Throughout history millions have urged us to ‘make love, not war’ and an important voice has just joined this choir.

On Tuesday, Australia’s former Army Chief, Peter Leahy, suggested that the defence budget should be cut and redirected towards its diplomacy and aid programs – and no, he wasn’t wearing flares or dreads.

From the country that gave us cigars in the White House pantry and the governor who went for a walk only to wind up in Buenos Aires doing the horizontal tango comes the latest proof that nobody does a jaw-dropping political scandal like Americans.

What began as a rumble about naked lobbying in the gym showers by Barack Obama’s chief of staff has turned into the cringe-inducing political wilting of US congressman Eric Massa, amid allegations of grown men in tickle fights, allegations of same-sex harassment and the spectre – raised by Massa himself – that there might be some unfortunate text messages on congressional staff phones.

After claiming just days ago he was pressured into resigning from Congress by Democrats, Massa, who is married with children, went on a highly-anticipated TV interview only to backtrack on his key allegations and then admit to all-in, all-guy tickle fights with staff.

When people ask me what I do for a living I tell them, then I bite my tongue. 

You see; I’m a community development worker. In my outer-suburban neighbourhood centre I manage a host of programs for people who need support: grandparents who’ve taken custody of their grandkids in distressing circumstances, playgroups for toddlers with teenage mums, skills training for long-term unemployed, to name a few. 

You could put your last $5 on the response (and I am often down to my last fiver so maybe I should). “Oh, you must be an angel!” they say; and, “it must be great to have such a rewarding job.”

I bite my tongue, because expletives from a woman of my years might come as a shock.

There is no point in complaining to my parents about what the Rudd Government has done to people in higher income brackets. My parents paid 60 cents in the dollar, worked a six-day week, raised two kids, five cats (not at the same time) and a dog and still saved for their own retirement.

In fact, there is no point discussing any sort of paid maternity leave system with my parents or anyone else who had children more than 10 years ago. Many didn’t have access to one, they don’t see the need for one and they don’t think mothers today deserve one.

And don’t get them started on the Baby Bonus.

When my daughter was almost two she did something lots of people do every morning. She ate some peanut butter on toast. Two hours later, when breakfast was long forgotten and the time for lunch was nearly upon us, her face began to swell – and in moments, she was scarcely able to breathe.

I will never forget the terror of holding her while feeling completely helpless as her body turned against her. The gasping sounds she made as she struggled to take her next breath, rapidly turning pale, and as her body went floppy.

It was the most terrifying moment of my life, and a memory that will stay imprinted with my husband and I forever. If it wasn’t for the fast response from a clued-in GP, she wouldn’t have seen her second birthday.

I’ve been thinking for a while now that the Australian cricket team and the huge machinery around it contained a bunch of over-paid, under-developed, spoiled brats happily trapped in a pre-feminist world, but today really tipped it over the edge for me.

It’s clear the cricket mob is not coping with the loss of the good old days when wives maintained a dignified presence at home for 10 months of the year while their husbands traveled their way around the world safely cocooned in the mantra “what goes on tour stays on tour.”

According to Peter Roebuck, Robert Craddock, Mark Waugh, and just about every other bloke with an opinion on this, Lara Bingle didn’t get the memo that it’s her job to stay at home and play a “quiet, dignified supporting role.”

Michael Clarke’s manager has confirmed the Australian cricket team’s vice-captain left the New Zealand tour to support his model girlfriend Lara Bingle who has been distraught by recent publicity around a nude photo of her appearing in a magazine.

The Punch understands Clarke’s stunning decision to leave the team camp last night was made after a discussion with Australian coach Tim Nielsen and captain Ricky Ponting. Clarke left so suddenly some of his team-mates didn’t know he was gone.

Clarke’s fiancee, model Lara Bingle, has been in the eye of controversy since a photo of her taken by ex-boyfriend Brendan Fevola was published in a magazine last week.

It’s the battle of the baby bonus today as Tony Abbott’s wildly ambitious plan to pay parents bucket loads of money gets put through the wringer. Join us here from 2pm for live coverage of Question Time.

Meanwhile the BBC’s Australia correspondent has written a piece about Kevin Rudd BC and AC - Before Copenhagen and After Copenhagen. Interesting outsider perspective.

Question Time Live: 09/03/10

There’s a hidden epidemic of bullying in Australia – and it’s not in the schoolyard. The corporatisation of universities has led to an increase in students bullying their lecturers for better marks.

“It’s often the international students, whose families have sacrificed so much to send them to university,” says one lecturer in the arts and social sciences faculty at the ANU.

Dr. Janet Shepherd* admits bumping up one student’s Credit to a Distinction, because he stalked and harassed her daily via social media.

Anyone trying to understand the politics of the federal health takeover purely from a policy perspective is only seeing half the picture. Beyond the rights and wrong of hospital funding is an attempt to shift the political game onto Labor’s home turf.

If you wanted to beat Geelong you wouldn’t go to Skilled Stadium, if you wanted to run over the Broncos you’d stay away from Lang Park because local knowledge and crowd loyalty can have a real impact on the final result.

Likewise in politics, where home ground is not dictated so much by geography, but by the issues being fought over.

It’s Tuesday @ The Punch

Today in 1967 Stalin’s daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva sought political asslyum in the United States; several weeks later she arrived in New York and angered Soviet leaders by publically denouncing her father’s regime.

It is Tony Abbott’s 93rd day as Leader of the Liberal Party and he’s being cheered as a hero. He’s just arrived at the Mosman RSL, one of the few affordable venues in the richest suburb on Sydney’s ultra-conservative North Shore, and the member for Warringah is not among friends but fanatics.

If Abbott is trying to argue that it’s a marathon not a sprint, and that the party has a lot of work to do ahead of polling day, tonight is not the night for such dispassionate political cliché. It feels like a dress rehearsal for a victory party.

Every single person that I speak to on the night not only believes that the Libs can win, many are saying they will win.

The first thing the ALP needs to do now Belinda Neal has lost her pre-selection for the seat of Robertson is tell Kevin Rudd that the new candidate likes to be known as Deb O’Neill, not Debbie as he called her yesterday.

The second thing is they need to stick a big picture of Neal on the wall of the state secretary’s office as a reminder that the members of the party are much better at choosing candidates than they are.

It sounds pretty simple, but it’s a lesson that’s been long in the making, and one the Labor heavies in NSW are yet to fully grasp. And it’s not just important for voters and party members, as contrary to what you’d expect, being imposed on one’s constituency is no tea party for a candidate either.

You learn a lot about people when the pressure is on.

Some interesting facts emerged recently about what really happened during those extraordinary four weeks last year when the Oceanic Viking abandoned our Patagonian tooth fish to become home to 78 Tamil asylum seekers.

During these events the debate raged about who knew what and when. Where would they go and on what terms? The answers to many of these questions came to light during recent questioning in Senate estimates.

Doctor Rudd may have pulled out his stethoscope and come up with a correct diagnosis about the ailing health system in the states and territories, but many of his patients are not confident about his national plan for a cure.

The Prime Minister’s push to take over funding of public hospitals by diverting some of the GST revenue that currently goes to the states has raised skepticism among not just the various health administrations, but also among most online readers who commented on news sites in the past week.

If Rudd thinks he has a tough job talking the states and territories into agreeing to the rescue plan, he may also have a difficult time convincing many voters ahead of an election due later this year.

IT’S not just that Health Minister, Nicola Roxon has acknowledged that taxes may need to increase to fund Labor’s health policy in the longer-run. Or, that Treasurer Wayne Swan has admitted a full federal take-over of the nation’s 764 public hospitals could yet be pursued.

Such frankness should be welcomed in our political leaders. It’s just that in both cases, the comments underscore the fact that in complex reforms, there is many a slip `twixt policy cup and delivery lip.

Put another way, there is a huge distance and many hurdles between Kevin Rudd’s radical health reform promise, and the tangle of changes needed to make things better for patients. Those ``slips’’ are already apparent.

Back in October last year, I promised a group of Aboriginal stockmen that I would soon return to observe progress in the re-establishment of an Aboriginal cattle industry in the Northern Territory.

It was not a promise that I considered I could break just because I now had a different job. The problems of indigenous Australia need to be taken seriously by Australia’s leaders and not just by the ministers and shadow ministers with special responsibility for them.

That’s how I came to be on a quad bike, low on fuel, following tyre tracks in the gathering dark earlier this week. That’s how I sampled a witchety grub and honey ants dug up by the women of an outstation called Ukaka.

