Greg Sheridan | AustralianPolitics.com

Political Figures Feature In Queen’s Birthday Honours

June 13, 2016

Political, vice-regal and government figures feature in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list released today.

The Governor of South Australia, Hieu Van Le, and the Governor of Western Australia, Kerry Sanderson, were each awarded the highest honour, the Companion (AC) in the General Division of the Order of Australia.

ACs were also awarded to the retiring Governor of the Reserve Bank, Glenn Stevens, and to the former Secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet under Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott, Ian Watt.

In the Officer division, the AO award, four former MPs were honoured. Ric Charlesworth, the ALP member for Perth from 1983 until 1993, received the award for his service to sport and parliament. Judi Moylan, the Liberal member for Pearce (1993-2013) received the AO for services to parliament, women and advocacy for people with diabetes. Kay Patterson, a Liberal senator from 1987-2008 and former Howard government minister, received the award in recognition of her service to parliament and to public policy, particularly for women, and as a senior academic. Alan Stockdale, the Liberal member for Brighton (1985-99) was honoured for his service as Treasurer in the Victorian Kennett government (1992-99).

2007 Federal Election: Brave Predictions

November 24, 2007

This is a collection of media commentary during 2007 in which the writers make predictions about the federal election.

Judge for yourself how well they did…

Recycled, Rejected And Right Off The Rails

Yesterday, in the nation’s Parliament, with hardly a politician to be seen anywhere, we got some election realism. Three rows of recycling bins, whacking big green ones with yellow lids. More than 300 of them. Where? In the basement corridor of the ministerial wing. The bins seemed a more apt commentary than all the desperate, last-minute Coalition windbaggery going on around the nation on what is about to descend on the Prime Minister after 33 years in public life and almost 12 years remaking Australia in his own miserable, disfigured image. They arrived two days ago and whoever they’re for, 48 hours before a single vote is cast today, you felt

A Loyal Ally, But Not Unquestioning: Simon Crean

July 8, 2002

This is the text of a published article by the Leader of the Opposition, Simon Crean.

The article was published in The Australian and on the ALP website

Article by Simon Crean, Leader of the Opposition.

Contrary to recent assertions by Greg Sheridan, (‘Trashing alliance just plain dumb’, The Australian, Opinion, July 4), there is no reflex anti-American position in Labor ranks – just a clear-headed sense of our national interests. No one on the Labor side is arguing for a diminution of our alliance relationship with the US.

The fact is, Labor strongly supports the alliance. It always has. It was the Labor governments of Curtin and Chifley that brokered the original alliance relationship in the 1940s. And it was Doc Evatt, as Labor’s foreign minister, who negotiated Australia’s inclusion in the 1947-48 UK-USA intelligence agreement, which has remained at the core of the alliance relationship for more than 50 years.

Quotes From The 2001 Federal Election

November 13, 2001

This page provides a collection of extended quotations gathered during the 2001 Federal Election campaign.

The quotes cover the campaign period and the election’s aftermath.

How A Single-Issue Party Held Onto Power

We shall never know for certain that the Tampa would have been, by itself, sufficient to ensure the Howard Government a third term or whether it was the combination of the Tampa “crisis” and September 11 that the Howard Government required. What we do know, however, is that when the now retired Defence Minister, Peter Reith, suggested that al-Qaeda terrorists might be found among the Afghan and Iraqi asylum seekers on the leaky vessels travelling to Australia, a politically decisive connection between border control and the terrorist threat to Australia was conjured in the public’s mind.