Mungo MacCallum (Dec’d)

The Auditor-General’s report left no room for alibis and wriggle room. (more…)

Scott Morrison’s puerile sneer that most of cabinet ministers wouldn’t even know who (NSW Environment Minister) Matt Kean was actually contains a grain of truth. (more…)

January 26 is , in the end, no more than an excuse for a self-indulgent and self-deluded piss-up. (more…)

It was almost a throwaway line. In the course of his friendly chat welcoming David Speers to the ABC, Scott Morrison mused that his climate change policy was “evolving.” And since, as usual he had nothing substantial to say in his ramblings, the commentators, speculators and fortune tellers seized on the remark, investing it with genuine significance. (more…)

If there is nothing you really believe in, consistency is an optional extra. (more…)

For the last three months the headlines have been dominated by bushfires, and the grim prospect is that this will continue for at least another three months to come. (more…)

Scott Morrison might as well go back to Hawaii to resume his truncated secret holiday. They obviously don’t deserve him in Australia. (more…)

He is only confident when attacking his opponent. (more…)

And once the new year’s eve fireworks have been cleaned up, it does not look promising. (more…)

Scott Morrison is rummaging around in his near-empty presents sack looking for some spare socks and mouldy chocolates, the sleigh is off at the panel beaters in need of drastic repairs, and the reindeer continue to shit on us from a great height. Merry Christmas from ScoMo and his orcish elves. (more…)

They just can’t help themselves. Even in this season of peace and goodwill the belligerent lunar right remains determined to charge into the culture wars, as they like to call their grubby vendettas against any who dare challenge their self-interested agenda. (more…)

The coronation of Greta Thunberg as Time Magazine’s person of the year may finally be the end of the denial and procrastination of the reactionary rump determined to pretend that climate change is a conspiracy designed to subvert civilisation as we know it. (more…)

And so ScoMo’s annus miraculous staggers to an end, with the promise that the next one will be the year of delivery, the one that produces the outcomes which will make all the dithering, procrastination and avoidance of issues all worthwhile. (more…)

At last Scott Morrison’s torpid government realises that it is in danger of being mugged by reality. (more…)

Even as Donald Trump announced he would cut and run from Syria, leaving his Kurdish allies to whatever bloody fate awaits them and opening a door for the resurgence of ISIS. our fearless prime minister was not ready to breathe a word of criticism of his friend, ally and protector. (more…)

As they sweat on the results of the long-drawn out post mortem over Labor’s loss in the unlosable election, the warlords are already staking out their own positions.

The feeling seems to be that since a protracted series of blame games are inevitable, a least they can make a pretence of moving forward, even though they are in fact moving backwards. (more…)

The Reserve Bank, like so many economic pundits, has finally given up on the government of Scott Morrison.

After months, years, of pleading for a sensible stimulus policy to drag Australia out of its torpor, Philip Lowe has conceded that it just not going to happen and all he can do is bet the farm on interest rates, his only effective weapon. (more…)

The conservative line about Donald Trump used to be that really, he himself was not all that important. What mattered was the unbreakable link between Australia and the United States, our great and powerful ally. (more…)

In the age of Donald Trump and Boris Johnson, it is tempting to assume that partisan tribalism has taken over – that a new wave of irrational loyalty to the leader, right or wrong, is the only proper way to go. (more…)

Glory Hallelujah. Let joy be unconfined. The budget is back in balance.

Except that it isn’t – we’re still about $700 million short. But near enough is good enough – certainly good enough to let an ebullient Josh Frydenberg predict more or less credibly that in nine months time, the sacred surplus can finally be delivered. (more…)

David Littleproud has a somewhat unwieldy title – Minister for Water Resources, Drought, Rural Finance, Natural Disasters and Emergency Management. But, keeping it simple, he is happy to live up to his name: he knows very little, and is bloody  well proud about it. (more…)

According to Scott Morrison, Gladys Liu is the most innocent of innocent bystanders — a naïve and trusting immigrant, embroiled in a brutal conspiracy engineered by the evil inquisitors of the Labor Party. The worst that can be said is that she slipped (or more likely was entrapped) over an interview in which she was a little clumsy about her relationship with communist Chinese controlled bodies working in Australia. But she has issued a statement (or had it issued for her) clearing all that up, so nothing to see here. (more…)

That muffled gurgling sound you heard last week was either the remains of the government’s economic credibility swirling around the plug hole, or the strangled sounds of ScoMo and his team attempting to put a positive spin over the disastrous national accounts figures.

Josh Frydenberg insists they are actually good news – proof of the remarkable resilience of a basically sound economy preparing to turn the corner into a rebound the like of which you have never seen. Well, he would say that, wouldn’t he? Irrational optimism, wishful thinking, is an essential part of his job description. (more…)

The Greens reckon that Peter Dutton is a sadist – that he positively enjoys inflicting cruelty on his defenceless victims. But this is probably unfair to the potato-headed potentate. Dutton is certainly heartless, but his cruelty, while undoubtedly real, is more of an inevitable consequence of his demeanour than a deliberate agenda. (more…)

In the good old days, when officers were gentlemen and sometimes vice versa, most barracks observed an iron rule: no mention of politics, religion or women in the mess. (more…)

How lucky is ScoMo? Once again our miraculous marketer has fallen into the dunny and emerged, if not covered in diamonds, at least with  a passable array of bling. (more…)

Scott Morrison’s gee-up to the public service last week was, as usual, that of a dodgy marketeer trying to assure a sceptical customer that he and only he could be trusted to deliver the goods. (more…)

Timothy Andrew Fischer was a rare political beast, a genuinely  good man.He had his blind spots – the worst of them was refusing to acknowledge the reality of Indigenous Land Rights following the High Court decisions on Mabo and Wik. (more…)