Peter Corris’s Glebe PI Cliff Hardy has a modern Australian playlist in his latest adventure, Torn Apart, including the Whitlams, Kasey Chambers and Sydney’s cab-driving troubadour Perry Keyes.

Hardy listens to tunes from Keyes’s second album, The Last Ghost Train Home, which includes the song The Day John Sattler Broke His Jaw, about the revered Souths’ rugby league player and the 1970 grand final that he played with a fractured face. If Hardy doesn’t lose his obvious fine taste, he’ll be in the shops this week picking up the new Perry Keyes offering, Johnny Ray’s Downtown.

It is a stunning record; chock full of compelling, beautiful, sad and joyous songs that places this singer-songwriter at the top of the Australian creative tree. Johnny Ray’s Downtown is an early contender for the best Australian release of the year and will give international competition a shake, too.

As a boy I wrote a detailed seven-page letter to President Clinton outlining why he should send a child into space. Coincidentally I suggested the child should be me.

Today, it is a dream that not even in my most fanciful of moments can I still consider a reality.

Last month, Barack Obama unveiled his new budget which abruptly cut NASA’s ambitious Constellation program.

Welcome to another amble around the mission-brown patios and decked al fresco areas festooned across our sea-girt nation.

We start this week in the Land of Queens, where the mighty have fallen.  The Ipswich News reports the ute at the centre of the Utegate fiasco that has been resurrected and turned into a Meals on Wheels fundraiser.

Just as the Krudster himself has pulled a hairshirt skivvy over those coke-bottle specs and wound up a mea culpa or two, so the ute that did no real damage to his political career is now a contrite charity van.

For me and my girlfriends growing up, having babies was definitely a “no-go” area. Going to university, travelling the world and starting a career were the three things drummed into our heads over and over by mothers who came from a generation that married early -  usually between the ages of 18 and 23 - quickly started a family and left their own careers to play second fiddle to that of their husbands.

Almost thirty years down the track and the results are starting to show. The average age of a pregnant woman in Australia is now 29 and 25 per cent of women having their first baby are over 35. There are also more women than ever completing post graduate degrees at university and forging ahead with successful careers.

Angie Jackson, otherwise known as Angie the Anti-Theist, looks defiant in her latest Youtube video.

In case you don’t know Angie, she rocketed to fame a few weeks ago when she had an abortion live online. She twittered it. This week she went online again, to defend her decision – both to abort and to broadcast – in the wake of the backlash.

In the original video, she says: “I’m having an abortion… right now. It’s not that bad, it’s not that scary… I’m at peace with my decision.” “It’s just not that bad.”

It’s Thursday @ The Punch

Today in 2005 Martha Stewart was released from prison after lying about her sale of ImClone stock in 2001. She was reported to have left jail on her private jet.

The Kiwis are sputting chups this morning about John Howard being put forward for the spot of Deputy President of the International Cricket Council, with the likelihood he’ll take over the top job in 2012.

The New Zealand Herald this morning lamented: “Cricket: ‘Fan’ with no cricket experience gets top job.” The paper wondered what “Australian heavying” went on behind closed doors to secure Howard over NZC Chairman Sir John Anderson.

On AM this morning the former Prime Minister, now 70, mounted an understated defense of his credentials for the role.

“I don’t know that I have a lack of background in the game,” he said. “I don’t come to the game as having been a champion player or a previous administrator, but there aren’t too many champion players and I think most people know what I’ve been doing with my spare time up until now.”

Among the down-sides of the widely-available LCD or Plasma TV is the redundancy of the term ‘boob-tube’.

Whoever originally coined this expression, with its wonderful breastfeeding double-entendre, must surely have had either Freud or Andy Warhol in mind.

Few parents are immune to the pang of guilt that can be felt when seeing their kids ‘glued to the box’, jaws slack, eyes unblinking, shoulders slumped. All the facial muscles set to passive mode. All the action in the room comes from the flickering lights and jingle-jangle noises in front of the kids.

History looks inevitable because we’ve lived it;  we think it happened that way because it had to happen that way.

But history is really a series of hinge points, choices taken and not taken, each of which could have changed the future a little. Even the most insignificant can make a massive difference.

Everyone knows, for instance, that the First World War was triggered by the assassination of Archduke Franz Fedinand at Sarajevo.  What most people forget is that the killing only happened after the assassination attempt proper had failed; and that the gunman Gavrilo Princip only got his chance on his way home, because the Archduke’s driver took a wrong turn and stalled the car.

Welcome to Wednesday @ The Punch

Time magazine was first published today in 1923.

The scene is a Thursday evening in a suburban Australian home in 2018. Dad is on the biodegradable couch watching some vintage Mad Men, remastered in interactive 3D, on a fifth-generation iPad. His 10-year-old daughter throws a digital notebook in his lap. “Daddy, can you help?” she says. “I’ve done the statistical tables but I’m not sure how to justify the relationship between the variables.”

Forget emperor Nasi Goreng building the Great Wall to keep the rabbits out. The draft national curriculum released yesterday will test future parents almost as much as it does kids. Much of its maths and science content is currently the preserve of think-tanks and universities, stuff wholly alien to modern parents and even recent graduates of Australian schools.

For all the arguing about how the curriculum handles history this is primarily a document about the future. Is about building new skills Australia will need in its workforce over coming generations.

Walking into Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco you’re acutely aware of your existence in the present.

At Twitter, here and now, you are in the heart of a company that is hottest on the internet (and possibly off it) and right now millions of Tweeters are their sending their thoughts via this office. 

This would make Twitter co-founder Biz Stone the man of the moment.

Like a teenage son with busted car or a call centre operator who rings at dinner time, you only hear from Kerry Stokes when he wants something.

Billionaires - real ones, not the fly-by-nighters who appear suddenly on the BRW rich list and disappear just as quickly one year later - are notoriously private people. But years can pass without a significant public performance from Stokes.

Sure, he pops up every six months to deliver another set of opaque accounts from the Seven Network. But you know he only does that much because he has to. (Seven, being a listed company, has a few shareholders other than Stokes himself.)

We all know the Prime Minister writes books but does he read them? We are left wondering because the author of Jasper and Abby and the Great Australia Day Kerfuffle did not take part in a landmark survey of federal politicians’ reading habits, to be published this Wednesday in The Australian Literary Review. 

Tony Abbott was not so shy, revealing his favourite novel to be J.R.R. Tolkein’s The Lord of the Rings. 

Julia Gillard played it safe with Tim Winton’s Cloudstreet, Joe Hockey showed his SNAG side with Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and Peter Garrett was immersed in a Bunnings catalogue (he also mentioned March, the Pulitzer Prize winning novel by the one-time Fairfax reporter Geraldine Brooks).

According to numerous make-believe statisticians, there’s a 99.9% chance that you think banks are bastards. This obviously means whenever you see a bank advertisement, you’ll roll your eyes thinking, do they actually do half of the things they promise to do?

Here at The Punch, we’ve done the hard work. We visited five of Australia’s major banks in a “taste test” of their front-line customer service, to see whether it fit with the claims of their multi-million dollar marketing campaigns.

Is it scientific? Not at all. Fair? Nope. And it doesn’t review or take into account specific product details - so you can’t tell from this bank which suits your needs best. (David Koch addresses some of those questions in his first column on The Punch today here.) But it does paint a picture of actual service received. And the winner is ...

Public outrage over the shocking vandalism of internet tribute sites for two young Queenslanders who died in terrible circumstances has again raised questions over freedom online.

The worldwide web next month celebrates its 21st anniversary. It has grown from a single web page to more than a trillion unique pages and is expanding rapidly every day.

Social network sites such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and YouTube transformed the web from largely static pages under a website owner’s control into something more fluid, with people interacting on the websites to create content.

Thanks to Channel Nine’s captivating coverage of the Vancouver Olympics Games you might have missed the news this week that pole dancers are bidding to have their ‘sport’ included as a test event at the 2012 London Olympics. 

KT Coates, director of UK pole exercise school, Vertical Dance, is leading the campaign.  ‘After a great deal of feedback from the pole-dance community, many of us have decided that it’s about time pole fitness is recognised as a competitive sport, and what better way for recognition than to be part of the 2012 Olympics held in London,’ she said.

So far a petition to get pole dancing to London has attracted some 4000 signatures.  The Vertical Dance website notes that ‘by signing our petition you are showing the powers that be, that we seriously believe in the Vertical Bar.’

