Blogotariat

Shadow Minister for Health Catherine King adds her voice to the criticism of the Government’s decision to axe ADCA. She writes: The Abbott Government’s knee-capping last week of the Alcohol and Other Drugs Council (ADCA) is more than a blow to...

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My Chronicle column this week celebrates the community spirit of the Canberra northside.

Celebrate the Spirit of Community, The Chronicle, 3 December 2013

Former Labor Senator Bob Carr once said that to truly be grounded in your community, you need to know something about its history and its geography. You need to know the stories of the people who’ve lived in your neighbourhood, and how their lives have been shaped by the physical nature of the place you love.

• John Wylie, the Australian Sports Commission chairman proposed a settlement deal in an email sent on August 23 to Essendon chairman Paul Little
• Coach James Hird was to be offered an “outstanding career development opportunity”, retain his status as an AFL legend plus be guaranteed a salary in 2014
• The deal required Hird to accept a 12-month ban and drop all legal action against the league
• In exchange for taking responsibility for inadequate governance, charges of bringing the game into disrepute and promoting unethical behaviour were to be dropped

I note that the ‘porn’ movies watched by Craig Thomson turn out to be not porn at all, and include The Sound Of Music.

A quarter of a million each from Abbott, Pyne, Brandis, Kate McClymont and Peter Lewis will set Craig up for a happy retirement, but it would have been nicer if he had retained his Labor preselection.

And if Gillard had allowed him to speak in parliament a year before he did.

This has been an attempt to subvert the course of justice — by, in particular, the Victorian police — unlike any in our history, and Abbott, who ran from parliament to avoid the very smell of Craig, should be sacked for it.

A carnival of Coalition nastiness relegates Labor’s manifest outrageousness to a sideshow.

@bencjenkins on how The Australian Would Like You To Get Off Its Goddamn Lawn: is this the best summary out there of possibly the most whargarrbl broadsheet editorial ever?

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In spite of the nimble political footwork and ad hockery the Coalition do look a mess. It's more than a few stumbles in the early days of a anew government. As Jack Waterford observes in the Canberra Times:

{re-posted from Andrew’s blogsite. Well said, Andrew}

I spoke in parliament yesterday in honour of two great Australian economists – Steve Dowrick and Paul Miller – who I worked with, and who died much too young this year.
Steve Dowrick and Paul Miller, 2 December 2013

ASIO has cancelled the passport of a key witness in a trial at an international court at The Hague. This raises two hypothetical questions. Is the action in Australia’s interest, in the interest of the head of ASIS at the time the bugs were planted in East Timor, in the interest of the current head of ASIO (the same person as it happens) or in the interest of Alexander Downer? Is the Attorney General throwing around like confetti as Greens deputy leader Adam Bandt has said?

Follow @MigloMT

On John Lord’s excellent appraisal of Tony Abbott at The AIMN, in It Goes to the Character of the Man, someone asked (which I have slightly edited:

. . . could you please inform us about the positive things that Abbott has done since being elected?