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 …

AFTER taking a record number of public submissions, the Australian Law Reform Commission has now released its final discussion paper on a new Classification Scheme.
The ALRC has come up with 44 proposals to reform classification and official censorship in Australia. Chief among these is a new Classification of Media Content Act. The main thrust of the commission’s proposals is that the online media environment has fundamentally changed the way that people access media and that soon it will be possible that all media will be available on one screen. Therefore …

ATTENDANCE at Alcoholics Anonymous is the best method of helping alcoholics remain sober. There are no dues or fees for membership in this unique organisation, which is entirely self-supporting. The only requirement for membership in Alcoholics Anonymous is a desire, no matter how inchoate or half-hearted, to stop drinking.
In terms of long-term abstinence from alcohol and other drugs, AA has the numbers. Even so, not all alcoholics remain receptive to AA’s simple message that, for an alcoholic, it is the first drink that does the damage. No matter how long …

NOT very many Australians know that Andrew Robb chairs the federal Coalition policy development committee, with its deputy chairman being the former adviser to Peter Costello and now Victorian member for Casey, Tony Smith.
This important committee has been working overtime to ensure the Tony Abbott-led opposition will go to the next federal election with a policy platform that adds up politically, philosophically and fiscally. Systematically but unobtrusively and in the main under the political radar, Robb and Smith have been dotting their policy i’s and crossing their costing t’s.
After the …

WHEN John Howard first spoke of a relaxed and comfortable Australia 16 years ago, his critics labelled him small-minded and lacking vision.
But in the new year, this would strike a chord with many who are looking for stability and certainty in the face of the increasingly uncomfortable events circling us.
Every day we see media reports from around the globe painting a picture of instability. Whether it is financial and political upheaval in Greece and Italy, the Occupy protest movement, instability throughout the Middle East, or the possibilities of worldwide earthquakes, …

Tony Abbott knows he is landing the blows
OVER the past few months, Labor’s standard attack on Tony Abbott has been that he’s “too negative”. They’ve even published a pamphlet about the Opposition Leader: The Little Book of Dr No.

Apart from breaking the first rule of politics – don’t advertise the other side – this just sets up Abbott to show another facet of his versatile political personality.
From the word go, Abbott has always said that he had two jobs: first, to discredit a bad government and, second, to establish the …

IN the new year, Julia Gillard and the poor standing of federal Labor will not be responsible for the defeat of Anna Bligh’s Labor government in Queensland.
The blunt reality is that Bligh’s government is one of the worst in Queensland history. Neither the Premier nor her government is up to the job. Its defeat will be primarily because of its incompetence. It is little wonder that eight key members of the Bligh team, including six former ministers, are retiring at the state election. They have simply given up on Bligh …

FEW events in politics work out precisely as expected. Some issues burn intensely, like a flare that lights up the sky but then fades quickly from view, with little to no ongoing impact on the political process.
The Coalition’s attempts to link then opposition leader Kevin Rudd to disgraced former Western Australia premier Brian Burke is an example of what could have been an all-consuming scandal that went nowhere.
The more dangerous issues usually start off slowly, often taking months or years to reach the perilous proportions of a political scandal.
Labor backbencher …

IN a time of doom and gloom in the publishing world it’s uplifting to read about an era when publishing was exciting and the future was pregnant with possibilities.
Yet even then, books needed smart people willing to take a punt on talent.
In ‘Wild & Woolley: A Publishing Memoir’, the Sydney-based Michael Wilding recalls how he and Pat Woolley set up a small press in the 1970s to do just that. Wilding and Woolley knew that there was a lot of good writing around that wasn’t getting out. So get it …

ALCOHOLICS Anonymous is the most successful self-help group in the world and by far the most successful agency in helping alcoholic men and women stop drinking, and stay stopped.
Yet its critics (and there are many) argue that there is no reliable empirical evidence to support the efficacy of AA and its 12-step program. This is not true.
While it is the case that AA itself keeps no records and that its only membership requirement is a desire to stop drinking, recent American studies show how and why regular attendance at AA …

DURING the last federal election a friend was having her hair cut at a local hairdressing salon. Flipping idly through a magazine, she came across a photograph of Julia Gillard. The young hairdresser (but of voting age) peered over her shoulder and asked sweetly Who is that? It may come as a surprise to our politicians, but many Australians would struggle to name the senior members of cabinet, some would even struggle, unless prompted, to name the Prime Minister or the Opposition Leader.
Yet opinion polls indicate that many people appear …