In the eyes of some, the emergence of Bob Katter’s Australian Party has the potential to shake up what had loomed as a predictable Queensland state election, due around March.
One Nation
Rundle: crazy Katter’s cut-price, fried policy chain
Bob Katter stood up on Friday and spoke for those sidelined, excluded and marginalised from politics, the real Australians who work hard and pay their taxes, and don’t ask for more than a fair shake. Good luck to him.
A handy guide to Tony’s Angry far right fringe-dwellers
Just who were the fringe groups at yesterday’s carbon tax rallies responsible for the images that will cause attack ad pain for Tony Abbott in the lead-up to the next election?
Political snippets: Time right to call Xenophon’s bluff
Nick Xenophon clearly is enjoying his last few months of fame as he milks for all it’s worth the “will-he won’t-he” suspense about the planned Queensland flood tax.
Regional development: here we go again
Governments have to be forced by the electorate to take regional development issues seriously. So far we haven’t even mastered the basics.
Marr to Oldfield: “you’re a disgusting human being…”
David Marr was clearly unimpressed with David Oldfield’s contribution to the asylum seeker discussion on Sky News’ The Nation, at one stage describing him as “a disgusting human being”, writes Anthony Stavrinos.
We will decide how our climate changes and the circumstances in which it changes
There’s no compromising with climate denialists because they want the one thing no one can ever give them — control.
Henderson: The myth of Australian racism
Gerard Henderson defends the wide brown land from recent accusations by an Indian magazine that we are a nation of racists: The Australia First Party and One Nation hardly make for credible sources.
graph pr0n 
30 years of elections in 5 charts
The primary vote of both the Labor Party and the Coalition have been, on average, declining since 1977… but that’s only part of the story, reports Possum Comitatus.
Treasury busts some stimulus myths
The GFC might have been an unusual crisis compared to previous recessions, but fiscal stimulus is not as poor an option for such crises as we’ve been led to think. Even the Treasury agrees the government didn’t spend too much.
Climate change deniers, racists and misfits: the other contenders for Bradfield
From the One Nation candidate to the Australian Sex Party and nine Christian Democrats, the real question for Bradfield by-election voter Pete Malicki is which of the 22 candidates should be put last?
Climate change: the Coalition’s new Hansonism
There’s a number of similarities between Howard-era Hansonism and climate denialism, but the biggest similarity is that both mean big trouble for the Coalition.
Keep the bastards honest, just with different watchdogs
The Australian Democrats are all but dead, but that doesn’t mean voters don’t want small parties. They just want strong ideological ideas not the “middle-of-the-road mildness of the Aussie Dems”, writes Paul Williams.
The Liberal Party’s long history of playing the race card
Despite Joe Hockey’s indignant posturing over the weekend, the fact is that the Liberal Party has used race over the past two decades for its own political advantage, writes Greg Barns.
How we might lend an ear — again — to Pauline Hanson
There’s something of Mike Tyson in Pauline Hanson’s return: battered and past her prime, she’s drawn inevitably back to what she knows best, writes Jeff Sparrow.
What you may have missed along the campaign trail
And then there are all the other parties we miss out on hearing from. Crikey hasn’t yet received any media releases from Senate candidate None of the Above, but we’ve got some important campaign news we think we’d better share with you.
It’s John Howard v the Liberal Party in Queensland
As this morning’s Australian reports, one of the disputed Liberal preselections in New South Wales is the Senate ticket, in which the Prime Minister, despite himself coming from the right, is trying to keep the left’s incumbent Marise Payne in the number three spot against a right-wing challenge.
