Year: 2013
-
A paradise lost, and a new start
We’ve left our dream home in the hills of the Tweed Valley after a five-year fight against a development project that we consider environmental lunacy. We’re making the best of our enforced migration from one end of the Tweed Shire to the other – an easier and healthier lifestyle, more time to exercise, read, write…
-
High time for Eddie Obeid to come clean
Does former NSW ALP powerbroker Eddie Obeid have a breaking point? During the year-long anti-corruption investigations Obeid has studiously protected his former colleagues. But will his protective silence last? Obeid has the dirt to take down his ALP accomplices in the Carr to Keneally Governments which ruled NSW between 1995 and 2011. Obeid has already…
-
Germaine Greer: a message of hope from the rainforest
Germaine Greer’s new book, White Beech, is essential reading for everyone who cares about the future of the planet – and a revelation to anyone who, like me, has ever fallen in love with the area of the Mount Warning caldera and the Numinbah Valley. In Byron Bay on October 24 we joined a packed…
-
Albo and Billy Boy: Pygmies go to war
Anthony Albanese says: “What you see is what you get.” And what do you get? A gold-plated dill. Forget all the spin, Albo is an authentic machine politician, a product of Sussex Street, the notorious address that has come to symbolise the bureaucratic dysfunctionality of the NSW branch of the ALP. After five general secretaries…
-
The case against Roger Corbett
Complaints have been made to the Reserve Bank of Australia over bipartisan political remarks made by board member Roger Corbett supporting Tony Abbott in Saturday’s federal election and rubbishing Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. An RBA official said all complaints would be investigated and the findings made public. Senator Doug Cameron, a Labor frontbencher, called on…
-
Roger Corbett puts foot in mouth and breaches Reserve Bank protocol
Fairfax Media chairman Roger Corbett has breached Reserve Bank Board protocol by publicly commenting on party politics, attacking Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and supporting Opposition Leader Tony Abbott. His widely-reported comments created a storm of comment in today’s mainstream media with Mr Rudd saying: “It’s a free country, anyone can what they like.” Up to…
-
Murdoch: serial ballot box thief
The question is asked frequently: how much influence does the Murdoch press have on public opinion? Because no accurate statistical research exists, there is no clear answer. The question usually arises in elections whether in Australia, Britain or the US. The Murdoch media goes into over-drive in support of one particular leader and starts to…
-
Syria: US poised for yet another atrocity
The savagery and barbarity of US imperialism is once again to be unleashed on the people of the Third World. This time the target is the people of Syria. For two years they have suffered the bloodiest civil war imposed on them by regime-changers – principally the Western powers led by US, Britain and Israel.…
-
Murdoch’s war on Labor voters
For Australian voters, the September 7 election comes down to this: “Do you want Kevin Rudd to be in charge of the country or Rupert Murdoch?” That’s the election take of a friend of mine. He, like everybody else, is appalled by the conduct of Murdoch’s vile rags – the Sydney Daily Telegraph, Brisbane Courier-Mail,…
-
Elmore Leonard’s 10 tips for writers
Elmore Leonard, who died last week, started out writing westerns, then turned his talents to crime fiction. One of the most popular and prolific writers of our time, he wrote about two dozen novels, most of them bestsellers, such as Glitz, Get Shorty, Freaky Deaky, Kill Shot, Maximum Bob, and Rum Punch. Leonard left some…