THE celebration of the birthday of Alcoholics Anonymous is a cause for joy and sometimes sad reflection.
Of the millions of lives saved and transformed by this extraordinary organisation, just as many have failed to grasp its simple message and the result has been personal hell and untimely death. Such is the destructive power of alcohol, society’s most pernicious drug.
On May 12, 1935, Alcoholics Anonymous had its fragile beginning in the US city of Akron, Ohio, when a recently sober New York stockbroker, Bill Wilson, fearful that being alone on a …

TOWARDS the end of fifth form, after I had devoured The Communist Manifesto and endeavoured to understand Das Kapital, I tried, unsuccessfully, to join the Communist Party of Australia. Along with my fellow student at Melbourne Boys High School, Alan Piper (with whom I had played cricket for the Victorian schoolboys team and who later became a multi-millionaire Brisbane car dealer) I met a CPA organiser outside the Bryant & May match factory in Richmond, near Melbourne High.
That afternoon after school I’d had a few beers but I wasn’t drunk. …

THERE is an old adage that, to avoid heated arguments and acrimony, sex, politics and religion should never be discussed at the dinner table. In many parts of Australia, fresh water should be added to the list.
Australia is the driest inhabited continent in the world, with most of our landmass regarded as desert, arid or semi-arid. However, the far north receives huge amounts of mostly summer rain, with vast volumes of water wastefully flowing out to sea.
Many thinkers have been fascinated by the potential for diverting some of this water …

WITH what seems to be his somewhat premature decision to prevent the merger of the Singapore and Australian stock exchanges, Treasurer Wayne Swan is once again in the media spotlight.
This concentrated attention can only increase when Swan who is Acting Prime Minister until Julia Gillard returns from leave tomorrow hands down the May 10 federal budget. One doesn’t have to have a crystal ball to predict that the 2011 budget will be one of the toughest in the last decade, as the Gillard Government fights to bring the books back …

THE debate about climate change, and what should be the appropriate response, is polarising the Australian community.
Those who are calling for deep cuts in emissions of carbon dioxide believe they are on a mission to save the planet, while those who oppose a carbon tax believe they are on a mission to save the economy and jobs.
Prior to the last election, Prime Minister Julia Gillard appeared to understand there were deep divisions when she promised to act on climate change only “when the economy is ready and when the Australian …

The Labor party was savaged in Queensland at the 2010 Federal election and, at the next federal election, Julia Gillard will struggle to win enough Queensland seats to retain government.
The volatile northern state has been a graveyard for Labor Prime Ministers over the years and 2013 is likely to be no different. Yet the ALP is doing nothing about it.
According to Newspoll, Tony Abbott’s support in Queensland is among the strongest of any state in the nation and this will be a problem for Labor if it allows …

THIS year has already witnessed several leading sportsmen whose lives and careers have been severely tarnished, if not destroyed, by their alcoholism, and sometimes other addictions.
Despite the widely reported good intentions of troubled sports stars, it is not easy for a person to stop drinking and stay stopped, then negotiate the world without resorting to alcohol or other drugs, or to compulsive gambling. Anyone who has experienced the ravages of alcohol addiction and who has tried to beat it knows the immensity of that task.
So what’s the best way to …

THE looming NSW election already feels like such a darkly comedic event that the decision by Austen Tayshus to follow his run against Tony Abbott in the last federal election with a tilt against NSW Opposition Leader Barry O’Farrell, feels a bit like a lump of coal headed for Newcastle. Nevertheless, if Tayshus does surprise everyone on March 26 and pip O’Farrell at the ballot, it should leave just enough time for authors Ross Fitzgerald and Rick Murphy to slip it into their book ‘Austen Tayshus: Merchant of Menace’ before …

“You need not say anything but anything you say may be used in evidence. It sounds like a line from a movie but that statement, or words to that effect, should be heard by anyone being arrested in Australia. The police officer who says – or should say , this will be indicating that individuals have the right to remain silent. Indeed, this is what most lawyers advise their clients to do.
The fundamental privilege against self-incrimination is closely linked to this right. There are some statutory exceptions, particularly relating to …

A MERE 2 1/2 months ago the Queensland Labor government was seen to be facing the political oblivion that looks certain to beset its counterpart in NSW.
This was until the January floods and Cyclone Yasi allowed Anna Bligh to show some political leadership for the first time. Her performance was impressive but it took more than three years for Bligh to act like a premier. And it remains to be seen whether her improved personal ratings, coupled with a revamped cabinet, will carry over into electoral support and save her …

THERE’S a saying in politics that the best day in opposition is never better than even the worst day in government. If this is true then the state election to be held a month from today in NSW will usher in some very bleak times for Labor.
Premier Kristina Keneally and her state Labor Party have become poisonous to voters. NSW Labor’s only chance to recover anything from this election is to dampen down expectations.
Hence Labor “insiders” have been active in the media downplaying their prospects and talking of utter annihilation. …