By Leith van Onselen The claim that the Abbott Government is “open for business” appears to have been a red-rag-to-a-bull for Australia’s largest companies, which are reportedly scurrying to employ former Howard Government ministers and other Coalition operatives as lobbyists: The torrent of activity in the increasingly partisan lobbying industry has in turn sparked a
Foreign policy wonks will be writhing in pain this week as Chris Joye described the latest international gaffe in the Abbott Government’s pugilistic approach to strategic matters: Foreign Minister Julie Bishop sees the United States, not China, as Australia’s most important economic partner, rejecting one of the main assumptions of the previous Labor government’s “Asian
That’s not my headline. It was sent to me today by a professional strategic analyst about Gotti today: …it’s clear the Indonesians believe their greatest threat is from Australia. Air Force chief spokesman Air Commodore Hadi Tjajanto told The Jakarta Post: “We are concentrating on four radars in Timika, Merauke, Saumlaki and Buraen, which face Australia.
Prime Minister Abbott is making an art form of the international gaffe. Last night it was Davos’ turn. From the SMH: Prime Minister Tony Abbott has used his contribution to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to criticise Labor’s stimulus spending during the global financial crisis while also calling on the US to tread
By Leith van Onselen Business Spectator’s Rob Burgess has written an interesting article today in Business Spectator explaining how the Tony Abbott’s phoney war against the carbon tax, which he used to great effect against the former Labor Government, risks biting the Coalition’s backside now that it is in Government: One of the really difficult
By Leith van Onselen The Australian is reporting today that Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, will use his upcoming Davos address to call on world leaders to let business lead the way to drive prosperity: TONY Abbott will call on G20 nations to avoid a “government-knows-best” attitude as he advocates “getting out of the way” of
From the AFR: Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s signature paid parental leave policy and Labor’s National Disability Insurance Scheme could be scaled back, potentially saving billions but leaving the government open to political attack. The Coalition and the Greens have held discussions about the structure of the parental leave scheme, which is forecast to cost $5.5
Let me reiterate that I would not be posting polls at this stage of the electoral cycle were it not for the likelihood of a rerun in WA for the Senate. Having said that, it appears Tony Abbott’s “women problem” is back with a vengeance: On a two-party preferred basis the ALP is 52.5%, up
Ahh, bring it on Malcolm! From the SMH: Anger is rising within the Abbott government over Malcolm Turnbull’s advocacy for gay marriage, with the Communications Minister publicly criticised by two backbench colleagues. South Australian Senator Cory Bernardi has urged Mr Turnbull to either resign from the frontbench or stop commenting on “fringe issues outside party
Cross-posted from The Conversation It is just 100 days on Monday since the election, but the Abbott government lacks that air of excitement that power often brings. Rather, it is staggering towards Christmas, mugged by moving from rhetoric to reality, from the disciplined order of opposition to the setbacks and unexpected challenges of office. We
From the AFR today: …In addition to 40 subsidiaries under his Mineralogy business, Mr Palmer listed six businesses and their associated subsidiaries involved with nickel mining, the Coolum hotel resort in Queensland, and another 26 private companies with intriguing names like Elect the President Pty Ltd and Deng Xiaoping Memorial Challenge Pty Ltd. There are also nine overseas
From Rob Burgess at Business Spectator today: Former federal police commissioner Mick Keelty has made his report into what went wrong in the Western Australian recount, and gave the Australian Electoral Commission a good kicking for its lax standards. It had, he said, “failed to meet its own high standards and damaged its reputation with
From the AFR: The Abbott government’s extraordinary collapse in public support has been confirmed in the latest Newspoll, which puts Labor well ahead on a two-party basis and shows the Coalition has lost its carbon tax advantage. The Newspoll, published in The Australian on Tuesday, finds the Coalition’s election winning margin has been erased in just three
Cross-posted from The Conversation For every opposition, the prospect of taking office – attaining politics’ ultimate prize, often after years of hard grind – can be relied upon to drown out the little noises of self-doubt and self-criticism that lurk inside the head of any reasonable politician. The transition to power? We’re ready. There’s a
From the SMH: Tony Abbott and his chief of staff Peta Credlin are enforcing a culture of “obsessive centralised control phobia” and are out of touch with voters, according to Liberal National Party senator Ian Macdonald, who has delivered a scathing attack on the Prime Minister’s office. Senator Macdonald is furious that he has not
