September, 2009

In a recent issue of the new york review of books (Sept 24), Tony Judt described social democracy as the “ideology that dare not speak its name”, such has been the decline of the political ideology that once dominated Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand and ‘new deal’ America. (Obviously, Judt doesn’t read Kevin Rudd’s essays.) [...]

A few weeks ago, John Pilger made some interesting claims that the script of Balibo had been toned down to expunge Australian Government (and media?) complicity. Pilger’s quotes from director Robert Connolly don’t exactly refute the claims but the Australian media doesn’t seem interested in it either, perhaps preferring the official version once again that [...]

A new light on the hill | The Australian In Saturday’s Australian Tim Soutphommasane had a long piece on where Rudd and Labor stand in ideological terms. Part way through reading it I started to notice that there was a lot missing from his account of the ALP’s current relationship with its traditional ideology. What [...]

Bernard Salt is no doubt a wonderful demographer, but he is also great at getting publicity. Salt knows the value of a bright new social trend, be it tree changing, sea changing or now Nettels. Yes, folks, Salt has interrogated the data (generously provided by taxpayers) and discovered (drumroll please) that many people are time [...]

A new study seems to suggest so. The authors, Joshua Gans and Andrew Leigh, got some solid media coverage with their finding that the ABC is slanted rightwards. In fact, the study claims that ABC TV is more favourable to the coalition then talk radio stations 2UE and 2GB. Do you believe it? Others have [...]

This week a couple of big media stories gave us another epiphany on the Sydney psyche. Della Bosca’s escapades with a comedy script writer got a kind of faux serious treatment, ‘shock, adultery right here in Sydney, what next?’. And then last night, the really serious Sydney stuff, a property dispute that resulted (apparently) in [...]

From The Australian: (Rudd) has asked Terry Moran, secretary of his Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet to put together an advisory panel which will develop a discussion paper seeking ideas for reform by the end of this month. Unfortunately the syntax here is confusing but I guess that it means that the advisory panel [...]

Multi-employer awards are an Australian phenomenon and so is the herculean task of modernising them. As time goes by, and given the legalistic approach we take to these things, our award system starts to take on some of the characteristics of an archeological dig with layers of regulation piled on top of each other. Faced [...]