Freelance journalist and broadcaster, columnist for The West Australian.
If Pauline Hanson’s supporters think One Nation is a genuine party of government, then she has to be measured by the same metrics as any other political leader.
Paul Murray
Labor’s once-every-three-years national conference is expected to dodge meaningful debate on two of the government’s most significant shortcomings.
Having shagged both the economy and the housing market, reaffirmed Labor’s de facto marriage to the Greens and gone on a speed-dating round with several Pacific nations, Anthony Albanese should be exhausted.
Britain is going through a slow-motion bloodless coup that points ominously to the continuing deterioration of the established system of western democracy.
If Rita Saffioti’s festival of Italian football was such a good idea, why do WA taxpayers need to subsidise the air fares of those wealthy enough to come from outside the State to watch it?
Love it or loathe it, Pauline Hanson’s composure during the protest banner stunt at the National Press Club spoke loudly to the One Nation leader’s single-minded focus and authenticity.
Albanese’s truculence and the rise of One Nation have set the scene for a long pre-election debate about migration that Labor can’t win.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers has a catch-cry when he is in spin mode — which is just about all the time — to describe passing political events as ‘a good thing’.
Government is complicated. Politics can be very messy. Economic expertise is a rare commodity. So the Liberal party needs to heed the wake up call of One Nation’s polling threat before it’s too late.
It’s no shock that this generation of Labor MPs stumbled into this Budget mess. They go straight from university into the office of a union or a Labor MP. And they then get a factional ride into the parliament.
It’s show time for One Nation. The Budget was an important opportunity for the party to put policy meat on the bones of discontent. It needed to be more than slogans.
In the middle of Budget season, the future of Australia as a socially cohesive society is just as critical as our financial future, says Paul Murray.
