Contributors
The MPs giving Labor a lesson
Lenore Taylor Labor is saving the election post mortems until it knows whether its government is dead or just resting. In the meantime, the Greens and the independents are doing a quite reasonable job of saving Labor from its own ineptitude.
Father knows best: don't buy into this false festival
Damon Young My whole family is sick. My daughter's cheeks look like they've been rouged with lipstick, and she's screaming at me snottily. My wife sounds like Demi Moore - in a bad way. And my son's virus is subsiding, which is very bad news. He's gone from placid and bed-bound, to throwing Lego submarines at his sister, and refusing the stir-fry he righteously demanded. Miserable.
A relationship in need of a rethink
Michael Wesley In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, there doesn't seem to be anyone willing to challenge the assertion this will be the Asian century. We seem to be content to predict that Asian societies will become more wealthy and powerful and leave it at that, not bothering to think through what the implications of this might be.
The state that's gone to the dogs
Chris Henning Scene: The cabinet room, Parliament House, Macquarie Street. Ministers drift in for the weekly cabinet meeting - Carmel Tebbutt, Eric Roozendaal, Verity Firth, Frank Sartor. The Premier, Kristina Keneally, enters, accompanied by two public servants, one carrying five flat cardboard boxes, and the other leading two small dogs.
Praise be to Bob Katter, for he has shown us the way
Rick Feneley Bourgeois cretins will never get the genius of the neo-dadaist* artist formally known as Bob Katter. Dwell for a moment on his abstract masterpieces, Turning the Rivers Inland and Turning Back the Barbarians' Bananas. Consider these against his precocious adventure of 1964 when, with fellow students, he pelted the Beatles with eggs in Brisbane. He was the egg man.**
Unlucky precedents for first female PMs
Anne Summers The parallels with failed bids in Canada and Israel are cause for concern.
Bashed, banished into an alien world
Jane* Three weeks ago, the man I loved attacked me. Like a bolt out of the blue, like a scene from a movie, I was shoved against a wall. Hands were around my throat.
Bedevilled by the Tasmanian syndrome
Martin Flanagan Having won Hasluck for the Liberal Party, Ken Wyatt copped 50 abusive phone calls and emails from supporters who didn't know he was indigenous when they supported him.
Gays waiting hopefully at the altar
Ryan Heath 9:23am Was it a good or bad election for the nation's million or so gays and lesbians? The start could hardly have been worse but things started to look up when Greens' vocal 'equal love' campaign was rewarded with a record vote.
Simplistic pacifism won't help Afghans
Andrew Riddle 6:32am As I sat through another politics lecture the other day, I felt a slow rage building inside me. ''Counter-insurgency,'' this particular lecturer declared, ''is all about winning hearts and minds. We've heard all this before – in Vietnam!'' It's always easy to oppose war.
Too much consensus, not too little
Waleed Aly Rob Oakeshott's appeal for a new era of "consensus politics" is surely the feel-good catchphrase of the moment.
Cause for optimism after near-recession we really did have to have
JESSICA IRVINE I have obtained a copy of the ''red book'', the highly classified briefing document prepared by Treasury for an incoming Labor government (it prepares two - a red one for Labor and a blue one for the Coalition).
Interim deal is sole hope for Mid-East talks
Yossi Beilin The peace talks between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will not succeed in finding a permanent solution to the conflict. But the talks are not just another attempt whose failure would have no consequences.
All Australians deserve a dividend from good economic times
Susan Helyar There are no excuses for not reversing years of cuts to social spending.
The elderly aren't babies, so why talk to them that way?
David Campbell A patronising manner from aged-care staff adds to their patients' woes.
Comment
Award has become an unholy irrelevance
John McDonald IF ALL religion were as vague and nondescript as the works in the Blake Prize, the world would be a much more peaceful place. Nobody could ever be passionate, let alone fanatical, about the lame and timid entries in Australia's leading competition for religious art. Or should that be ''spiritual'' art?
A chance to balance the ledger
Cassandra Goldie If there is one positive aspect to the uncertainty surrounding Australia's next federal government, it is the attention finally being paid to matters of real national significance. Not which political party controls the Parliament, but what policies should be pursued and for whose benefit.
Foretold: Leaders ignore housing affordability
Charles Purcell Like some carnival mystic, before the last election I wrote some predictions in an envelope and sealed it, with instructions only to open it after the election was over. Lo and behold, when I opened the envelope afterwards my prediction proved right: ''That neither party will do anything about making housing more affordable.''
Politics is killing the world's children
Tim Costello The tragic, preventable deaths of 9 million children every year is one of the world's largest problems, and this week it has landed on Melbourne's doorstep, where a UN health conference is under way at the Melbourne Conference Centre.
Results point to failure for My School site
Stephen Elder NAPLAN test results may improve, but not broader measures of learning.
Gaddafi turns back time with a crusade in reverse
Julie Szego For far too long, the intellectuals of the West have ignored, and even ridiculed, the candid and illuminating observations of Muammar Gaddafi: Libyan leader, best-selling author of The Green Book (even if the market was rather captive) and travelling circus of epiphanies.
Disturb the sound of silence in the city
Sacha Molitorisz Mixed reports from the musical underground: there's good, bad and no news. First, the bad. A long-standing live music night on Oxford Street threw in the towel last week. After three years at the Exchange Hotel, the weekly event Sosueme replaced up-and-coming bands with DJs.
Opposing same-sex adoption is not bigoted
Peter Kell The optimal family arrangement is for a biological mother and biological father raising their children in a committed long-term relationship. Where this is not possible, the next best arrangement should replicate as closely as possible the primary arrangement of biological mother and father.
Obama shifts focus from Iraq to the battle at home
Simon Mann WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama has marked the end of America's combat role in Iraq by signalling the US has no intention of relinquishing its leadership in world affairs, despite the sacrifices it has made during one of its longest wars.
Greens deal takes the heat out of Abbott's return fire
Lenore Taylor Tony Abbott had to rewrite his script yesterday. The agreement between Labor and those the Coalition likes to describe as ''extreme greens'' was in fact so mild the Opposition Leader had to change his lines.
Victoria takes leading steps on climate change
Cam Walker In the build up to the November state election, the key focus of the climate movement has been the closure of the ageing and dirty Hazelwood coal-fired power station. With the release of its White Paper on climate change, the Brumby government has now indicated it will come at least some way on this issue.
The harsh reality behind fairytales
Nina Funnell I recently read a horrific story about a 14-year-old girl who was traded by her own father to a violent, aggressive and much older man. Typical of most domestic violence cases, the abuser isolated her from her family and friends, effectively imprisoning her in his home.
A soldier's right to say 'no'
Kellie Tranter Military and political commentators on the Afghanistan war seem to have either chosen the tack or fallen into the trap of focusing on ''Can we win?'' rather than asking the more fundamental question, ''Should we be there?'' A closer look at that basic issue would actually throw a lot of light on why we can't ''win''.
Stall tactics continue Victoria's appalling land rights record
Mick Dodson A bill to fix shortcomings in state native title is being used as a political football. A Traditional Owner Settlement Bill, now before State Parliament, is an opportunity to address the appalling level of access of Victorian traditional owners to their lands.
Cool calculations continue in the hottest five seats in the house
Lenore Taylor Slowly, slowly the main party leaders are getting around to what the independents care about - how to form a stable government.
