Articles by Bernard Keane

Tonight, I want to directly address you, the Australian people. While it’s easy, and understandable, that you should be pessimistic about this government, everyone should be optimistic about our country. Our health researchers have saved hundreds of millions of lives through breakthroughs in everything from infectious diseases to cancer vaccines to ulcer treatments. Our military [...]

A speech I delivered this week in Hobart at the invitation of CEO Tasmania on the economy and the forthcoming election. Thanks for the invitation this evening. Tonight I thought I’d talk about the coming federal election, and of course it may come sooner than previously expected, through the prism of policy, by looking at [...]

There’s been a lot of hype this week from News Ltd and the Coalition about the purported threat to a free press from Stephen Conroy’s plan to require the print and online media’s self-regulatory bodies to show they can self-regulate. Conroy has been compared to the vilest dictators in history for this outrage. Well, if [...]

This week I found myself the target of some vituperation from anti-fluoride, erm, “campaigners” after my attention was drawn to an appalling picture of Tanya Plibersek posted to the Facebook page of South Australian independent Legislative Councillor Ann Bressington. I contacted Bressington asking why a commenter’s suggestion that the Health Minister be “lynched” was allowed [...]

In what would, if we were indeed in an election campaign, be considered a major gaffe, shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey today committed the Coalition to reversing the increase in compulsory superannuation from 9% to 12%, then hastily backflipped. At a doorstop to heap contumely on Wayne Swan’s announcement that the mining tax had only raised [...]

Minister for Tertiary Education and Senate Leader Chris Evans and Attorney-General Roxon have announced their departures from Cabinet at a media conference in Canberra this morning, with Evans indicating he will be resigning from the Senate in coming months and the Attorney-General stating she will retire from politics at the next election. The Prime Minister [...]

PRIME MINISTER acting minister for broadband, communications and the digital economy SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES TO COOPERATE WITH GOVERNMENT ON COMPLAINT HANDLING Social Networking Sites have agreed to continue promoting user safety as well as undertaking education and awareness raising about antisocial behaviour online under new guidelines announced by the Prime Minister. The Cooperative Arrangement for [...]

Labor caps CO2 but not H2O buybacks  The Labor Government has been telling farmers that they must become more efficient with water and they have by converting free-flow open channels to overhead laterals and pumps. Now the Labor Government tells them they must become more efficient with power. In fact they have put up the [...]

Stephen Conroy has unveiled the first stage of the government’s response to the Convergence Review.

The government has reacted to growing pressure for a royal commission into child abuse by the Catholic Church by announcing a federal royal commission into institutional child abuse, with terms of reference to be developed in coming weeks by the Attorney-General and Families Minister Brendan O’Connor working in consultation with the states. The inquiry will [...]