Can You Help?

This website is in imminent danger of being shut down. It has been online since 1995, but the personal circumstances of the owner, Malcolm Farnsworth, are such that economies have to be made. Server costs and suchlike have become prohibitive. At the urging of people online, I have agreed to see if Patreon provides a solution. More information is available at the Patreon website. If you are able to contribute even $1.00/month to keep the site running, please click the Patreon button below.


Become a Patron!


From The Fringe: Sen. Jacqui Lambie’s Tirade Against Sharia Law

The Tasmanian Palmer United Party Senator Jacqui Lambie has delivered a tirade against Sharia Law.

Lambie

Lambie spoke today on the government’s National Security Legislation Amendment Bill (No.1) 2014. [Read more…]


History Is Written By The Winners

This time last year, Kevin Rudd still had seven months left as Prime Minister and Malcolm Turnbull had nearly a fortnight before he lost the Liberal leadership.

Rudd-GillardA lot has happened since.

By any measure, it has been a big political year. The rise of Tony Abbott and the dumping of Rudd book-end a remarkable period in Australian politics. The ascent of Julia Gillard is a mere five months old. The inconclusive election that produced a minority government took place just three months ago this weekend.

It is surely too soon to write the definitive history of this period but it’s being written anyway.

One account, “The Party Thieves”, has been written by the ABC’s Barrie Cassidy. Another, “Confessions of a Faceless Man”, has been penned in diary form by Paul Howes, head of the Australian Workers’ Union.

There’s remarkable agreement between these two about what happened. [Read more…]


Laurie Oakes Reveals Kernot-Evans Affair; Crean Demands Explanation

Laurie Oakes has revealed that Cheryl Kernot and Gareth Evans had an affair in the 1990s, around the time that Kernot gave up the leadership of the Australian Democrats and defected to the ALP.

Kernot was an Australian Democrats senator from 1990, until her resignation and defection in 1997. She was the party’s leader from 1993, until her defection. She went on to win the Queensland seat of Dickson in 1998 but was defeated in 2001.

Gareth Evans was a Labor senator from Victoria from 1978 until 1996. He was a minister in the Hawke and Keating governments between 1983 and 1996, holding a number of portfolios, notably Minister for Foreign Affairs from 1988 until 1996. He moved to the House seat of Holt in 1996, when the ALP went into opposition, and became deputy leader of the ALP.

Oakes reported the Kernot-Evans affair in his weekly column in The Bulletin. The media immediately went into an orgy of hand-wringing about the ethics of publishing details of private lives, although, as the ABC’s Barrie Cassidy pointed out, they still managed to meet their deadlines.

In London, the Opposition Leader, Simon Crean, kicked the story along by demanding that Evans and Kernot explain themselves.

In Europe, John Howard refused to comment on the Kernot-Evans affair. [Read more…]


2001 Election Predictions

Check back here after November 10 to see how accurate the “experts” were.


A Sure Bet, So Long As It’s None Of My Money – Matt Price> – (The Australian, Nov 10)

This is the harsh simplicity of politics. All are subject to the whims of those pencils … except, of course, the pundits. They – we – sail on, dispensing wisdom and rolling with the punches. [Read more…]