Two weeks ago, I gave 10 reasons why I thought the Winter Olympics were “Higher. Faster. Cooler.”  Now they’re almost over, I thought I’d reflect briefly on what, if anything, we all learned. So. In no particular order, here are 10 things.

1. Climate change is real
Thought I’d throw this one up the top because I don’t get enough right wing spam hate mail. Here’s the thing, though. Vancouver had its warmest January on record and has probably just recorded its warmest February too. Daffodils are out a month early. OK, so it’s the warmest city ever chosen to host a winter games. And yes, other parts of the northern hemisphere have had unusually snowy winters. But really, an average daily max temp of 10 or 11 where it’s usually four or five is one hell of a massive anomaly.

2. London is going to suck Read more »

Adelaide is no longer the city of churches or the arts capital of Australia. It’s not even Yass with poofs, as famously dubbed by Doug Mulray shortly before he was mercifully removed from national television by Kerry Packer.

According to the people who run the Sydney Fish Markets, Adelaide is now the mullet capital of Australia, a bogan backwater which is ripe for ridicule by the pony-tailed pseuds who run Sydney’s advertising industry.

The Fish Market’s new marketing slogan - “More Mullets Than Adelaide” - says more about Sydney smugness than Adelaide’s earthiness.

It’s the time of year to make the claim that Jesus is gay. It seems to happen semi-annually.  A few years back, a Queensland academic made the claim that Jesus had sex with his male disciples and a special relationship with ‘the beloved’ disciple, John.

This year it was the turn of another John, Elton John, to raise the topic of Jesus’ sexuality, adding the new element that Jesus was a “super-intelligent” gay man.

The famous singer’s admiration of Jesus extends beyond his claim that Jesus was gay and smart: Elton admires Jesus’ compassion, naming the forgiveness of sins that Christ achieved on the cross as a key element of the Christian message, and something worthy of emulation.

Peter Garrett’s demotion by Kevin Rudd this afternoon has all the hallmarks of a sacking - it is humiliating, it is based on poor performance, and it leaves him with virtually no power in his narrowly-defined portfolio.

But it isn’t a sacking, because Kevin Rudd does not want to give the Opposition the satisfaction of claiming a ministerial scalp, with all the political momentum such a blow would generate.

Sneakily announced late on a Friday to avoid mass media scrutiny throughout a full week, and with the Parliament not sitting next week, Kevin Rudd said his decision to limit Garrett’s responsibilities followed a long conversation with his besieged Environment Minister today.

Whitney Houston arrived in Australia with an airport controversy and now there’s backlash surrounding her first concert in Brisbane and her Sydney show last night.

By some accounts it doesn’t appear the shows were a resounding success. All I can say is: the poor unfortunate. I’ve never really followed her but I can empathise with anyone who has a bad night on stage.

She’s 46 years of age, has a well documented history of an excessive lifestyle and now she’s back on the road trying to recreate the magic of her hits. It’s a tough undertaking and will take a lot of strength and character.

I used to work in this pub in Wollongong where come Census time some of the regulars would scarper for the hills. I also remember a bus stop near where I grew up bearing the graffiti: “NO AUSTRALIA CARD” for most of the mid 80s, so I get there are people who are a little skeptical (read paranoid) about the Government knowing their business.

But I just heard the Punch’s Mark Kenny at the Press Club ask Julia Gillard about the “Orwellian” nature of the proposed new ID number for Australian school students Phil Coorey flagged in the Herald this morning.

The Opposition quickly jumped on the plan, with Tony Abbott today saying: I think that people have names and I think that it ought to be possible to identify people’s performance based on their names, based on who they are.”

The Opposition is now saying Peter Garrett’s canned insulation scheme is a bigger threat to Australian families than terrorism and Kevin Rudd’s now very upset. There will probably be a lot of shouting this Question Time. Join us here from 2pm as we cover it live.

Question Time Live: 23/02/10

The new Mardi Gras Parade Entry Kit carries a great number of warnings, the most important of which is “never to go backwards.”

But back-pedalling at a great rate was the order of the day when the Mardi Gras management committee heard that The Punch was chasing a story on discriminatory behaviour towards Mardi Gras stalwarts Gretal Pininger, aka Madam Lash, and Scott Ashton.

The parade veterans were advised that their entry to take part in the parade – entitled ‘Art Attack’ - was unsuccessful because the pair were not gay enough.

Sunday morning television can be a riot of fun.

First we had Ross Garnaut on Meet the Press confirming that his modelling for climate change predictions was done on the balance of probabilities, surely when one is giving support to the ETS, the big tax on everything, it should be on the basis of beyond reasonable doubt. But with all the fudged modelling of the IPCC, I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised, just alarmed.

Next we had the spectacle of David Marr – who writes for Fairfax beating up on Piers Akerman who writes for News Limited because Marr did not like the way ‘the Australian’ reports the news.

In an extraordinary attack on the memory of the late Governor-General Sir John Kerr, former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser claims the Governor-General telephoned him on the morning of 11 November 1975 before the then Prime Minister EG Whitlam saw the Governor-General to seek an early half Senate election.

The states were unlikely to offer their necessary co-operation in holding an early half Senate election and in any event the new senators would not take office for eight months. The Governor–General could not see this as a solution to the Senate’s withholding of of supply to the government.

Accordingly, he dismissed Mr. Whitlam on the ancient principle that no government may rule without supply being granted by Parliament. Shortly afterwards, the Governor-General commissioned the Leader of the Opposition Malcolm Fraser as caretaker Prime Minister pending an election on 10 December.

It’s Tuesday @ The Punch

Today in 1981 a rebel army who supported the late General Franco stormed the Spanish Parliament In Madrid and took 350 MP’s hostage.

WHEN Abraham Lincoln famously said that a house divided against itself cannot stand, he didn’t have the Liberal Party in mind. But had he been born 250 years later, he may well have.

Although, in the case of the Libs it’s more of a church than a house. Tony Abbott and Barry O’Farrell may be breathing a sigh of relief after the party’s NSW upper house preselection vote on Friday which saw David Clarke, the so called head of the party’s “religious right” fend off a challenge from the less religious right.

But what will concern them is that Clarke won by only 14 votes, which means in real terms that 7 more people voted for him than David Elliot, the former Australian Hotels Association executive being backed by Clarke’s former staffer Alex Hawke.

The truism goes a politician should wear out a couple of pairs of shoes in the lead up to an election, but for the Labor Member for Robertson Belinda Neal, her best strategy for a last-ditch bid at career salvation would be to stay indoors and put her feet up.

You see Neal has a way of alienating people that’s unique for a back bencher in the Federal Parliament, especially one who took her seat by just 184 votes at the last election.

And now the ALP has a big decision to make. Turf out a sitting member married to one of the most powerful men in the NSW division, or stay with a candidate so deeply unpopular senior party figures think she’ll be annihilated come Federal Election time. It’s more complicated than it sounds.

As the spotlight rests on Tiger Woods following his admissions he was a sex cheat, we ask ourselves ... can Tiger change?

Can Tiger change his addictive behaviour which threatened to derail his life? History is our greatest measuring stick when we look at a person’s character and whether they are capable of change.

I believe in the old saying that a leopard can’t change its spots. But can Tiger change his behaviour which has dictated his wayward life in recent years?

GONE are the days of burning the Midnight Oil and singing about the dangers of environmental degradation.

Peter Garrett is beginning to learn it’s not easy being green when you are in Government.

After originally singing the praises of his $2.5 billion insulation program, the Environment Minister is now at risk of finding himself in the political wilderness over the accident-prone rebate scheme which he unceremoniously dumped on Friday.

That pesky cyber-gang of hackers, Anonymous, struck again on the weekend, bringing down Senator Stephen Conroy’s website for almost 30 hours.

I know because I was there. It didn’t take much to predict that nerdy “hacktivists” against the internet filter would attack Government websites to coincide with real-life protests scheduled for Saturday.

Sure enough, a few clicks from Google led to a forum that set a date and time for the assault and, after a bit more digging, a chat room from which to watch the fireworks.

IT may have been more advertising genius than substance but Kevin 07 was a political juggernaut and it rolled right over John Howard’s competent, if tired administration. In so doing, it re-wrote the rules showing voters will bench governments when the economic indicators are favourable if they are bored enough. Back then, Kev-0-Sev had the magic and no matter what Mr Howard did, nothing worked, from backflipping on IR, to embracing the first Australians, to going green with a cap and trade scheme.

