Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

What should have been the Coalition’s great asset – and only a complete curmudgeon would deny that Turnbull has that elusive X-factor, alone on his side of politics – is now a cumbersome liability. The messiah on the white charger has suddenly morphed into Richard Nixon and Mark Latham combined ...

When Howard posed as the loyal and faithful servant of the Liberal Party by vowing to serve as long as the party wanted him, this was pure confected humility that served only to throw sand in Costello’s face and demonstrate to the party how powerless he really was. What Howard was boasting in this oft-repeated mantra was that he had the numbers, and his rival did not. (Norman Abjorensen)

The IPA is, of course, concerned with private rather than public affairs, its extreme neo-liberalism and deification of the so-called free market displaying a thoroughgoing contempt for anything public: public ownership, public service, public transport and, indeed, the public itself. It is the ideological mouthpiece of very private enterprise that likes to glorify in the name of “free” enterprise. (Norman Abjorensen)

New South Wales likes to think of itself as Australia, but it isn’t. Back in 1887, the redoubtable Henry Parkes even proposed that the colony of New South Wales change its name to Australia – a move not unexpectedly opposed (and ridiculed) by the other colonies. But the sentiment persists. The former prime minister John Howard was a typical Sydneysider (an early Victorian term for those who lived on the Sydney side of the Murray). He professed not to recognise state identities or loyalties; we are, after all, simply Australians. (Norman Abjorensen)