Crikey today wades into the increasingly hostile attack on the ABC from the Abbott Government: The ABC Act, section 78, subsection 6: “Except as provided by this section, or as expressly provided by a provision of another Act, the Corporation is not subject to direction by or on behalf of the Government of the Commonwealth.” Malcolm Turnbull
From the AFR this morning: One of the most senior figures of the Howard government and a leading figure of the Liberal Party’s conservative wing, Peter Reith, has accused Prime Minister Tony Abbott of orchestrating the veto of a $3.4 billion US bid for GrainCorp, which he described as the latest of several botched decisions… and raised concerns that the
I would not normally be bothering with polls at this time in the election cycle but with a likely second round election for six WA Senate seats, which will determine control of the upper house, we should keep abreast. Fresh from Roy Morgan: On a two-party preferred basis the ALP is 51.5%, up 2.5% since
It’s damage control all around now for the besieged Abbott Government. From the AFR: Prime Minister Tony Abbott has bowed to immense pressure over schools funding, saying $1.2 billion had been found so that all deals and offers can be honoured. Mr Abbott said Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory, which did not sign
From The Australian: The Abbott government is bracing for a new series of disclosures about Australian intelligence activity, which is likely to include fresh details on Indonesian spying that will further test the relationship with Jakarta. Snowden, a former US National Security Agency contractor, is also believed to have extensive material involving Australian intelligence efforts
I’ve been accused by some of bias for my stand against what I see as a baffling string of blunders by the new Abbott Government regarding our relations with the world. But this afternoon my view is getting some high-powered support from conservative forces. Geoff Kitney of the AFR has written a stinging critique of
Laura Tingle today gives voice to the not too secret hopes of the nation: …the strange thing over the past month or so is having been out talking to different groups of company directors, bank customers, economists and the like about the new government, the same question has inevitably surfaced: when will the Coalition bring Malcolm
From the SMH: The Chinese government has delivered an angry rebuke over “irresponsible remarks” made by Foreign Minister Julie Bishop regarding its newly declared air defence zone in the East China Sea, in the latest diplomatic headache for the Abbott government in Asia. Ms Bishop summoned Chinese ambassador Ma Zhaoxu on Monday to express the
From The Australian: INDONESIA has accepted Tony Abbott’s explanation of the 2009 spying scandal but says the bilateral relationship will not fully resume until a new “protocol and code of ethical conduct” is agreed and implemented between the two countries. …”What we’re going to do in the future, at least what I suggest, is after
It’s been quite something to watch the Abbott Government’s international forays in its early months. I can’t recall a new Government being so internationally oriented in its early days, a good thing in principle. Upon his election, Prime Minister Abbott immediately toured south east Asia, aiming to deliver on his “stop the boats” election commitments.
From the AFR: In the first The Australian Financial Review/Nielsen poll since the September 7 election, Labor leads the Coalition on a two-party preferred basis by 52 per cent to 48 per cent, a post-election swing towards Labor of about 6 percentage points. Labor’s primary vote rose 4 points from its election result to 37 per cent and the Coalition’s fell
By Leith van Onselen Speaking at the Institute of Public Administration annual conference in Canberra yesterday, the former head of the Productivity Commission, Gary Banks, criticised “a decade in which spin has often triumphed over substance in policy making”, lambasting a range of poorly thought-out government policies that have come “out of the blue”, introduced
From the SMH: Australia’s asylum-seeker measures in Indonesia have been thrown into disarray with Jakarta pulling the plug on all military co-operation in retaliation for the Abbott government’s refusal to explain the phone tapping of Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. Relations between Canberra and Jakarta have descended to their lowest level since the East Timor
From the AFR, not that business interests are the be-all and end-all in foreign policy but when so little as actually at stake it seems pretty stupid to just throw money away: Australian companies invested in Indonesia have become collateral damage in the spying row that continues to escalate between the two countries. Such companies
Cross-posted from The Conversation Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull has called for politicians to take up their “megaphones” to explain policy and argue for reforms. Launching the book Dog Days: Australia After the Boom, by leading economist Ross Garnaut, Turnbull said the era when policy makers were greeted with unexpected revenue to prop up populist policies
