Morrison may be making a fundamental marketing mistake in his current frenetic pursuit of photo ops.

It was extremely effective in 2019 when he was relatively unknown – that is while he was known to be the new Prime Minister – but his background, personality and interests were not

So, pursuing a tactic of presenting as regular bloke doing regular things was both sensible and effective – particular when opposed to Bill Shorten who was easy to portray as an apparatchik skilled in political scheming. read more

9News has had on the Telstra Media site, on which it is featured, a link to a story about the Governor-General’s message to veterans – “you did as your nation asked ” – since August 2021.

Sometimes the item is the first you see in the Top Stories section and sometimes it slips down but whichever it’s always there among the Top Stories – which must make it the longest-running reference to an event or comment yet featured on the site. read more

In the late 16^th and early 17^th Century there were, among many writers, two exceptionally great English poets and playwrights – Shakespeare and Jonson. But who is best remembered by the general public today?

One retired quietly to the country and didn’t do much about having his work published. The other fastidiously ushered his work into print, sometimes carefully edited it to delete controversial phrases and ideas and promoted himself relentlessly. read more

Australian students are now going to be force fed our Western and Christian heritage and be told that the Anzac legend will no longer be ‘contested’.

Putting aside our ‘Western’ heritage – even given that Asian people trading with Indigenous inhabitants  have played a role in our history since before Cook arrived and common  enough to later amaze Mathew Flinders when he found many Makassan ships around what is now the Northern Territory – the Christian heritage if taught comprehensively will at least make the subject more popular than a teenage slasher movie. read more

The problem with being a transactional politician like Scott Morrison is that you end up personifying Oscar Wilde’s comment about knowing the price of everything but the value of nothing.

Now politicians have always thrown money at problems – sometimes wisely, sometimes stupidly and sometimes with remarkable outcomes like sending men to the moon. read more

You won’t read about it in the Australian media other than The Conversation. The story is missing from The Age and SMH and a Google search reveals no coverage in any mainstream Australian media.

What is it that gets so ignored? Just the news that Transparency International (TI)’s 2021 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) has put Australia in 18th place – the worst result Australia has ever received since TI’s new methodology in 2012. read more

What is remarkable about Australian right wingers is their simultaneous ignorance of Australia history and their enthusiasm for opining on it.

The issue becomes significant every year on January 26 but causes problems all year round as, when in political trouble, they dig deep into the kitbag of wedge politics. read more

Australia Prime Ministers are quick to take us to war and even quicker to commemorate those wars. They are not so quick to provide meaningful debate in Parliament about those decisions.

The Australian War Powers Reform campaign, No War Without Parliament, is now seeking to ensure the voices of some of those Australians most heavily affected by decisions for overseas wars – ADF veterans and their families – are heard. read more

Despite George Orwell’s Politics and the English Language, there has been a constant battle between rational, comprehensible language and obfuscation and propaganda, and the questions he raised are doubly pertinent in an era which has witnessed a new fall of rationality in language.

Marten Scheffer, Ingrid van de Leemput, Else Weinans and Johan Bullen address the issue in a PNAS paper (2 November 2021). They say: “The surge of post-truth political argumentation suggests that we are living in a special historical period when it comes to the balance between emotion and reasoning.” read more

In the middle of trying to write some articles on social science polarisation research, and tend the Truth and Integrity Project website and Twitter feed, I was asked to write an article ranking the Labor Shadow Cabinet from one to 10.

At 3 am the next morning it was one of those moments when you wake up wondering what on earth you have done. The only names you can think of are Penny Wong and Tanya Plibersek. If you wake your wife she’ll be furious and, if you are lucky, suggest you have left out Kristina Kenneally. read more