opinion
health
health July 24, 2021
Delta variant’s political toll
There is an increasing likelihood that the Delta strain of the Covid-19 virus has dealt a fatal blow to the prospects of the Morrison government retaining office at the next election, whenever it is held. The prime minister has spent the week holed...
health July 17, 2021
Covid-19 lockdowns and the PM for NSW
If a picture is worth a thousand words, nothing was more eloquent than the joint news conference of Scott Morrison and Gladys Berejiklian at the prime minister’s Sydney accommodation, Kirribilli House, this week. The Lodge in Canberra has been...
media July 10, 2021
It’s all going wrong for Morrison
No one more than Scott Morrison will be sweating on the prospect of other capital cities going into lockdown again after Sydney. The survival of his government – long thought to be guaranteed by the politics of the pandemic – has now become hostage...
health June 26, 2021
It is most disturbing how genuine compassion has been lost from our national government. Even worse, they seem so shameless about it. Concepts of government responsibility, integrity and accountability are increasingly downplayed, even ignored. A...
environment June 26, 2021
Before the voters got a chance to pass judgement on the Morrison–McCormack Coalition, the Nationals’ party room did. And its judgement was that the deputy prime minister was failing to deliver for his core constituencies. Dispatched was mild-...
immigration June 19, 2021
The Murugappan family and immigration detention
The decision to transfer one of the daughters of the Murugappan family to Perth Children’s Hospital sent shock waves across Australia and abroad. Growing public pressure forced the Australian government to release the whole family into Perth...
immigration June 12, 2021
The human toll of border protection
A picture is worth a thousand words and can dramatically influence public opinion. That realisation has been a motivating factor in the way the Morrison government and its predecessors have sought to shield from public gaze the cruelty of Australia’...
environment June 5, 2021
PM hits spin cycle again on rollout
At the Liberal Party’s recent annual gabfest in Canberra, the prime minister morphed into one of recent history’s more comical figures as he waxed lyrical about his government’s amazing successes. The figure that sprung to mind was “Baghdad Bob”...
environment May 22, 2021
It is two years this week since Labor’s shock federal election loss, and the consequences are increasingly serious. Falling wages for Australian workers are a conscious part of the Morrison government’s 2021 budget strategy – quite a feat given $100...
environment May 15, 2021
What is Scott Morrison’s plan?
The morning after the three-ring circus that is budget night in Canberra, Scott Morrison came close to telling the truth: that he and the treasurer are in fact flying blind. Morrison repeated in his round of dawn media interviews that he has a plan...
health May 8, 2021
Next Tuesday the treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, will up-end 40 years of Liberal Party ideology with a budget that will hugely increase spending and create deficits as far as the eye can see. The small government, “trickle down” prescriptions championed...
