Category: State
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Alex Mitchell’s WEEKLY NOTEBOOK – Mad Monk
Prime Minister Tony Abbott is swinging from the yardarm like a piece of carrion; his party will cut him down and toss him into the sea when the smell becomes intolerable. Liberal MPs prefer to “give a man another go” so the fatally wounded corpse may hang around for a few months longer. Labor ruffians…
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Alex Mitchell’s WEEKLY NOTEBOOK – Update on the Mad Monk file
Popular ridicule spells political death for any political leader. That’s because it is almost impossible to overcome and undermines the capacity to lead and carry authority. In just 18 months Prime Minister Tony Abbott has managed to reveal himself as mad and bad. Now he’s a joke. What broke the back of his most loyal…
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Alex Mitchell’s WEEKLY NOTEBOOK – Top cop joins PUP and Parrot to rubbish Premier Newman
Two bizarre opponents have emerged to make life agonisingly difficult for the embattled Queensland Premier Campbell Newman in the closing days of the campaign for the state election on January 31. Mining billionaire Clive Palmer and Alan Jones, the millionaire commercial radio ham, have commenced personal vendettas against Newman alleging he is a “liar” and…
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Alex Mitchell’s WEEKLY NOTEBOOK – Heard the one about balancing the budget?
The words are burned into collective memories: “Today, we take decisive action to deal with the debts we have inherited.” The year was 2010 and Britain’s new Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne was announcing his plans to end the UK’s budget deficit by 2015. Now he’s wading through even deeper deficits and his promise…
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Alex Mitchell’s WEEKLY NOTEBOOK – Lies and deceit behind siege of Martin Place
This week’s Martin Place siege will be remembered as the greatest intelligence failure in Australian history. It cost the lives of two innocent people in a tragedy which was avoidable if NSW police, the Australian Federal Police, the ASIO security service and the criminal justice system had been doing their jobs. The report ordered by…
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Alex Mitchell’s WEEKLY NOTEBOOK – Thoughtlines from the head of the civil service
Terry Moran AC was secretary of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet in Canberra from March 2008 to September 2011 during the turbulent chaos of Kevin Rudd and his successor Julia Gillard. Trained in nation-building and policy execution, Moran found himself managing a political crisis desk for politicians trying to survive the relentless pathological…
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Alex Mitchell’s WEEKLY NOTEBOOK – The irreplaceable nature of Edward Gough Whitlam
Everything that needed to be said about Gough Whitlam’s life has been said. And it has been done with a grandeur worthy of the man himself. The Sydney Town Hall memorial service was an affirmation of the virtues of a political life spent in the service of people and not wealth. All the speeches –…
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Alex Mitchell’s WEEKLY NOTEBOOK – Has Labor noticed Israel is now a pariah state?
Israel is a sick society. Before anyone accuses me of being an anti-Semite or reports me to the Jewish Board of Deputies, the Anti-Defamation League, Sharri Markson of The Australian or Michael Danby, the Labor MP for Tel Aviv, I’d like to point that the words are not mine. Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin said publicly…
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Alex Mitchell’s WEEKLY NOTEBOOK – Why Gough Whitlam was simply magnificent
I rejected social democracy in the early 1960s when I worked on the Mount Isa Mail and saw the Labor Party and trade union leaders betray the miners who were struggling for a pay increase against US-owned Mount Isa Mines Limited. Jack Egerton, later Sir Jack, president of the Queensland Trades and Labor Council, and…
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Alex Mitchell’s WEEKLY NOTEBOOK – Why Tony Abbott is called the Mad Monk
When I said Prime Minister Tony Abbott and some senior Cabinet members were suitable cases for clinical treatment, I meant it. Here’s just one reason why. At a Sydney press conference on September 19, Abbott said: “It is a serious situation when all you need to do to carry out a terrorist attack is to…