Security, communism and one family’s very thick file
This fascinating study canvasses four generations of an extended family of Jewish atheists and committed communists who challenged the “established order” in Australia and overseas. The book’s author,...
View ArticleSleeping with the enemy
‘Ah, here’s the apostate.’ The voice was a cigarette-flavoured drawl from a slight figure with a hat tipped on his head. This, in the Bulletin office in March 1978, my first day as a journalist after...
View ArticleRoss Fitzgerald on Hawke: The Prime Minister
In 1982, Blanche d’Alpuget’s ‘ROBERT J HAWKE: A BIOGRAPHY’ was published to critical and popular acclaim. Her new book ‘HAWKE: THE PRIME MINISTER’ starts with Bob Hawke taking over as federal Labor...
View ArticleTwo blow-by-blow accounts expose the Labor Party’s leadership machinations
For those progressives who hail from Queensland, at least for the rank-and-file, the initials AWU stand for Australia’s Worst (or Weakest) Union. Similarly, when Kevin Rudd was Queensland’s leading...
View ArticleAnna Bligh has tapped into the frontier state’s exceptionalist mindset.
AT the height of the catastrophic floods that last month engulfed much of Queensland, including Brisbane, Labor Premier Anna Bligh begged the state’s citizens to “remember who we are”. In rhetoric...
View ArticleLet us stop pussyfooting around our censorship laws
FEDERAL Attorney-General Robert McClelland and Justice Minister Brendan O’Connor have announced a shake-up of censorship law in Australia through a review of the 1995 Classification Act. This act...
View ArticleBligh’s highs still won’t stem the tide against Labor
A MERE 2 1/2 months ago the Queensland Labor government was seen to be facing the political oblivion that looks certain to beset its counterpart in NSW. This was until the January floods and Cyclone...
View ArticleQueensland crucial to Labor
The Labor party was savaged in Queensland at the 2010 Federal election and, at the next federal election, Julia Gillard will struggle to win enough Queensland seats to retain government. The volatile...
View ArticleCan Julia Gillard take any more hits?
WITH the upcoming anniversary of Labor’s removal of Kevin Rudd from the office of prime minister, his successor Julia Gillard will be nervously keeping watch on her dangerously low approval ratings. If...
View ArticleA crash (or crash through) course in civilising capitalism
WHAT came to be known as the Australian Labor Party was formed in 1891 and by December 1, 1899, Queensland had the first Labor government in the world. Led by Anderson Dawson from the dual electorate...
View ArticleThe Pope’s Battalions
More than half a century ago, the Catholic Church set out to take over Australian political life. The Church set up an underground organization to infiltrate political parties, to control their agenda,...
View ArticleFox among the roosters
LIKE many journalists of his generation, Alan Reid ached to write a novel. He wasn’t thinking of something twee and literary, something that might be praised for its light touches and teasing...
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