Columnists
China throws book, but Carr parries with chapter and verse
PETER HARTCHER China's leaders are notorious for giving foreign visitors lectures in history to explain current realities. Last week Bob Carr turned the tables on them.
An extraordinary spectacle
MICHELLE GRATTAN Opinion Well, what happens now? Craig Thomson has done the thing everyone demanded.
Mud, splat and tears on 'judgment day'
LENORE TAYLOR Opinion It was supposed to be Craig Thomson's ''judgment day''. Instead he told the parliament and the media they had no right to pass final judgment on anyone. And the parliament? It just continued to throw mud.
Katherine Murphy
Team Abbott embraces Asia
KATHARINE MURPHY Opinion There's more to the political debate than white noise about Thomson and Slipper.
Thomson has no words to lance boil that will ache until election day
PHILLIP COOREY Opinion The question that will be left hanging after Craig Thomson makes his statement to Parliament today is how did the whole saga get this far?
Bitter tears hide super self interest
ROSS GITTINS Opinion Have you noticed? Our guardians in the superannuation industry have come out swinging to defend us against the changes to superannuation announced in the budget. Mark Payne, a partner in the legal firm Hall & Wilcox, says ''anyone that has turned 50 can feel dudded''.
Rambling Rudd, not-so-garrulous Gillard
JACQUELINE MALEY THE flash of silver hair. The near-constant spectacle-readjustment. The folksy humour and the pigeon-toed swagger.
And the winner is - well, it sure isn't Greece
JESSICA IRVINE Opinion Runs on banks. Mattresses stuffed with cash. Borders closed. Hyperinflation. Riots. Shortages of food, medicine and oil.
Judgment day here for Labor's life of shame
PAUL SHEEHAN Opinion In the months leading up to the 2007 federal election that ended the Howard era, the NSW central coast was alive with a political blitzkrieg.
A trusted messenger steps forward to rebuke Labor
SHAUN CARNEY Opinion Former ACTU secretary Bill Kelty showed this week that he still has the capacity to issue a powerful message. He has essentially told the Gillard government, the Labor Party and the unions to wake up to themselves, to stand up and fight and to take responsibility for their failures.
Who's pulling whose string?
JACK WATERFORD Opinion Labor's crisis is not about rorting of union treasury but unrepresentative union power at the heart of the party's political councils
An incredible tale
MISHA SCHUBERT Opinion It's an elaborate plot, this one that exiled Labor MP Craig Thomson implicitly asks us to believe has been hatched against him. Either that, or it's an incredibly long list of misunderstandings about his impeccable conduct at the helm of the union representing hospital cleaners, right before he scored a seat in Parliament.
What do we mean when we talk about 'Labor values'?
GEOFF GALLOP Opinion Whenever there is a heavily contested issue being debated in the ALP, all sides like to say that their position best reflects "Labor values".
Arrogance shows through in release of selected information
SEAN NICHOLLS Opinion THE O'Farrell government's intention to reform the railways has not exactly been a secret.
Meanly wrapped in red tape and rules
MIKE CARLTON Opinion Instinct tells me that readers of this column are very likely fed up to the back teeth with the political shambles in Canberra, both government and opposition. Me too, in spades. A plague on both their houses.
An Asian century maybe, but a lot can happen in 100 years
DANIEL FLITTON Opinion Labor rarely gets any credit these days, but its Asia rhetoric is worth listening to.
Inside or outside the military bubble, the media have their own battles
CYNTHIA BANHAM Opinion It was the article that brought down America's top general in Afghanistan, Stanley McChrystal.
Where is Labor's prior conviction?
PAUL DALEY Opinion For some time many Labor voters have wondered which parallel universe the federal government inhabits.
Bush or bust
FARRAH TOMAZIN Opinion The coalition government should be wary of neglecting country Victoria.
Craig's list: the greatest conspiracy of them all
TONY WRIGHT Opinion If you were to believe him, Craig Thomson is the victim of the greatest conspiracy in modern Australian public life. Enemies within the Health Services Union, an incompetent and possibly malicious Fair Work Australia, large sections of the media, a federal Opposition unfit to govern...all have conspired to ruin his life and his mental health.
