellow competitors and even our team-mates.

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