My brother, Anthony John Mitchell, has died in Brisbane while in palliative care from cancer. He was 81. Tony was born on 22 August, 1939, one of four boys whose parents were Jim and Lucy Mitchell. Before their marriage, Lucy Gladys Wilesmith was a member of a pioneering family from the Herberton area of far…
Just over 12 months ago, NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian was Australia’s most popular premier, the NSW economy was leading the nation, employment was picking up and interest rates were at a record low. But then the wheels fell off. Premier Berejiklian dreamt of a farewell which was wrapped in good news for the voters of…
Eight Cabinet Ministers are in the Melbourne Cup field of wannabees to become the 49th Premier of NSW. In keeping with NSW Liberal Party tradition all the runners are male and white. All of them are from Sydney, and the majority had a private education at fee-paying private schools. Treasurer Dominic Perrottet, MP for Epping…
BOOK REVIEW Abe Saffron, the king of Sydney’s vice rackets, had a long friendship with Dudley Doherty, a top spy with the Australian Secret Intelligence Organisation (ASIO). Doherty used his accountancy skills to draw up a false set of books for Saffron’s racketeering to evade taxation, a criminal offence. They went to brothels together, shared…
Watching life ebb from the premiership of Gladys Berejiklian requires a strong stomach because it is a most terrible experience, rather like seeing someone running out of breath. After keeping a daily record of the scandals raining down on her political career, the question keeps surfacing: “Why does she do it? Why hang around while…
Is Gladys Berejiklian waving? No, she’s drowning. Her premiership has been struck amidships by a tidal wave of scandal. She can run fast but history shows that the scandals, once they start, will run even faster. In this hyper-charged environment, leaking and back-stabbing take over over from loyalty and obedience. You won’t find integrity among…
Every departing politician wants to leave office with three things: dignity, their legacy intact and making a point of principle, and NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian is no exception. Ms Berejiklian is behaving like a Premier on the way out and not one who wants to hang around. This week she went to the NSW South Coast…
Premier Gladys Berejiklian and NSW Opposition Leader Jodi McKay slugged it out in Parliament House this week as if their political futures depended on it. Both NSW political leaders want to deliver a knock-out punch. All observers agree that they are on the ropes and that neither can last the course. The Coalition has lost…
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian is publicly pretending that she is not leaving in March but privately she has already walked off the job. Meanwhile, her Treasurer, Dominic Perrottet, has elbowed her out of the way and is behaving as if he has been sworn in as the State’s 46th Premier. In the polls, Empress Gladys…
Premier Gladys Berejiklian has had enough. She plans to leave the premiership in March hoping that her political legacy is in reasonable nick despite her personal reputation being in tatters. As Transport Minister, Treasurer and then Premier, Berejiklian was the hardest working Minister in the Coalition Government. There was not a skerrick of scandal attached to her…
