A FORTNIGHT ago, when Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey stood side by side with ex- Wallaby Geoff Didier at a Canberra steel factory, it was only natural that their conversation turned quickly to their love of rugby. All three have a love of the game.
Two of them, Abbott and Hockey, could only dream of playing in the green and gold. But it didn’t stop them both trying. There’s a revealing tale about one of the pair’s first meetings. Abbott as coach of the Sydney University rugby team; Hockey as a …
THE new Australian Party could soon set a Katter among the pigeons. Party founder, the Queensland independent federal MP for Kennedy, Bob Katter Jr, is aiming to influence the cross benches in some states but he’s also after a slice of the traditional conservative vote and a sliver of the Greens vote as well.
While he’s offering voters a mix of rural socialism, nationalism and protectionist economic policy, he’s also wrong-footed not just the National Party but also the Liberal Party by calling for more personal freedom and civil liberties. Bob …
THE new biography on iconic Australian comedian Austen Tayshus has one particularly tough critic: its subject.
“I don’t like it, Tayshus says, leaving a comedicly deliberate pause.
“No, I do like it. I think they’ve done a terrific job of putting a lot of stuff in there which is untrue.”
Austen Tayshus: Merchant of Menace by Ross Fitzgerald and Rick Murphy does have at least one positive review, from Tayshus’s mother, apparently.
The book explores the life of Tayshus, also known as Vaucluse resident Alexander “Sandy Gutman, from his early years growing up with his …
EVERYTHING about comedian Alexander “Sandy Gutman (aka Austen Tayshus) is a dichotomy. In life, he is a tea-totalling, erudite intellectual, the father of two daughters , a far cry from his foul-mouthed, incendiary, dark-glasses-clad on-stage persona.
He has a love-hate relationship with his audiences, which he is famous for taunting , recently he made a Japanese audience member get on stage and apologise for World War II in exchange for a cessation of tsunamis and earthquakes , and simultaneously describes his hero Barry Humphries as the gold standard of Australian comedy …
WHAT came to be known as the Australian Labor Party was formed in 1891 and by December 1, 1899, Queensland had the first Labor government in the world. Led by Anderson Dawson from the dual electorate of Charters Towers, it lasted only a week but it gave the ALP a valuable opportunity to get the dirt on the conservatives by examining previous governments’ files.
By April 27, 1904, the party’s progress was confirmed by the installation of the world’s first national Labor government. Led by Chilean-born J. C. (Chris) Watson, …
AT the February 26 Irish general election this year, after controversial Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams resigned from both the Westminster and Stormont parliaments to enter politics south of the border, he topped the poll in the constituency of Louth, to secure a seat in the Irish Dail, the lower house of the country’s national parliament.
As befits a political party that fervently believes in a united Ireland, Adams’s presidency of Sinn Fein covers both the Irish republic and Northern Ireland, which Adams always refers to as “the north of Ireland”.
Sinn …
WITH the upcoming anniversary of Labor’s removal of Kevin Rudd from the office of prime minister, his successor Julia Gillard will be nervously keeping watch on her dangerously low approval ratings.
If she cannot turn public opinion, it can only be a matter of time before her caucus colleagues remove her from the top job.
Gillard’s ability to recover from her slide in the polls will depend on how well entrenched public opinion is of her and her leadership style.
If the public decides it has seen enough of this Prime Minister to …
ECENT draconian, anti-democratic provisions, especially in NSW, are threatening the survival of small parties such as the Australian Sex Party and the eccentrically named Outdoor Recreation Party.
As for aspiring political minnows, well, it’s getting tougher to register as official political parties in the populous state.
In last year’s federal election, 21 political parties nominated candidates in NSW for the Senate. In this year’s state election, only 14 political parties nominated candidates for the Legislative Council, its state equivalent.
Based on the potential for success, these numbers should have been reversed. The first …
SANDY Gutman always had a sardonic Aboriginal character in his arsenal, and was keen to introduce the character to a wider audience.
He had been developing a series of word-play jokes and ironic taglines that added a new dimension to the character , who now became part Jewish kvetcher. The routine was laced with venom and cunning. Comedy writer Trevor Farrant seized on the subject and, together with Gutman and Michelle Bleicher (Gutman’s then girlfriend and whip-smart manager), wrote the spoken-word comic song Highway Corroboree. The single came out in early …
DESMOND Ball’s important account of a crucial conversation with historian Manning Clark provides significant new information about Clark’s close friend Ian Milner.
It makes it clear that Clark withheld the inconvenient truth that he knew about Milner’s close connections with the Communist Party from at least as far back as 1944.
Milner was a significant player in communist espionage. Yet right until their deaths in 1991, and including in the historian’s memoir The Quest for Grace, Clark seems to have chosen to put his friendship with Milner ahead of telling the truth. …
NSW Labor’s demolition at the recent state election confirms a national voting trend at state and federal level.
Labor’s incumbent governments are all behind in the polls and the NSW result has sent a shudder through the ranks.
The thumping election win delivered the NSW Coalition 69 of the 93 seats in the Legislative Assembly. The incoming government, in the full blush of its honeymoon, clearly has a mandate to deliver on its commitments. The outcome reflects voter disgust with Labor and an endorsement …
