Mungo MacCallum (Dec’d)

Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison were determinedly hitting the hustings last week as they tried to persuade the sceptical that their Enterprise Tax Plan was not only viable, but is actually a good idea. (more…)

The problem with exporting live sheep is that the practice is inherently unpleasant.   (more…)

Treasurer Scott Morrison got very excited last week, bouncing and bubbling all over the place.  And it wasn’t just because of his pretty ordinary budget: building a stronger economy may be a worthy slogan, but it is hardly inspiring. What was really turning him on was that he (or someone talking to him) had invented a new nickname for Bill Shorten: Unbelieva-Bill.   (more…)

Well, we made it to budget day –  that’s the easy bit. Selling the bastard budget  will be more problematic. But the Business Council of Australia is at hand.! (more…)

Malcolm Turnbull was properly effusive in his meetings with French President Emmanuel Macron, but there may also have been more than a touch of envy. In many ways Macron is the leader Turnbull could have been, should have been, and, one suspects in moments of introspection, would like to have been. And on all the evidence the general public would have liked it too.   (more…)

Correlation is not causation. The scientific method instructs us that events which may often occur simultaneously or in close succession are not necessarily connected, let alone actually resulting in one another.   (more…)

Last week the Sydney Daily Telegraph spent a couple of days playing silly buggers with our beloved Treasurer Scott Morrison, depicting him first as Santa Claus and then as not. (more…)

Malcolm Turnbull still doesn’t get it. 

While desperately playing down the significance of his own 30th Newspoll loss on the unconvincing basis that he wished he hadn’t mentioned Tony Abbott’s, our leader has taken what he apparently considers the high road. (more…)

Instead of simply a celebration of perfectly presented superbeings the games have had a texture that has not been there in the past. We have seen inclusive, even human overtones that have transcended the usual pageant of brawn which can and should be admired, but seldom produces the emotion and empathy we have seen in the last week.   (more…)

So the 30^th Newspoll has finally dropped, and as he waits for the mushroom cloud to dissipate, just what will Malcolm Turnbull do to manage the fallout? (more…)

My first reaction to the report that the Australian government was planning to boost tourism in Manus Island was one of disbelief and revulsion. This was the place – well, one of the places—that successive coalition ministers gloated was hell on earth.   (more…)

As what is left of Australian cricket segues from its dismal autumn into a miserable winter, there is at least a tinge of irony in the disaster.

Last week, Malcolm Turnbull, still drooling with spittle and bile after another session of parliamentary question time, gave the world a homily about the evils of sledging before returning to denigrate, abuse and generally defame his political opponents, principally Bill Shorten.   (more…)

The banks are bastards.  Every Australian knows that and has known it from birth – it is fixed in our DNA. Deep in our psyche is the indelible picture of Mr Moneybags, the bloated cigar-smoking capitalist, shovelling in the loot and grinding the faces of the poor.   (more…)

So far so good.

To the surprise of many – including, one suspects, Bill Shorten himself – the Batman by-election is done and dusted and it appeared that the confected furore over the great dividend imputation refund had little, if anything, to do with it. (more…)

A minor set back last week for Peter Dutton’s unbending plan to rule the world. Not only did he put his own jackboot in a cowpat, but his chief enforcer, Commission Roman Quaedvlieg (anagram: love and quagmire) hit the wall over findings of inappropriate and misleading conduct with the employment of his girlfriend.   (more…)

In just under three weeks time, unless either there is a major miracle or The Australian imposes censorship, Malcolm Turnbull will confront his 30^th successive losing Newspoll.  So what happens then? Actually, not much. As Christopher Pyne has pointed out with the unarguable logic of arithmetic, our Prime Minister still has the numbers. When Tony Abbott hit the same target in 2015, he did not, and there is the difference.   (more…)

So Tasmania has a new government.  Yes, I know the Libs are still in office at 1 Salamanca Place and Will Hodgman is still premier. But the real government, the one run by the pokie industry under the Federal Group and the Farrell family has now been confirmed as the successor of the dynasty of rent seekers who actually manage the Apple Isle.   (more…)

Incredibly, it is being counted as a win for Malcolm Turnbull. He has got rid of his errant deputy – Barnaby Joyce will retire to the backbench, just as the Prime Minister advised him to.   (more…)

Well, that depends on where you sit. In the effective numbers in the House of Representatives, it actually won’t make any difference whether Labor’s Ged Kearney or the Greens’ Alex Bhathal fills the vacancy – given the voting record of the Green incumbent Adam Bandt, Malcolm Turnbull has no hope of securing an extra crossbencher on anything that matters.   (more…)

The latest incarnation of the identity politics so despised by the elites of the right (but vigorously embraced when it suits them) is the non sequitur that what people have done previously (even generations ago) can be used as an excuse for their current transgressions. (more…)