Voters had simply had enough. Kevin Rudd was future boy. A Mandarin speaking former mandarin. A square peg who had suddenly found a square hole. As the anti-Howard he was “same same but different’‘. What ever it was, it worked in spades - and they were used to bury the Howard decade.

Yet now, less than a term later, that magic has faded. A pallid looking Rudd is struggling to connect, his 07 mojo ebbing just when he needs it to flow. Is it the emergence of “Straight-talking Tony’’ or is it that having the Opposition back in the game has exposed structural weaknesses previously unnoticed?

Last week saw an unusual event in Australian politics: backbench members of Parliament from both sides took a foreign affairs initiative, independent of their party leaderships. Sixty Members and Senators – Labor, Liberal, Green and independent – signed a letter which was presented to the Malaysian High Commissioner protesting against the current trial of Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim on charges of “sodomy.”

The letter was signed by, among others, Laurie Ferguson, Malcolm Turnbull, Greg Hunt, Bob Brown, Nick Xenophon, Duncan Kerr, Deputy Speaker Anna Burke, Jennie George, Gary Gray and Mark Dreyfus QC.

It followed a speech which I gave in the House of Representatives on 3 February, in which I drew the House’s attention to the 2nd Sodomy trial in Kuala Lumpur of Anwar Ibrahim.

Thousands of old people, watching a group of old men dance around in front of the Hogwarts Express. This is rock and roll.

Almost 50,000 sets of wrinkled fingers twist into pathetic hand-grimaces – weak parodies of the famous devil horns.

The Hogwarts Express is now being ridden by a gigantic inflatable caricature of Barbara Windsor - with breasts that are literally bigger than my Dad’s car. Bigger than the 4WDs owned by half of the audience.

You know things are going seriously awry when the party of the workers starts blaming the workers.

But that’s exactly what’s happening within the ALP over the insulation rollout debacle.

Ignoring proceedings in the Labor State of NSW where bosses can be tried for industrial manslaughter, federal Labor is saying that the minister responsible for the rollout should be exonerated from blame in the deaths of four insulation installers.

I’ve just accepted my first ever invitation to be a bridesmaid for some very good friends.

Being a fairly low-key and relaxed kind of couple I’m not concerned about any freak outs or “Bridezilla” moments. Nor, knowing my friend’s simple and elegant tastes do I expect to find myself locked into a series of Saturday morning shopping trips to look at ghastly creations made from taffeta.

But I am wondering - in light of all the things I know my friend doesn’t want at her wedding – what exactly does a bridesmaid to the off-beat bride do? And what types of behaviours should be avoided at all costs?

In Adelaide today Miranda Kerr was asked what three things she would take to a desert island. She said: “My Kora rosehip oil because it is multipurpose, definitely my boyfriend and maybe my little dog.”

Maybe she means “multipurpose” as in it helps you build a shelters and possibly even a boat. I’m not sure what use Orlando Bloom would be but perhaps you could eat the dog.

Tors would take sunblock, waterproof matches and Bear Grylls. I think my list would be a Swiss Army knife, an iPad - and Miranda Kerr. Anyway, it’s obvious what comes next: what would you bring?

Naked cartwheels, foot spas for toddlers and a board game that teaches youngsters the ins and outs of the drug trade.

It’s been another varied week in the quirky world of local newspapers.

When an 80-year-old Adelaide woman found a board game on her front lawn, quite naturally she gave it to her grandson.

Who’s going to say it first? Surely in the prickly conversations going on through the ranks of Australian sport and diplomacy, many people are suggesting it: that we shouldn’t be going to the Commonwealth Games.

It is one thing to take your own life in your hands by getting on a toboggan and going down an ice chute but it is quite another for governments and sporting authorities to send athletes to a place where people are threatening to kill them.

Following today’s threat of a terrorist attack on the Games in New Delhi from an al-Qaeda offshoot the stakes have been raised to vertigo-inducing levels. Fox Sports reports today:

You are a slothful and slapdash person who shows no aptitude or application. You have limited interest in the position you are applying for, regarding it only as a means to a pay cheque.

You will show an unwillingness to learn on the job, a refusal to work in teams, and are unlikely to abide by the tea room roster. You will probably also download pornography and fill the Coke machine with five cent pieces.

If this sounds like you, congratulations. You’ve got the job.

There’s a story, though it may be apocryphal, about Henry Kissinger and the Chinese leader Zhou EnLai.

Kissinger was in Beijing preparing the ground for what was to become the historic rapprochement between the US and China, and one afternoon, while strolling in the garden,  he asked the Premier what he thought were the historical consequences of the French Revolution.

“It’s too soon to tell”, was the septuagenarian Zhou’s reply. It’s not a bad joke, but like a lot of good jokes there’s something in it.

There’s a light at the end on John Brumby’s tunnel. And it ain’t no oncoming train because Melbourne’s train system is off the rails.

That’s one of the reasons the electors of Altona – one of the State’s safest ALP seats – gave the Brumby government as massive thumbs down in last Saturday’s by election by handing Ted Baillieu’s   Liberals a whopping 12.3% swing.

While the ALP stalwarts were licking their wounds Brumby caused a huge groan to emerge by referring to the swing as “fantastic” – a mate of “The Punch” asked “what IS that guy on?” It has to be remembered that all Big Ted Baillieu needs to form a government is an overall swing of 6.5%.

Well, well, we’ve had another couple of rounds in the battle of the supermarket PR wars. First, we saw Woolworths and Coles continue their expensive media campaigns telling us about their “single pricing policy.” Then last week came the launch of the Woolworths “price check” website.

On each occasion we were told how “good” the particular announcement was for consumers only to find that the supermarket chains had failed to give consumers the full picture. Statements were made about “price cuts,” but consumers didn’t get the full list of products affected and the price changes.

Woolworths, for example, repeatedly told us that the price of 3,500 products had been reduced and now the prices of those products were lower than a year ago. We are still to get the full list of 3,500 items and price reductions. We are also yet to be told whether there have been any price rises on any of the other 26,500 or more products typically sold at a Woolworths or Coles supermarket.

IF you’ve been following the tech media this week, you’ll know that Google is in hot water over one of the most serious privacy breaches in its history.

You’ll likely have heard that Google launched a new product, called Google Buzz,  that was meant to create a social network out of its email users.

And that major privacy flaws in the product led to abusive men getting access to the details of their ex wives, political activists finding their contacts made public for investigators to peruse and journalists having their sources “outed”. I’m one of those journalists.

Don’t let the door hit you on the arse on the way out, will be the sentiment from a lot people if Pauline Hanson keeps her promise and moves to the UK for good.

Ms Hanson has told Woman’s Day that Australia is no longer the land of opportunity and she’s looking for a peaceful, less notorious existence.

But we’d all do well not to forget about the former fish and chip shop owner-turned politician. For the past decade and a half Hanson has served as a powerful warning to politicians and the media of the dangers of forgetting to ask people what they think.

As cynical as it might sound you can’t help but think that Communications Minister Stephen Conroy would have been relieved last week’s media scrutiny was mainly soaked up by Peter Garrett’s problems with roof insulation.

But following the Sunday Herald-Sun revelation that he went skiing with Channel Seven chief Kerry Stokes shortly before handing out $250 million to the TV stations it means he’ll at least be continuing in his role as best supporting stuff-up.

Political cliché that it is, Conroy’s decision to hang out with Stokes on the slopes goes to the Minister’s judgment and it’s that judgment Kevin Rudd must really be beginning to question.

Another week, another internet service that needs joining to see what the hype’s about. The web was supposed to make life easier, but all it seems to be doing lately is inventing more ways to bombard people with babble.

Google Buzz’s launch last week was wrapped in an increasingly familiar aura. As with the iPad launch, there was huge excitement from some nerdy types but a resounding verdict from much of the public has been a sigh and a shrug.

Instead of capitalising on excitement, new products have to overcome fatigue. There’s the effort setting up yet another profile, then somehow remembering to check back on it in between reading the news, monitoring tweets, Facebook status updates, doing the footy tipping, watching that Hitler video everyone’s talking about and getting to your reading recommendations all while trying to manage your phone and email inbox.

WHEN calls came in the lead-up to Australia Day to remove the British ensign from our flag, the idea was slapped down. Australians had fought and competed under this one, the Government said in an argument more often deployed by monarchists.

