WARNINGS about the role of “faceless men” in the ALP have been a feature of modern Australian politics since 1963. That was the year in which Robert Menzies won a federal election by turning it into a virtual referendum directed against the power of such unelected apparatchiks. This abiding fascination with Labor’s faceless men peaked again on June 24, 2010.
Over the course of a single night, Australia got a new Labor Prime Minister courtesy of a party coup orchestrated by a cabal of sub-factional heavyweights.
Judged by Wednesday’s declaration of war …

THE Liberal National Party will almost certainly win government after the Queensland election on March 24, but it may prove to be a rather more difficult task than many pundits think.
To begin with, the state’s electoral boundaries favour Labor, giving Premier Anna Bligh a six-seat head start, and together with the benefits of incumbency her government is still not dead and buried.
Bligh is an experienced operator who is running an extremely tough campaign.
Because the LNP’s extra-parliamentary leader Campbell Newman is the frontrunner, he is under huge media pressure and scrutiny …

ROSS Fitzgerald is a well known journalist, historian and novelist (the Grafton Everest series). He is also a survivor of alcoholism, which led him to psychiatric wards, shock therapy, and suicide attempts. Alcoholics Anonymous not only gave him faith in the power to accept his condition, but the will to help others. AA is a community of people who have faith – in God, in humanity, in the power to overcome the weakest part of themselves.
Hear the interview with Ross Fitzgerald on ABC Radio, February 5, 2012
Click here to listen

JULIA Gillard’s misguided attempts to shore up support for her leadership have virtually guaranteed that she will not lead Labor to the next election, and may not survive until this year’s budget.
Her decision to break the written contract she signed with Andrew Wilkie is clearly driven by backbench disgruntlement with the mandatory pre-commitment scheme for poker machines demanded by Wilkie in return for his support after the 2010 election.
This was not some inconsequential agreement – it was an agreement struck by the Prime Minister to allow her to form government …