John Howard’s political and leadership style has always been a curious mixture of strong resolve in the face of extraordinary opposition and adversity, but peppered by occasional bouts of panic decision-making. The past month or so has easily been the worst period of the latter approach, with the Howard Government making a series of spectacular…
ABC managing director Jonathan Shier is reported to be interested in finding a “right-wing Philip Adams”. His first problem might be finding a definition of “right-wing”, since the term has been used to describe dictators such as Mussolini, libertarians such as Ayn Rand, nihilist social radicals such as Hitler, reactionaries such as Franco and liberal…
When ignorant armies clash by night We are moving into the silly season of our discontents. Malcolm Fraser’s doppelganger, Don Chipp, had emerged from limbo to throw his support behind Natasha Stott-Despoja as the next leader of the Australian Democrats. Putting aside the back stage ballet that so often structures these interventions (and this had all the marks of a carefully orchestrated outside production), Chipp’s reasoning seems even more bizarre than usual. Viz, Labor is going to win by a mile, this will create a big vacuum in the Senate, especially if the Democrats poll poorly, and this will let…
Maximising shareholder value seems the one inviolable rule of business ethics. Bob Browning explains what this means in practice. Rarely a week goes by without another sharp reminder that disproportionate political as well as market power is being transferred to the big corporations – and that many are failing to exercise their expanding power with…