When the idea of putting the republic back on the agenda came up, this time from Attorney General Robert McClelland no less, it too got short shrift from the leadership when asked publicly. Perhaps this is unsurprising from the socially conservative Rudd Government. But the agent of both of these off the cuff rejections, was not Kevin Rudd, but rather, his deputy, the left-aligned, Julia Gillard.

There is a growing body of evidence that ``Red Julia’’ as some on the Right have derided her, has been busily repositioning herself to be in contention for the Labor leadership should Kevin Rudd’s star fade. I’ll come back to that shortly.

The debate over the abolition of the states is a non-debate. Aside from a few single-issue crazies who want to turn back the rivers to create an inland sea, or as a moot debating point for constitutional law enthusiasts, there is no clamour whatsoever to pursue such a complex and challenging reform.

Perhaps the argument should be recast, with a proposal that if we aren’t prepared to abolish the states, we should at least abolish New South Wales.

Under the baton-passing stewardship of NSW Labor, with the top job having been hand-balled from Morris Iemma to Nathan Rees to Kristina Keneally in just over 12 months, NSW has cemented itself as a failed state, if not a rogue state, on the national stage.

Welcome to Monday @ The Punch

Today in 1989 Soviet Troops pulled out of Afghanistan after nine years of conflict.

Note: This Well Readhead entry by Leigh serves as an introduction to the special one-off piece she has filed, which is published directly below.

I may be telepathic. I can foresee what will appear in this year’s Christmas Day package on the 7pm ABC news - a grab from the Catholic Archbishop, a grab from the Anglican archbishop, shots of the homeless being served lunch at a shelter, shots of kids unwrapping presents if the reporter’s lined up a family early.

There could well be vision from Bethlehem of a Nativity re-enactment. The Pope in St Peter’s Square obviously. If the journalist gets really lucky, there might be some quirky sidebar such as a surfing Santa or a dog that can bark jingle bells.  And call me crazy, but I’m going to predict that on Christmas Eve on Channel Ten, the price of prawns will be skyrocketing. Read more »

The Winter Olympics start this weekend and I’m ridiculously excited. I love the Winter Olympics much more than that over-hyped impostor, the Summer Games. Here’s why.

The Winter Olympics are sexier

Well, they are. No Greco-Roman wrestlers or weightlifters in this lot. Winter Olympians have body shapes which can almost universally be described as “lithe”. What’s more, everyone wears clingy outfits. It’s a visual feast. Doubly so if you have a lycra fetish.

When the Indigenous All Stars run on to Skilled Park tomorrow night it won’t be just another game of football.

The game has been sold out for months and has been a dream of Indigenous league players and Indigenous people for decades.

For the indigenous players it’s about more than just rugby league – it’s a chance to represent and pay tribute to their communities and people. The game is a celebration of indigenous culture and has great symbolism, but equally important will be the profound effect it has on Indigenous youth.

The launch of the MySchool website has resulted in some of the most contentious debate about education in our country in a long time. It seems everyone has an opinion, with teachers, parents and policymakers all putting forward their perspectives on what is arguably the government’s first major step in identifying the discrepancies in the quality of education provided between schools. 

Putting aside the pros and cons of this method of measurement of a school’s success, the one thing there is no argument about is the site’s success in igniting discussion at every level of society about education in Australia.

We have known for many years that too many students are leaving school without the skills needed to participate in the 21st century (characterised as the knowledge era). This is in part because, as Sir Ken Robinson, a leading education advisor from the UK, observed in his visit to Australia last year, our current education systems are stuck in the industrial era and are in many cases inhibiting rather than nurturing the talents students need to succeed.

Some people get all the luck.  Paul Welsh is surfing with his son, gets bitten (sorry, that should read ‘savagely menaced’) by a docile and mostly harmless Wobbegong and out come the cheque books. 

Before a stitch is even sewn, he’s been snapped up by a television network and an early morning trip to the beach is now a big earner. Well done mate. If reports on the websites are true, you’ve hit the Shark-pot. 

Shame it was only a Wobbegong. Imagine what you’d get for an actual Great White.

A couple of weeks after Peter Garrett won the seat of Kingsford Smith in the 2004 Federal Election he was taking a dip a Maroubra Beach when all of a sudden he turned grey and collapsed on the sand.

The very healthy then 51-year-old could not stand up, and told lifeguards he felt dizzy and didn’t know what had happened. “He looked really confused and quite distressed,” said lifeguard Paul Julian.

Later at Prince of Wales Hospital Garrett was cleared of anything other than a fainting spell. It’s generally not the sort of thing that happens to people who are 100 per cent thrilled and confident about the major life change they’ve just made.

Who knew the lower north shore of Sydney was a hunting ground for anti-immigrationists. This flyer popped up in mail boxes last weekend in more than one apartment block, in more than one suburb. Unauthorised of course, and probably the work of a nutter.

But it’s an election year, and these things don’t tend to happen in a vacuum. During the next six months there’ll be a lot more of this rubbish peddled by those outside the political mainstream.

Scott Morrison has requested we be able to debate immigration without labeling people racist. That’s more than fair. But keeping the debate clean is a two way street.

On our summer holidays we had a baby.

And with the joy of Georgia’s arrival managing the night has reached a new level of complexity. For parents of young families this is one of the great challenges of life.

Night feeds, bad dreams, wet beds and sleep walking have been part and parcel of the night shift in our house for more than a decade now. Yet of the four children easily the busiest at night, at least for now, has been Harvey.

I was sitting at traffic lights the other day making my way to a gig in the Hunter Valley. It was lashing rain and the weather was terrible – you could barely see the road up ahead let alone the other traffic.

As I waited for the lights to change, a car pulled up alongside me. Glancing briefly to the left I saw the familiar P plate on the window screen. The car was a six-cylinder and the young driver at the steering wheel seemed far too eager to put each cylinder to use.

“Alright buddy”, I grumbled as I heard the intermittent and very familiar revving of his car, “hold your horses”. The lights changed and the young driver shot off like a bullet.

It’s Thursday @ The Punch

Nelson Mandela was released from prison today in 1990 after serving 27 years of a life sentence for attempting to overthrow the apartheid government.

This is not meant to sound heartless. The emotions surrounding the latest shocking spate of P-plate deaths are obviously still raw. And as the families and friends of those who have died work through their grief, it is understandable that they will sometimes lash out and look for external forces to blame as they deal with their loss.

But if kids are going to keep killing themselves at this rate - and kill or injure other people as a result of their reckless or incompetent driving - the time has come to stop molly-coddling these young people and their deluded friends.

The time has also come to stop offering the parents of reckless P-plate drivers nothing other than uncritical sympathy, as in many cases they too have played a role in allowing their children to behave in a way which endangered them and other people.

Marty Natalegawa is a consumate diplomat. The Indonesian Foreign Minister is also his country’s former representative to the United Nations and Ambassador to the UK.

At the age of 46 he has done more than most top diplomats do in an entire career. Now he’s the Foreign Minister.

On Tuesday this week I interviewed Marty Natelagawa in his Jakarta offices. In a long line of difficult issues between Australia and Indonesia, people smuggling has been the most awkward in recent months, so of course I had to begin our discussion on just that.

As we observe the first anniversary if the horrific firestorms that ravaged whole communities on Black Saturday, a typically scorching summer has again gripped much of Australia, providing a stark reminder that such dangers are a constant threat for those living in a sunburnt country.

Yet despite an ongoing Royal Commission, a flurry of catastrophic warnings and a flood of big-ticket resources which go right up to a water-bombing jumbo jet, little attention has thus far been given to the vital role that sustainable forestry traditionally played in essential aspects of fire management.

In recent decades, as politicians clamoured to placate the noisy environmental movement, they blissfully ignored the long-standing efforts of a sustainable forestry industry in managing forests, reducing fuel loads, building and maintaining access routes and fighting fires.

Who does the ironing at your house, and other big questions of national significance could be on the agenda for today’s Question Time. Kevin Rudd will be glad to be back on familiar ground after his experience last night in another chamber, with another set of questioners altogether. Join us here from 2pm.

Question Time Live: 09/02/10

The showbiz maxim about never working with children or animals was on full display tonight as our Prime Minister arrived for a chummy yarn with a nice bunch of kids only to endure a torrid pummeling about broken promises, weak leadership and political expediency.

In a display which put us journalists to shame, a roomful of young adults gave Kevin Rudd one of the toughest grillings of his prime ministership as he agreed to an hour-long solo appearance on the ABC’s Q&A at Old Parliament House, Canberra.

