No Crap App: 6 Jul 2015

Rowe, AFR 8 Jul 2015

• Gay Alcorn: Look past Bill Shorten – this was an interrogation of our political system
• Tony Walker: Bill Shorten and Labor’s leadership dilemma
• Katharine Murphy: Bill Shorten at the royal commission: no killer blow, but now for the aftermath
• Niki Savva: Tony Abbott and Bill Shorten in bad odour with electorate
• Laura Tingle: Ministers’ comments show an unhappy government
• Katharine Murphy: Tony Abbott’s pointless whims uncover those who refuse to minister to him
• Dennis Atkins: The royal commission has exposed systemic greed and personal gain in trade unions

By request, my posts for the week

• Liberal right is all bark, no bite on same-sex marriage
• Richard Di Natale’s big gamble with the Greens
• Bill Shorten feels the slow burn of royal commission’s interrogation
• Will the real Bill Shorten please stand up
• Pollies escape scrutiny as Shorten is grilled

 

No Crap App: w/b 11 May 2015

Lobbecke, Aust 12 May 2015

Budget

• Ross Gittins: Small measures and a media circus
• Michael Pascoe: The Law of Unintended Consequences hits Happy Joe
• Tim Colebatch: The budget: mostly normal, partly unreal
• Lenore Taylor: Tony Abbott’s budget promises and Labor’s reply are both about expediency
• Laura Tingle: Tony Abbott sharpens his election tools
• Paul Kelly: Abbott-Shorten conflicts clear after 2015 budget
• James Massola: Bringing home the bacon, saving the base
• Dennis Atkins: Budget shows Tony Abbott’s capacity to fight back should never be underestimated
• Jonathan Green: We’ve fallen through the ideological looking glass
• Ben Eltham: George Brandis’ extraordinary raid of the Australia Council

PPL

• David Crowe: Foot still dangerously close to mouth
• Andrew Probyn: Confessions of a double-dipping rorter
• Peter Martin: Could the Coalition have been any dumber?

Labor

• Laurie Oakes: Bill Shorten must act like a leader
• Troy Bramston: Lessons in British election for Shorten and ALP

And also…

• Katharine Murphy: Australian budget week: five things we learned

By request, my posts for the week

• Government rolls dice on Labor-lite budget
• Promising fairness, delivering incompetence
• Budget week bun fight

 

No Crap App: w/b 16 Mar 2015

Pope, Canberra Times 21 Mar 2015

Abbott/government/leadership

• Troy Bramston: Labor alert on Bishop threat
• Peter Brent: How easily we forget
• Michael Gordon: Tony Abbott’s unique despair
• Lenore Taylor: Tony Abbott launches ‘operation budget success’, but it’s just lipstick on a pig
• Lenore Taylor: Malcolm Fraser’s steady hand is in stark contrast to Tony Abbott’s chaotic manoeuvres
• Greg Jericho: Bad policy, woeful politics – can we fix it?
• David Crowe: Struggling Coalition may not be up to the task of governing
• Laura Tingle: Being governed by fools is not funny

Double dissolution

• Peter Brent: Would Tony do it?
• Phil Coorey: Desparate Abbott looks at the barnacles in the Senate

Labor

• Troy Bramston: Bill Shorten causes Labor dismay over lack of ideas

Malcolm Fraser

• John Howard: Malcolm Fraser was a true believer in liberalism
• Katharine Murphy: Malcolm Fraser had no Damascene conversion – he always championed human rights
• Laurie Oakes: Malcolm Fraser was a man of contrasts
• Margaret Simons: Malcolm Fraser’s long debate and being true to his ideals
• Paul Kelly: Malcolm Fraser: Achievements were less than his promise
• Cameron Stewart: Fraser: Farewell to a true liberal everyone could admire
• Tony Wright: The day Malcolm Fraser saved my career as a journalist

Other thinkiness

• Piping Shrike: Lifestyle
• Jonathan Green: The next great reform will be of politics itself
• Marija Taflaga: Small targets, small ambitions

By request, my posts for the week

• Turnbull’s new pitch as Mr Right 
• Get over Credlin and get some balls
• The myth of two Malcolm Frasers
• Malcolm Fraser: Australia’s last great ‘moderate’

 

No Crap App: 2 Feb 2015

This week’s No Crap App is incomplete due to the sheer volume of pieces appearing on the battle for the Liberal leadership. Please keep checking in for updates.

Liberal leadership (Sunday additions)

• Laura Tingle: Tony Abbott spins out of control
• Katharine Murphy: How the Liberal Party machine swallowed the real Tony Abbott alive
• Lenore Taylor: Whether he survives the leadership spill or not, Tony Abbott’s time is up

Liberal leadership

• David Crowe: Even without candidates, Coalition spill coming
• Barrie Cassidy: The public still wants an end to the chaos
• Malcolm Farnsworth: Motion to spill: it’s survival time for Tony Abbott
• Niki Savva: Time running out for damaged PM
• Michael Gordon: Waiting for Malcolm
• Sophie Morris: Malcolm Turnbull awaits the leadership
• Paul Kelly: A double upheaval in a blow to the body politic
• Laura Tingle: Spill caused by division between party room and electorate
• Jonathan Green: Could a spill reset out fractured political cycle?

Labor

• Troy Bramston: Useful lesson for Labor in conservative critiques of the Coalition

Other thinkiness

• Richard Mulgan: Martin Parkinson’s fall is a lesson for departmental secretaries

By request, my posts for the week

• Without change, Abbott’s a dead man walking
• Abbott: Strong or just plain stubborn?
• Trigger happy chatter does not make a spill

No Crap App: w/b 1 Dec 2014

Lobbecke, The Australian 6 Dec 2014

Abbott’s woes

• Jack Waterford: Tony Abbott should be looking to the message, rather than the messenger
• David Crowe: Tony Abbott must start listening
• Dennis Atkins: Why Tony Abbott’s government is in deep trouble
• Dennis Shanahan: Cruising in opposition, adrift in government
• Jonathan Green: Is history repeating itself already for Tony Abbott?
• Michael Gordon: Prime Minister Tony Abbott is feeling the heat after a ‘ragged’ year
• Lenore Taylor: The Coalition’s own messages are neither coherent nor convincing

Budget

• Tim Colebatch: More reasons why the Abbott budget is so hard to sell
• Jane Gilmore: CSIRO cuts: be very alarmed

Victorian election

• Ben Eltham: Victoria’s Swing To The Left: Eltham’s Analysis Of Saturday’s Result
• Stephen Mills: Rules for Radicals comes to Carrum
• Wendy Harmer: “You should have seen this coming, guys.”

End-of-year thinkiness

• Peter Browne: Gap year
• Lenore Taylor: Three things a good government would do
• Katharine Murphy: Five things we’ve learned from the year in politics
• Greg Jericho: ‘Year of delivery’ draws to a close, but are voters buying it?

Other crunchy brain food

• Greg Jericho: Don’t use Hughes’ death to beat your own drum
• Monica Attard: Julie Bishop goes nuclear

By request, my posts for the week

• Chief of staff job too big for one person
• Sorry Clive, honeymoon’s over
• Are pollies kids fair game in political journalism?
• Here’s your lump of coal. Merry Xmas.
• Class of 2014