“The Royal Australian Navy is paying for women sailors to have breast enlargements for purely cosmetic reasons,” the Sunday Telegraph breathlessly told us yesterday. The Government’s own attempts at cosmetic enhancement are proving just as controversial.
Prime minister
PM’s popularity plunge someone else’s fault: PM
The Prime Ministerial pride has suffered a little in recent days with all the suggestions that the best thing he can do for his Liberal Party is to step down and give some one else a go.
Courage, charity and other Canberra subliminals
Goodness and kindness normally don’t decide elections, yet the Prime Minister has put his party into such a state that he needs to beg for mercy from the electorate. He’d better watch the form that mercy takes. If voters are going to show him and his government kindness, they might decide it’s best to put them out of their misery.
Maxine now the favourite in Bennelong
John Howard is now the underdog not only to remain Prime Minister at the federal election but in his own seat of Bennelong as well. The Crikey Election Indicator for Bennelong now puts the probability of Maxine McKew winning Bennelong at 50.4%.
Nothing happened in Canberra this morning: Beckett on the Hill
Nothing happened in Canberra this morning. Nothing in the Samuel Beckett sort of way. Nothing means plenty. Nothing that is quite profound.
That’s the thing PM: nobody likes you. Never did
About this time of year, back in 1992, one of the big guns of the Gallery made a remarkable discovery. They realised Paul Keating and the then GG, Bill Hayden, would be crossing paths on some bush airstrip on a Sunday afternoon. For a few days it became conventional wisdom that an election would be called then.
Et tu too Janet Albrechtsen?
Andrew Bolt got in first. He called for John Howard’s resignation the day after the Prime Minister accidently fell over in front of everyone. Heartless, yes, but the commentator is nothing if not a pragmatist. Since then, the list of commentators calling for Howard’s resignation has lengthened considerably, writes Sophie Black.
Time to say goodbye to Howard… after his week of glory
Let the man say goodbye to his international friends this week and bid him farewell as Prime Minister the week after. That surely would be the thought of sensible Liberal and National Party members this morning as they contemplate another disastrous set of opinion poll numbers.
YouTubers bite back at Bakelite PM
John Howard’s latest APEC YouTube address, compelling demonstrators to rethink their protest plans, is an attempt by a “politician from the black-and-white television age” to rework his out-of-touch image and confront activists on their own online turf, according to this BBC report.
Tax and churn and spend wears thin: Galaxy
I made a brave call last week – that the Government can win if it gets its economic pitch right. They don’t seem to be having much luck, writes Christian Kerr.
The Feds to Call Gunns’ Bluff?
Gunns, the Tasmanian timber kings, dragooned a State Premier into speeding up an approval process for its planned Tamar Valley pulp mill but may well find a Federal Prime Minister determined to slow it down.
It’s not time, it’s the economy
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – the election will be a choice between the “It’s Time” factor and economic management. Wobbles in international financial markets will make voters more likely to stick with the managers that steered them through the Asian crash of 1997 and the wake of the dot com bust, writes Christian Kerr.
Howard spins the gravy like Herr Warne
The pre-election gravy train keeps chugging along with six recent promises by the Prime Minister adding $1,292,026,700 to the list of projects announced by the Prime Minister on is campaign jaunts around the country, writes Richard Farmer.
For ‘Aspirational Nationalism’, read pork
The Prime Minister is giving us a $20 billion investment fund. So, that’s what those mysterious words “aspirational nationalism” mean. Pork, writes Christian Kerr.
Flint: et tu, Daily Telegraph?
The media have never had such access to a prime minister as they have had since 1996. But with a few notable exceptions, most have never wanted John Howard in the Lodge. His answer to adverse comment and any bias in the news has been to speak directly to the people. Two recent developments have significantly increased the potential for more bias, writes David Flint.
Nielsen poll: the seeds of a fight back
Parliament sits this week for perhaps the last time before the election – perhaps. Leadership speculation persists, but as APEC draws closer and closer change seems even less likely, writes Christian Kerr.
Populism – but who’s listening?
Prime Ministerial populism doesn’t seem to be striking a chord even amongst his own party.
Newspoll chief regrets siding with The Australian
Newspoll chief executive Martin O’Shannessy last night told a meeting of the Australian Market research Society that he regretted writing an opinion piece for The Australian supporting the paper’s interpretation of a recent newspoll.
Textor poll: someone’s last, deperate throw?
Who leaked the Mark Textor report to the press and why? There are two possible explanations, writes Richard Farmer.
How to fast track your business success: Rule Ten
Using Robert Cialdini’s Five Weapons of Influence criteria, Bruce and Barry tell readers how they’ve managed to secure such a series of high powered, influential and well remunerated roles in companies like Qintex, HIH, AWB and OneTel. Today, the final instalment in the series.
What’s Howard doing in the golden West?
The Prime Minister is in the West, the Liberals’ land of opportunity. Yesterday, he was campaigning in Kalgoorlie – an electorate The Crikey Guide to the 2007 Election describes as fairly safe Liberal territory with a margin of 6.3%.
PM’s climate plan: Better ways to spend the money
The Prime Minister’s plan to spend $252 million on rebates for residential solar hot water installations, as announced ealier this week, has been widely seen as a populist policy response. Dr Huigh Saddler, Managing Director of Energy Strategies Pty Ltd, investigates how the money could be better spent.
If not Howard, then … who?
Not me but we is what John Howard must have concluded from the reaction of his colleagues to his call for some free and frank discussion within Cabinet on the low standing in the opinion polls of the Government.
The Economy: Is it me?
Tony Abbott was reported yesterday as musing why “good government” had not paid off for the government. George Megalogenis is the thinker who has uncovered the answer, or at least a good part of the answer. It is the “two speed economy”.
Annihilation watch: 46 seats to go
Everybody knows that if a swing’s on, the Prime Minister could lose Bennelong. But did you know that on the current polling it would be possible for Deputy PM Mark Vaile to lose his 13% plus seat of Lyne? asks Christian Kerr.