You could see the clutch slipping from the start as the first series of questions directly accused Rudd of being more talk than action. His body language was awkward and what he had probably envisaged as a friendly bit of to-and-fro banter looked as uncomfortable as an all-in press conference - only more so, as the kids were so civilised in their pursuit of the PM that he couldn’t cry foul over unfair treatment.

Get your exclamation marks at the ready – Naomi Robson’s new online love and relationships internet show went live this morning and it’s offering some tired and hackneyed advice on a website near you!

There are some odd assignments on The Punch but so far none has been as left-field as getting up at the crack of dawn on a Monday to listen to Naomi Robson talking about sex. But tally-ho.

The Naomi Show clips open with the sound of an audience golf-clapping politely, followed by some whoops building to a cheer. Then Robson’s on screen, staring into the camera with that customary, hyper-professional glare that makes you believe she’d be delivering those lines even if, striding to her seat seconds beforehand, she trod on a puppy.

Last week I returned from a visit to Christmas Island to Parliament where the Labor Member MP, John Sullivan, from Longman in Brisbane, interjected during a speech and called me a racist.

At the time, I was speaking to an Appropriations Bill that was seeking additional funds to make up for shortfalls in this year’s budget. Included in these shortfalls was $132 million for off shore processing of asylum seekers.  We were supporting the Bill.

I noted that the 100 per cent plus blow out in costs demonstrated the Government had failed to appreciate the impact of their policy changes on the detention population on Christmas Island, that is now at unsustainable levels.

Why does football/soccer bring out the hate?

Every time I read a story or a blog about football/soccer on the net, the reader comments always devolve into the bitch fight: it’s the world game, it’s the future or it’s a Euro game for ladyboys that will never overtake our domestic codes.

I write about the A-League on the Punch every week and every time my post goes up there’s always a response guaranteed to include the lines: “Who cares? Soccer’s a boring game for poofs, people who have slightly darker skin than me and posh expats who should go back where it rains a lot and the beer is slightly warmer. How long have you soccer zealots been saying it was going to take over? The A-League is rubbish and will never be more popular than AFL/NRL.”

It’s the month of love. Of greeting cards, long stemmed roses and boxed chocolate. Of old flames, new flames, love hearts and lonely hearts.

I figure people can be roughly divided into two groups – those who love Valentine’s Day and those who avoid it.

While my longest relationship is with my husband Richard (and don’t get me wrong it’s a very happy one) some of my most treasured moments in life have been with my fur family.

They call it the Pineapple Express. It’s an unwelcome warm weather system which drags moist, warm air from the ocean near Hawaii, all the way north to the Pacific coast of Oregon, Washington State and southern British Columbia.

And wouldn’t you know it, right now there’s a massive Pineapple Express lashing Vancouver, host city of the 2010 Winter Olympics which start on Feb 13.

Usually, Pineapple Expresses last a few days. But this one has been around for five weeks, and shows no signs of abating.

Our flag flutters from letterboxes, fenceposts and trees along our roads – an enduring and binding tribute to the resilience of our communities in the 12 months since that fateful February day we now call Black Saturday.

Their resilience was tested like never before on February 7, 2009. And it has been severely challenged many times since as they struggle to slowly rebuild lives, homes and entire towns.

The progress has been slow, painfully so, for many communities. A year on Kinglake is still without a petrol station, Marysville still waits for a school and new shops. And people in each community have had to battle ever increasing bureaucracy and building permits based on new building standards that still can’t deliver the required roofing and window materials.

A group of 36 Canberrans from all walks of life met last weekend with what many would consider a bizarre objective.

Grandmothers, tax office workers, lawyers, teachers, small business people and farmers gathered at a scenic rural location just outside the nation’s capital to learn to catch and release some of the world’s deadliest snakes.

None of us enrolled in the Wildcare snake handling course had any experience with the reptiles, save for the occasional sighting, which in my case, usually involved the blood draining from my face and sending my heart into high-octane overload.

Forget Hank Williams singing Move It On Over in 1947. And that ground- breaking 1939 boogie tune, Rockin’ Rollin’ Mama by Buddy Jones doesn’t get a look in. We can also forget Ohio disc jockey Alan Freed who is credited with first talking about rock and roll music in 1951.

A controversial take on just when rock music was born is the basis of an equally controversial BBC program being shown on ABC television, The Seven Ages of Rock.

The series producer William Naylor reckons the program has finally nailed the previously unspoken truth that rock was born when Jimi Hendrix first performed in London on September 24, 1966.

It’s Friday @ The Punch

The Battle of Khe Sanh began in Vietnam on this day in 1968.

Everyone looks at my neck and thinks I’m a red-necked Indian-bashing racist.

The day before Australia Day, I caught the bus to work. Sitting up the back, sweltering in the heat and breathing in the sweat of the others condemned to the ride, I was tapped on the shoulder. The man behind me, breath heavy with booze, declared me a “sister of the Australian cause”. 

Confused and a little scared, I tried to ignore him. But the curious journo in me won out, and I asked him what he was talking about. Beaming and red-faced, he pointed to my neck, and THAT tattoo.

Does your new model six-cylinder car make you happier? What about that new in-home cinema, complete with HD-TV, surround sound, and reclining couches? You think so. How about the holiday you recently took with the family?

Unfortunately, as humans we are not that good at predicting, understanding, or acting in a way that makes us happy.  This lack of knowledge is even more pronounced when it comes to the relationship between what we buy and how happy it makes us. 

Have you even considered how happy various purchases you’ve made have actually made you? 

As the cut and thrust of a new Parliamentary year begins it is worth reflecting on the fact that more thn ever, 2010 will see politicians of all stripes and colours in the face of average voters. 

2010 will undoubtedly become known as “the year of the election” with three state and one federal election all due between now and December 31.  Who then are the politicians that will this year provide interesting watching for the rest of us? 

Of course it would be easy to concentrate on the big hitters and those who will shape the meta-narrative, which pundits call ‘the debate about the debate’.  Among them you would include; Rudd and Abbott, the State Premiers, Bob Brown and Wayne Swan, (in fact nearly all the ministry).  But, everyone will watching them, so here instead, I present a guide to some of the less obvious players in our parliaments but who nevertheless will provide some of the most interesting political subplots of 2010.

It’s Thursday @ The Punch

Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg today in 2004.

Looked like Tony Abbott enjoyed himself yesterday. Join the team and Punch readers here from 2pm to follow and discuss proceedings as they happen.

Question Time 03/02/2010

A new front in the immigration debate opened up in the last week as the media grabbed hold of proposed changes to migration law to deliver a sensationalist warning of alleged “loop-holes” that will supposedly lead to an influx of chronically ill foreign workers.

The alarmist reporting on efforts to engage the community in tackling the complex issue of migration policy for people with disability is disappointing on several levels - particularly as there were serious factual errors underpinning the arguments.

Suggestions that the Government had widened a “loop-hole” and “loosened” its grip on migration policy for migrants with HIV and cancer not only played to political fear-mongering that Australia has lost control of its migration policy, it also negatively stereotyped people with disability as non-taxpayers who constitute a drain on society and the economy.

Talk about a grand marketing plan!

Last weekend, Love magazine, run by former Pop! Magazine Editor (and fashion industry icon) Katie Grand, started releasing their Issue #3 covers. The nude shots of Lara Stone, Kristen McMenamy, Daria Werbowy and Jeneil Williams were let loose on the internet, and didn’t the bloggers have a field day.

I blogged about it. I got emails from friends to blog about it. I saw it on at least three other websites all marvelling over how we were getting to see these girls practically in their birthday suits. Fashion blogging land was in an excitable hoo hah. Naked supermodel? You’ve got to be kidding me! I’ve never seen that before.

This week’s release of the 2010 Intergenerational Report by Treasurer Wayne Swan brought the issue of mature-age workers rightly into the spotlight.

Few issues are as important to our nation’s future as responding to the long-term trend of an ageing population. 

It was therefore disappointing to see the inflammatory response of Coalition Seniors spokesperson Bronwyn Bishop claiming that the Government was demonising older people and forcing them to work until they drop.

Welcome to Wednesday @ The Punch

Buddy Holly died in a plane crash on this day in 1959.

It’s the first Question Time of the new year Tony Abbott’s first as Opposition Leader. Join us live from 2pm as we ring in this election year.

Question Time Live 02/02/2010

Well it won’t have the same political impact as the Hewson birthday cake answer in 1993 but it was almost as unintelligible. 

