No Crap App: w/b 30 Mar 2015

Rowe, AFR 29 Mar 2015

Budget

• Ross Gittins: Blind to flaws in unpopular policies, politicians call in spin doctors
• Greg Jericho: Talking tax needn’t be so partisan
• Jonathan Green: Have we got this tax debate completely backwards?
• Phil Coorey: Government finds it has room to manoeuvre on fairness

Labor

• Michael Gordon: Shorten: Finally, the spotlight’s on Bill

Other thinkiness

• William Bowe: Is Lambie the old adventures of new Pauline?
• Peter Brent: The art of misinterpreting election victories

By request, my posts for the week

• Is Baird’s victory good news for Abbott?

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: w/b 9 Feb 2015

Letch, SMH 13 Feb 2015

Abbott / leadership

• Rodney Tiffen: Thinking of dumping a prime minister? History isn’t encouraging
• Dominic Knight: Abbott’s ironic reversal of political fortune
• Piping Shrike: Implosion
• Paul Kelly: Tony Abbott crippled by his own backbench
• David Crowe: Base politics is at the heart of Liberals’ power struggle
• Mark Skulley: Emperor’s new clothes only part of the Coalition’s problems
• Jack Waterford: Will the public come to Tony Abbott’s party?
• Niki Savva: Down periscope: Abbott torpedoes himself
• David Crowe: Abbott’s pleading calls can’t be made again
• Peter Brent: The trouble with friends
• Peter Hartcher: Tony Abbott ripe for knockout blow
• Lenore Taylor: Tony Abbott’s authoritarian need to attack just leaves him looking weak
• Norman Abjorensen: Can Abbott change?
• Paul Kelly: Dangerous quest for survival
• Michael Gordon: Tony Abbott’s leadership is going backwards
• Chris Wallace: The press gallery’s leadership thrills and spills

Budget/economy

• Peter Martin: Why the government is a brake on the economy
• Greg Jericho: The truth about ‘bludgers’: welfare dependency in Australia is falling
• Greg Jericho: We want the whole budget story, not just half

Other thinkiness

• Patricia Karvelas: Closing the Gap: how are we getting it so wrong?

By request, my posts for the week

• The Liberal rebellion is far from over
• Abbott’s leadership still on the line

No Crap App: w/b 26 Jan 2015

Letch, SMH 30 Jan 2015

Abbott

• Gabrielle Chan: Dangerous days for Tony Abbott as ‘very, very, very stupid’ decision riles backers
• Niki Savva: Government still in the wilderness
• Mark Kenny: Abbott’s choice: change or face the axe
• Laura Tingle: Tony Abbott’s sick sounding rhetoric
• Jonathan Green: We’ve allowed the ‘ridicule’ rot to set in
• Greg Jericho: No, Peta Credlin isn’t to blame for this mess
• Tony Walker: Vision absent in Abbott’s folie de grandeur
• Scott Bowman: We must overcome out leadership change addiction

Queensland election

• Greg Jericho: Queensland election a fascinating study in cost of austerity politics
• Todd Winther: 10 things to watch on and after election night in Queensland
• William Bowe What happened
• Michael Gordon: Tony Abbott becoming Liberal wrecking ball
• Lenore Taylor: Tony Abbott is making exactly the same mistakes Campbell Newman did
• Tad Tietze: Zombie social democracy in shock landslide win

Other thinkiness

• Monica Attard: Islamic State. Is weeping all we can do?
• Mark Skulley: Protecting workers relies on sorting IR fact from fiction
• Ross Gittins: Little action on social issues sell us all short
• Wendy Harmer: Who votes what in the land of OZ?
• Peter Brent: Let’s talk about the opposition
• Collette Snoden: No, Tony Abbott, you can’t dismiss social media as ‘electronic graffiti’

By request, my posts for the week

• Abbott navigates his crucial ‘year of reform’
• Abbott: bad as Gillard, mad as Rudd?
• Forces massing against Abbott and his minder

No Crap App: w/b 19 Jan 2015

Letch, SMH 22 Jan 2015

Abbott

• James Massola: 2015 shaping up to wake political opponents from mid-term slumber
• Lenore Taylor: Tony Abbott’s trust deficit disaster is paralysing his government
• Peter van Onselen: Scoring cheap points does not become a prime minister
• Peter Brent: Killing Season 2015
• Terry Barnes: Abbott damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t
• Fleur Anderson: Abbott reboot slips up as government searches for a story
• Dale Hughes: The power politics of Tony Abbott’s leadership woes

Labor

• David Crowe: Making Labor accountable
• Don Watson: Whitlam’s ghost

Political profile

• Lenore Taylor: Ricky Muir: I’m finding my feet now

Other thinkiness

• Stephanie Peatling: Politics is failing us, but we can fix it
• John Gordon: Why parties should aim for the middle ground
• Yvette Blackwood: From your moderator, on the occasion of her farewell

By request, my posts for the week

• Signs of mutiny on the Good Ship Abbott
• Why Nick Xenophon is the most powerful man in Australia
• Voters forgive leadership change, but not disunity