Chalmers is in the driver’s seat as another Labor government copes with an economic crisis – very different from the GFC, but similar in being driven by circumstances not of the government’s making.
The gambling industry certainly holds an attraction for former politicians. Perhaps it’s all that money, and the attraction of staying in the game – even if at a peripheral level.
Bill Shorten has lost a very important member of his praetorian guard, in an exit from parliament that came as a complete surprise and was executed in the strangest manner. Stephen Conroy, Labor’s deputy…
AFP commissioner Andrew Colvin has defended police raids at the Melbourne office of Labor’s deputy Senate leader Stephen Conroy and the home of an ALP staffer.
The media has wasted little time reminding the Coalition government that its rigorous scrutiny of the former Labor government was par for the course. Journalists are snapping at the Coalition’s heels on…
Labor has finally made the decision it ought to have taken long ago, but the counter-revolution has been extremely bloody and there are bodies all over the place. Not only is there a new Prime Minister…
It is just a week since the Gillard government withdrew the four media reform bills for which it could not garner the necessary support from the crossbench MPs. The proposal that concerned me most as a…
To get an idea of how big an opportunity the federal government missed with its shambolic attempt at media reform, consider this: the last federal minister to achieve any substantive reform of media self-regulation…
It’s a great shame when political and commercial vested interests drown out compelling and principled arguments for free expression in this Australian media reform debate. First, I declare my own interest…
The ongoing criticism in the major news media of Communication Minister Stephen Conroy’s very soft and watery proposed media reforms is predictable but still breathtaking. Conroy’s proposals go nowhere…
Yesterday, communications minister Senator Stephen Conroy finally presented the government response to the Convergence Review and Finkelstein review. It is hard to know how many drafts of this long-awaited…
It might not be a front line issue, but media policy is a significant election year debate. Communications Minister Stephen Conroy is still committed to bringing a submission to cabinet in coming weeks…
Communication Minister Stephen Conroy’s recent decision not to impose a mandatory internet filter on sexually explicit content is a welcome injection of realism into the frequently febrile discussion of…
I’m looking forward to the next few days. The Convergence Review’s key recommendation to introduce a new body to “regulate” the activities of our major 15 media operators – including newspapers – is significant…
It was a pleasant surprise that the independent Australian media inquiry, examining print, online and the role of the self-regulatory body, the Australian Press Council, was, for the most part, a satisfying…
The news that NBN Co has found a way to move forward from the crucial cost-of-construction issue must have surely lifted the Gillard Government’s spirits. NBN Co, the government-owned corporation in charge…