Club Troppo

As I watched this interview with Claire Martin, I thought how marvellous it was that Tony Jones blocked Claire Martin's call to 'move on' and talk about the future. He insisted on going back over the way in which Claire Martin and her Government had belittled the coverage of t...

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If Noel Pearson is a man of integrity (and I think he is), he will be appalled by John Howard's just announced "plan" for Northern Territory indigenous Australians. Certainly, Pearson's plans also involve breaking the cycle of welfare dependency in Cape York by tying receipt o...

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It's probably not worth responding to Tony Abbott's 'column' in yesterday's Herald , except to critcise the newspaper itself. Plenty of people have commented on how completely inappropriate it is to publish these thoroughly partisan polemics as opinion. It's one thing to repro...

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Having blogged for a couple of months now, I am conscious of the lure of writing 'why dont the people in charge do as I say' pieces. As an antidote I'd like to offer 5 observations which strike a European like myself on why Australia is a great country, some of which are likel...

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From New Matlida (Subscription required). I didn't know any of this - but I should have. On 22 June 2007, Australian resident Hew Griffiths is due to be sentenced in a US Federal Court in Virginia. He is charged with conspiracy to infringe US copyright, an act committed from h...

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Brad Delong runs various families of posts beginning with the heading 'why oh why'. As in Why oh why - are we ruled by these idiots? - are we ruled by these liars? - can't we have a better press corps? and so on. Why oh why do inane conventional wisdoms circulate in the media...

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Arleeshar thinks new right wing Liberal candidate and David "Godfather" Clarke protege Alex Hawke is a scarey and soulless looking dude . The sheila looking at him seems to have a similar opinion ... Andrew Elder and Oz at Decomposing Trees don't think much of Hawke either. Th...

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Quentin McDermott's Four Corners report on Telstra's management practices and their effect on employees was powerful and polished. I found it useful for several reasons. First, it revealed the secret of a large part of the productivity miracle of the 1990s. Of course this is n...

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The Prime Minister and Treasurer frequently criticize the States for going into debt and warn that it will put pressure on interest rates (e.g. see Rudd torpedoed twice: PM Weekend Australian 16-17 June). It is disappointing that the Coalition is running such an irrational lin...

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Guido's take on Howard/Hockey's portrayal of Sharan Burrow and the ACTU reaching out to Australian workers 1. News and Politics Stuff 2. Life and Other Serious Stuff 3. The Yartz 4. T.S.S 5. Mad, Bad, Sad and Glad The second half of the week has been dominated by tit-for-tat e...

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Anyone who remembers Channel Nines greatest contribution to Australian political life will remember the worm. A wobbly plot of aggregate punter intent scrolling across the bottom of the telly, that purported to assess, real time, the leader in the political dogfight showing on...

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Earlier today here at Troppo, Nicholas Gruen picked up on outgoing British PM Tony Blair's op-ed lament about the instatiable appetite of the modern mass media for continuous sensational crisis stories. Not surprisingly given his recent 1Q question about the relevance of motiv...

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It is clear to everyone with eyes that the Murdoch press, and especially The Australian, is currently campaigning actively for Howard. The editorials and opinion pages do not matter but the front page stories what is covered and how are having and will continue to have a big i...

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there was a policy discussion seminar given 2 weeks days ago, headed by A/Prof Benno Torgler, on the issue of whether Australia should have a tax amnesty (see here ). For those, like myself, who know virtually nothing about this area, its handy to realise that tax amnesties ha...

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The Australian Democrats, when faced with an argument in a Senate debate, which they think has merit, they decide to support it [pdf] . Senator Bartlett (Queensland) (6.46 p.m.) - I thought I should make a few short comments to indicate support for the Labor amendment. Senator...

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Tony Blair on modern politics. From Crikey, but you can read more (pdf) here . The media world -- like everything else -- is becoming more fragmented, more diverse and transformed by technology... The newspapers fight for a share of a shrinking market. Many are now read online...

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The internees of The Dunera tend to lie on two sides of a divide over their incarceration. One lot - more self consciously Jewish and typically from the Dunera Boys who ended up in Melbourne tend to view the Dunera incident as a scandal - an outrage, perhaps even an attrocity....

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In an earlier post I listed the main contentions of the happiness research program , and invited readers to contribute to the critique. The response was gratifying, and the student found them very helpful -- in the comments here, in further posts by John Quiggin and Don Arthur...

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As I noted in yesterday's Missing Link, the second of Tim Dunlop's 1Q series of questions to bloggers is out and about. This weeks question (devised by Harry Clarke) is: How relevant are motives in assessing the public policy stance of a politician or commentator? Responses to...

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This post follows on from a discussion begun by Paul Fritjers and continued HERE . Most human activity has changed drastically over our lifetimes. And the rate of change is increasing see for instance the next generations user interface for computers. You would hope academics...

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