It’s likely to go under the radar today with the Opposition releasing their own carbon reduction policy, but if anyone saw Kevin Rudd’s interview on the Today show this morning you’ll know what I’m talking about.

Asked by Karl Stefanovic how the ETS would affect the price of a loaf of bread, milk and petrol the Prime Minister managed to mangle all three answers.

Political predictions usually come with a face-saving asterisk, or an alarming promise that you will drop your pants in Martin Place if they don’t come true.

We’ll try to avoid both here – especially the second you’ll be relieved to hear – and instead offer a dispassionate snapshot of the federal political scene as Parliament resumes today for this election year.

It’s not based on today’s Newspoll which shows that Tony Abbott - who unlike Malcolm Turnbull offers a much clearer alternative to Labor especially on climate change - has helped the Libs sneak ahead in the primary vote while still falling short of winning office. Nor is it some bid to spoil Rudd’s attempt to claim underdog status with his pep-talk to MPs yesterday where he warned that Labor could lose. 

Dear Mr Rudd, can I just say this that while there are no silver bullets to the problem could you take some decisive action, when it comes to your use of cliché; as working families would prefer you take whatever action is necessary to end your use of the phrase “course of action”? 

Phew – the top seven Rudd clichés all in one sentence. I think I might just need a drink, in due season…

As parliament resumes today, The Punch decided it might be worthwhile to use the Parliamentary Hansard take a look at Prime Minister’s favourite parliamentary clichés of 2009.

If you are already sure who you are going to vote for at this year’s federal election then consider yourself a member of a minority group: the ‘rusted-on voter’.

As this week’s Essential Report illustrates , we have become a Nation of Softies, voters who can be wooed and repelled by our politicians all the way up to voting day.

It is a change in our political culture from previous generations who inherited a party from their parents and stuck with it through thick and thin.

Today marks the return of Parliament in Canberra, in an election year. For some this will be of no interest, for others it is a captivating period in which the intrigue, dynamics and more subtle nuances are followed each sitting day.

I am firmly of the view that as Australians, we should be very proud of the vigorous nature of our democratic processes.

After all, millions of people throughout the world are prepared to risk their lives in pursuit of democratic principles being introduced to their nation.

It’s Tuesday @ The Punch

Then South African president FW de Klerk lifted a 30- year ban on the African National Congress, a leading anti-apartheid group on this day in 1990. 

Ordinarily the first parliamentary sitting week for a new opposition leader is a chance to redefine themselves, introduce new ideas to the public, perhaps break the shackles of received wisdom about their view of the world.

But like John Howard when took the Liberal leadership (again) in 1995, Tony Abbott makes his first parliamentary charge as Opposition Leader this week as a relatively well-known political quantity. So do the cliches about him match the perceptions of people in the street? Being the new leader, and seeing as we did the same number on the Prime Minister and Malcolm Turnbull last year, we decided to ask people some simple questions about what they thought of the Member for Warringah.

So was there a surprise, like in the Rudd survey when people said they perceived the Prime Minister as somehow physically small? Nup; respondents described Abbott almost as a caricature of how he’s caricatured: a straight-talking conservative bruiser, hated by some for his views on social issues, known for them by all.

WHAT sort of a society breeds little bastards like these?

Thats what Britain is asking itself after the sickening details of how a ten-year-old boy and his 11-year-old brother tortured two other boys to within an inch of their lives were made public here last week.

The facts of the case, which has echoes in the killing of two-year-old Jamie Bulger in Liverpool in 1993, have provoked a storm of anger and re-opened the debate about Broken Britain and where it all went wrong for a once proud country.

Picture yourself in this situation. You’re a young female business graduate striding up to the board room for an interview with Westpac. You see a picture of CEO Gail Kelly and you think “I can do that.” Think again sister.

If the latest statistics predict your path, there’s a strong possibility that in 15 years time you’ll be stuck in middle management or if you’re returning back part time from baby, you’ll be sentenced to “special projects.”

The statistics are bleak. Look at these statistics from the EOWA:

Welcome to Monday @ The Punch.

Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Iran after 14 years in exile on this day in 1979.

If Green Day sang that the Jesus of American suburbia is a lie, Chris O’Doherty (aka Reg Mombassa) offers a surreal Aussie equivalent: the Jesus of our suburbia is a regular guy, eating a pie, wearing a tie, with a third eye.

Mombassa was a member of iconic Australian rock band Mental As Anything before becoming one of Australia’s most recognisable visual artists and helping to establish the fame and fortune of the Mambo surfwear brand.

The release of Murray Waldren’s beautifully-produced biography of Mombassa, The Mind and Times of Reg Mombassa, highlights just how prominent Christian, or ‘neo-Christian’, themes are in his artwork.

Lauded as a pop culture artist, Mombassa self-identifies in a more religious fashion: “It’s like being a priest. To some extent, it’s a calling”, he tells Waldren. His “Self portrait with beard and plastic ring”, painted last year, is an obvious Christ-figure, with the ring as a halo.

It’s the moment Great Britain has been waiting for – one of its own tennis players on the verge of winning a grand slam.

The talented Scot has all the right attributes to win a grand slam. But Murray has one giant problem. Roger Federer ... the world’s No. 1.

There’s a simple reason why Federer will win the Australian Open on Sunday.

It was never going to take long - here’s the Downfall parody of Hitler finding out about the iPad. As usual, he’s not happy and this contains some strong subtitles.

The story of the ‘great Australian sickie’ made it around the world this week, spreading the fallacy that half a million Aussies faked sore throats and tummy bugs to get a long weekend.

Direct Health Solutions – apparently a ‘leader in Positive Absence Management and Corporate Wellness Solutions’ (what the?) – was given a massive free kick with their Australia Day absenteeism ‘estimate’.

Then the Retailers Associations’ Scott Driscoll really got the headlines pumping, labelling the sickie-takers ‘unAustralian bums’.

The one advantage that paper-based magazines have had on their electronic counterparts is usability and look. The ability to turn the page and take in the beauty of a well-designed magazine is something that most web sites can’t match.

Portability is the other area where magazines have had the edge. Carrying them around is lot easier than a standard computer.

As such, many have scoffed at Rupert Murdoch’s aim to get people to pay for digital content. After all, lots of online content is currently free and there’s been nowhere near enough ‘value-add’ to warrant people paying for content. However, the launch of Apple’s iPad tablet could well be the game changer that proves Murdoch right. With their new ultra-portable tablet, Apple can change the publishing industry to the same degree that they’ve changed the music sector.

The recent call by Dr John Irvine to consider charging parents for crimes committed by children under the age of 10 highlights a fundamental social challenge. 

Juvenile crime and delinquency is a growing problem within our schools and the wider community – costing millions of dollars each year.  Recent Bureau of Crime and Statistics research indicates a 44% rise in juvenile offences since 2001.

Dr Irvine thinks that the ability to charge parents for the crimes their offspring commit “would help” and therefore it’s certainly worthy of debate and discussion. It’s hard to dispute his assertion that the Labor Government is too soft when it comes to dealing with the guardians of troubled children under 10.

We’re about 20 minutes in already but President Obama is making an official State of the Union address right now in Washington.

You may have seen this photo this morning taken by a photographer from local Melbourne newspaper the Preston Leader.

The common Grey Kangaroo (let’s call him Joey McCutie to personalise the plight of the species) had just been hit by and was laying seriously injured on the tram tracks in Bundoora. Here are the Leader and Herald-Sun stories.

The police officer’s decision to shoot Joey McCutie twice in the head was apparently a pretty sensible decision in light of its injuries, but it has prompted some pretty odd criticism from the RSPCA.

I’m going to confess straight up to having little to zero interest in the underwear choices of Venus Williams.

Yet in recent days her flesh coloured shorts have become a story in sport in themselves and sent twitter abuzz with is she or isn’t she wearing underpants debates.

Perhaps this isn’t so shocking, Maria Sharapova’s green “frocklet” (I kid you not- apparently there is indeed such a thing), got its own press conference launch and then we saw precious column space designated to the diamond earring and necklace choices of Serena Williams, (which she liked “because it had lots of S’s in the design”, and we can all respect that).

I’m sitting in my lounge room looking at the swag of contemporary political philosophy books I own, simmering with resentment at the noise the uneducated wogs downstairs are making.

