Blog
17 March 2010 in Blog
SA election: Why Mike Rann’s time is up
In his book, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, the exiled Czech novelist Milan Kundera, explains how to rewrite a states history:
“The first step in liquidating a people is to erase its memory. Destroy its books, its culture, its history. Then have somebody write new books, manufacture a new culture, invent a new history. Before long the nation will begin to forget what it is and what it was.”
Mike Rann must own a dog eared version ... »
24 February 2010 in Blog
Labor’s IR scare campaign: can the souffle rise twice?
Kevin Rudd has a big political problem. Tony Abbott has thrown him off balance with a couple of short jabs and he is struggling to regain its composure.
Tony Abbott has achieved this by punching at the key failures of the Rudd Government. It has changed the dynamic on the ground all of a sudden.
Labor’s marginal seat holders who just months ago were dreaming of an easy victory in the campaign this year are now talking da... »
18 February 2010 in Blog
Australian apiarists left with half a bee industry
Food security is one of the major challenges facing the world. In the coming decade with the population expected to increase to around 10 billion, access to food particularly food that is safe and free from disease will increasingly challenge many nations.
Australians are rightly proud of the high quality food that we produce. But as the world grows flatter and we increasingly import food, the high standards that we expect in Austr... »
04 February 2010 in Blog
The dambusters: tax review’s threat to mining
South Australia stands at the edge of a potential golden era, a golden era of opportunity like the state has never seen before.
A dramatic still from one of the exciting final scenes of the Henry Tax Review.
It turns out that South Australia sits on a giant bed of yellow cake that, if managed properly, will drive the state for generations. As China and India continue to grow at nearly 10% per year with no sign of stopping soo... »
26 January 2010 in Blog
Australia Day
Australia Day is our opportunity to reflect and celebrate the things that unite us.
A united community made up of a collective of nationalities and histories, brought together to live in our inclusive and free society.
To be Australian does not require the disowning of your past but rather a willing commitment to our future.
We are an inclusive society that is beyond celebrating achievement because of a person’s background but rather because of what they have actually achieved.... »
21 January 2010 in Blog
Hopes evaporate for the Murray-Darling
The recent significant rain event in the northern stretch of the Murray Darling Basin has not only given hope to suffering farmers and rural communities, it has also placed a spotlight firmly on the fraud being perpetrated by the Prime Minister and the cabal of Labor Premiers when it comes to water policy for the Murray Darling Basin.
Only 18 months ago this group of ‘leaders’ stood together and waved around a ‘historic’ agreement in Chamberlin lik... »
17 December 2009 in Blog
Net filtering 'plan' is a fraud
In August this year I wrote a punch article about the lunacy of the Rudd Government’s proposed mandatory ISP internet filtering.
At that stage it was a trial but on Tuesday this week Minister Conroy announced his intention to proceed with legislation to enact this mad idea.
This is a policy that is based on a fraud so much so the Minister could barely explain it with a straight face yesterday.
Not that I’m cynical about the Labor media machine but this annou... »
05 November 2009 in Blog
The column on Kevin Rudd you wouldn't get in the post
In the dying days of the1996 election campaign Paul Keating famously said “when you change the government, you change the country” in an attempt to scare people away from taking the baseball bat to his Prime Ministership. He did it on the basis that the Australian people recognised John Howard and what he had stood for over the years. The line didn’t work, the government changed and so to did the country.
In 2007 when the doom o... »
08 October 2009 in Blog
Entrepreneurial Spirit Beats Government Every Time
Last week I was fortunate to be invited to be part of the launch of a new business on Kangaroo Island, which is in my electorate.
Kangaroo Island is one of the most beautiful parts of Australia, it is frontier country.
But the very thing that makes it so beautiful for the hundreds of thousands of tourists is the same thing that makes it so challenging for its residents and its economy.
Kangaroo Island is a giant land mass, some 4,500... »
24 September 2009 in Blog
No interjections: Question Time needs reforming
I noticed on Facebook recently that there was a group called ‘I confess: I watch Question Time and I LIKE it’.
The group has surprising large membership of over three thousand highlighting the joy of Facebook; you can always find a niche!
Some of the most famous and well known Parliamentary incidents have occurred in Question time.
Remember the Paul Keating ‘I will do you slowly’ taunt to John Hewson and Peter Costello’s demolition of L... »