An astute observer of Bill Shorten’s political and parliamentary behaviour may detect a revealing pattern.
In 2013 Shorten was elected Labor leader under a process that recently has been brought into serious question.
Last year the Opposition Leader opposed virtually every reform proposed by the Abbott government, including $5 billion worth of budget reform that the ALP had proposed when it was last in government. Shorten bragged about this by saying that Labor that year had been defined by its resistance. Yet he promised that 2015 would be full of ideas.
Now, Bill …

Along with Gallipoli, this autumn sees the centenary of arguably Australia’s most controversial twentieth-century historian, Manning Clark, who was born on March 3, 1915. A genuine if flawed visionary, there is every sign that his presence may be felt well into the future. His six volume ‘A History of Australia’, though full of niggling factual errors, is highly readable and of great cultural significance. It embodies its author’s lifelong attempt to make sense of life and thought in Australia.
The Clarkian centenary has been marked by …

The recent bid by commercial television interests to increase alcohol advertising during prime time television, and in particular to allow more alcohol ads during major sporting events, deserves our vigorous condemnation.
As we should all know by now, to protect our children and their vulnerable developing brains, such TV alcohol ads should be substantially reduced, and preferably banned altogether. Unsurprisingly, peak health bodies are also outraged by plans by the liquor industry to make it even more difficult for us as citizens to complain about ads that we regard as breaching …

The British established a prison colony in Australia in 1788 because they ran out of prison capacity in Britain, and America was no longer available after the 1776 revolution. But the fact incarceration had failed to dent Britain’s huge social and economic problems has not stopped successive Australian governments trying to solve our own problems by imprisoning more people.
It’s an admission of failure and a national disgrace. Recently in Australia, incarceration rates increased from 158.8 per 100,000 in 2004 to 185.6 last year. This is an area where growth is …

One of the casualties of modern life in a technological age has been our attention span.
Some scientists maintain that our attention spans have halved during the past three decades. Instead of someone being able to pay attention for an average of eight seconds, it is now estimated to be four. Instead of paying attention for four minutes, it is now two. Instead of spending 30 seconds on a website, it’s 15 seconds. So what does this mean for politics and governments?
It means our attention span and consequently our tolerance of …