Digital life, political strife
ANDREW DARBY Opinion As a lengthening line of regretful politicians shows, if they're going to play the social media game they need to clearly understand the consequences. A good place to start is with the fictional White House press secretary CJ Cregg's ear boxing of deputy chief of staff Josh Lyman in 'The West Wing'.
Memo Premier: It's not too late to get us a better deal on water
KENNETH DAVIDSON Opinion Baillieu will be blamed for the desal disaster, unless he cleans up Brumby's mess.
The world holds its breath as Europe struggles in the quicksand
TIM COLEBATCH Opinion The consequences of the EU's austerity drive look increasingly dangerous.
It's a snacky scam: turns out tapas translates to something quite rude
DANNY KATZ Opinion Tapas is a type of meal where you get tiny portions of food that come on tiny little plates and you pay a tiny percentage of an average-sized home-loan for each of them.
Forget about the tango, it takes two to be radical
CHRIS BERG Opinion Assumed consensus can be the root of extremes.
Haven for kids living on the edge
CHARLES WATERSTREET Opinion Atlanta and I travelled in a taxi driven by a fat man who spoke no English.
What's mined is yours ... sort of
GEOFF STRONG Opinion From a country that once believed its prosperity rode on the back of a sheep, we have transformed into one that rides on the top of a mineral conveyor belt.
The PC crowd that's keeping the world of art mediocre
ELIZABETH FARRELLY Opinion The Australia Council is threatened, say some, with change beyond recognition. The question is, will it make any difference? Halfway up the godless bit of Regent Street between Central Station and Cleveland Street sits a newish block of flats, smart in its way, but taking several years to build and half as many before it started to fall apart. On its flank a bronze plaque morosely informs passers-by that ''on this site once stood the Wesley Church''.
Confusion aplenty, without a doubt
RICHARD ACKLAND Opinion It was quite recently that the violins struck up an old favourite: ''Innocent Until Proven Guilty.'' Defenders of public figures who fall foul of some awful accusation drown out the mischief with a rousing rendition.
Ghost of election future visits Spring Street
JOSH GORDON Opinion Two years from now, Ted Baillieu might ponder his poll chances thus.
Young searching for life's meaning embrace the rituals of old
TANVEER AHMED Opinion There can now be little doubt that Anzac Day has emerged as the authentic national holiday, in the original sense of the word.
Cooking up a deal across the Timor Sea
HAMISH MCDONALD Opinion On the wall of the single classroom at the abandoned village of Batugade, East Timor, where I spent a night in September 1975, there hung a map of the Portuguese empire - or rather a set of boxed maps on a single scroll, to avoid it appearing just as widely dispersed specks on the globe.
Children a gift that keeps giving
ADELE HORIN Opinion Does having children make you happy? Everyone assumed it did until the era of happiness research revealed parents to be a miserable lot. A slew of studies reached the same conclusion: if maximising happiness was your life's aim, stay child-free.
New body needed to fill cracks of corruption
GEORGE WILLIAMS Opinion The debate over allegations of misbehaviour by our federal politicians has an important subtext. Does Australia have the right laws and institutions in place to deal with accusations of corruption, including misuse of travel entitlements and electoral fraud?
You'd have to be an idiot to utter any of these phrases. Just sayin'
RICHARD GLOVER Opinion Not enough effort has gone into recording the most annoying phrases in the language.
Time to put to rest claims of Abbott's DLP tendencies
GERARD HENDERSON Opinion In politics it does not take long for throwaway lines to become established mythology and later perceived truth. The possibility that Tony Abbott might become prime minister is focusing attention on his political background and how this might influence his current attitudes.
Sunshine House becomes lost in the sleazy shadows
PETER COSTELLO Opinion A minority government protects conduct that should not be tolerated.
Support for clubs pushes all the right buttons
HEATH ASTON Opinion There's more than one way for a politician to engage with the clubs industry.
Heckler
Nice card, pity about inquisition
Opinion YOU really don't want a Health Care Card - believe me.