My family moved to Balmain when I was a teenager and until recently I’ve mainly lived in the Inner West of Sydney. I tried the Eastern Suburbs for a while but decided it was too cashed up and pretentious for my left-wing sensibilities. So I stayed close to Glebe and Newtown, went on the right marches, studied the right subjects at uni, and voted for the right political party.

But a couple of years ago my boyfriend and I found ourselves priced out of the inner city rental market - a direct consequence, I told myself, of my lack of materialism and desire to pursue a modest creative life.

Amid the continuing debate about our national identity and our constitutional arrangements, readers might be interested in this piece written this weekend for English newspaper The Mail on Sunday about our response to Prince William’s visit. It’s obviously written for an English audience, and it ended up being an embarrassingly positive piece where my republicanism almost abandoned me.

The last thing we need over here in Sydney is another cashed-up foreign interloper buying into the hyper-inflated property market to further jack up prices in the Harbour City.

But Prince Williams’ joking suggestion that he had so fallen in love with Sydney that he intends to buy a house here was not so much condemned as applauded.

It is an absolute tribute to the men and women who built the Snowy Mountains Scheme that their engineering marvels continue to supply drinking, irrigation and environmental water to two million people who call the Murray Darling Basin (MDB) home.

Because if it wasn’t for the man-made miracle that is the Snowy Mountain Scheme, the only thing coming out of many taps in the MDB would have been dust.

Permanent plantings of citrus, stone fruits, grapes and the myriad of fresh food that lands on our table would have been wiped out. Whole communities would have had to pack up and leave and the environment would have worn the full fury of Mother Nature with death a daily reminder of the power of the weather gods.

Welcome to Wednesday @ The Punch

Today in 1945 the Soviet Army liberated the Auschwitz death camp in Southern Poland.

I am concerned at the logic that because some jerks are treating Australia Day the way Liz Taylor treated the institution of marriage that we should get rid of the celebration altogether.

The structures of our society are no better or worse because of actions of a few.  Trend is not established by a few data points.

Global warming is not off because of a cold snap in the UK. The monarchy is no more appropriate for Australia because Will seems like a great bloke. And our flag is no more or less appropriate because some people (mis)use it.

Here’s a heads up. If you really want to know what Aussies in 2010 think about our country becoming a republic just flip a coin.

According to the odds, there’s a 50-50 chance of turning up the head of Queen Elizabeth.

Eleven years since a referendum was held to settle the republic debate, Australians seem just as divided about cutting their ties to a monarch living on the other side of the world.

There is nothing new in the mid summer sermons of Prime Minister Rudd as he meanders across the Australian continent.

The fact that health expenses are rising faster than inflation is not a revelation it is simply a well known fact. Neither is it new that the population is ageing. This simply means that people are living longer and healthier lives and is a cause for celebration, not morbid prognostications.

What is new is that Mr Rudd is blaming older Australians for the cost blowout.

Tomorrow might be the official national holiday but today will be a mass celebration of a great Australian institution hundreds of thousands of workers call in sick.

Up to half a million workers are expected to chuck a sickie, voting themselves an extra day off. Even if you’re the conscientious type and decide to rock up to work today, it’s only a four-day week. Wouldn’t it be great if every week was like that?

Well for many workers it could be, with no loss of productivity plus the benefits of reduced energy consumption, lower carbon emissions, less congestion on the roads and more time for family and leisure. The key is extending the four working days to 10 hours, so all the work still gets done. And one US state has proved it can work.

Excuse the disturbing imagery, but imagine for a moment Lleyton Hewitt as a burlesque dancer.

Imagine Lleyton as one of those Dita Von Teese types that have lead a popular resurgence for the art in recent years. Emerging out of a large bowl and dressed in emu feathers, Hewitt begins the Australian Open by holding an expectant crowd’s attention with his potential to nude-up with a win.

But year after year the tease is interrupted by a stern order from backstage and Lleyton goes running off, leaving the crowd to go home frustrated and merely fantasize at the potential of what we might have been treated to. 

As we head towards yet another Australia Day, a lot is being raised and debated about how we see ourselves as a nation, as a people, and as a part of a global community. Tensions have arisen of late regarding topics of border security and the safety of foreigners on our shores.

But perhaps, most intriguingly, as an aside to these debates, there has been a strong suggestion that the Bogan identity, which has plagued Australians for decades, is no longer being worn as a badge of honour, but rather, and rightfully, as one of shame.

Could we finally be seeing the end to our redneck wonderland? Are Australians favouring intellect over yobbism, manners over crassness, compassion over blind patriotism? When articulated in these straightforward binaries, one can only wonder - why it has taken so long?

Welcome to Monday @ The Punch

Today in 1980 Paul McCartney was deported from Japan after spending 10 days in a Tokyo jail. He had been charged with smuggling marijuana into the counrty while on tour with his band ‘Wings’.

America’s late night talk show crisis is almost an end with Conan O’Brien set to get the sack from the Tonight Show at the end of this week for the sooky Jay Leno who has decided he wants his old job back, and apparenlty has some born right to host the Tonight Show.

The whole saga has been covered to the point of exhaustion in the US media, with Conan walking away with a cool $45 million and also likely to go to the FOX network for a brand new show. For his part David Letterman’s joy over NBC’s troubles has bubbled over in to outright self-indulgent schadenfreude in his opening monologues, largely because he was overlooked for the job himself
more than a decade ago.

The upside is that someone as funny as Conan O’Brien, fresher and funnier than both Leno and Letterman for many years, has an entire week left to get back at the people giving him the sack. So what do you do? Spend all their money of course.

As a new year begins we should look at where we are with the struggle against Jihadi terrorism.

Retrospectively, we can now see a pattern in the role of Pakistani based Jihadists and new potential threats to Australia.

Three Australians, Gareth McEvoy, Nathan Verity, and Craig Senger, were murdered in Jakarta on July 17 by al-Qaeda’s south-east Asian franchise, Jemaah Islamiyah.

The US Democratic Party is bewildered and spooked. One year after Barack Obama’s inauguration, a political asteroid struck yesterday, imperilling the road ahead for the President’s agenda, including his cherished healthcare reforms.

That Obama’s party could lose a Senate race in the liberal-left bastion of Massachusetts is proof that political hell has officially frozen over.

Republicans last held the seat in 1972. But to lose in a special election triggered by the death of Ted Kennedy?

I recently let the world know that I am expecting twins.

I had read the chapter on pregnancy and other people in my new bible, ‘What to expect when expecting,’ by Sharon Mazel and Heidi Murkoff so had braced myself for some inappropriate tummy touching and some well-meaning pregnancy advice.

I thought I was prepared. How wrong can you be?

Spam. When not moonlighting as a revolting pork-based processed meat encased in a can, it is by definition unsolicited, electronic junk mail.

Or in layman’s terms on an average day at work just a real pain in the backside. Usually containing an unlikely combination of Russian mail order brides, destitute African students or a muddled-up jumble of pornographic type meshed with random rhetorical questions and bad spelling.  All irrevocably destined for the Outlook trashcan.

Except of course when it’s really funny, like this one sent to The Punch this morning:

It was strangely refreshing to hear about Brazilian Marcos Daniel apparently getting into a squabble with a female spectator after his first round loss.

Not because getting in fights with fans is particularly advisable or admirable, but it did at least give us a tennis player we could look at say “that Marcos is one bad cat”. As an average player Marcos Daniel may have done his career a favour as he is now one of the few bad guys on the circuit.

Grand Slam tennis is currently suffering under the burden of there being too many nice guys and gals on the circuit - or at the least players who have perfected the art of looking like nice guys and gals.

Here’s proof of the abundance of great new music. The great benefit of those end of the year lists of favourite songs/albums/bands for the previous 12 months is that there’s always some gold in them crooked ventures.

The end of 2009 was no different. A friend in Sydney tipped me to the Girls and I still don’t know how I missed their eponymous debut. It’s been on high rotation since.

As has the Canadian band Metric - their CD Fantasies came to my notice when someone picked their song Sick Muse as one of the tunes of 2009. It’s solid, art-pop-rock, New Pornographers stuff and worth a listen. Metric was a band I’d half heard but never focussed on. I’m making up for lost time now.

The recent significant rain event in the northern stretch of the Murray Darling Basin has not only given hope to suffering farmers and rural communities, it has also placed a spotlight firmly on the fraud being perpetrated by the Prime Minister and the cabal of Labor Premiers when it comes to water policy for the Murray Darling Basin. 

Only 18 months ago this group of ‘leaders’ stood together and waved around a ‘historic’ agreement in Chamberlin like fashion claiming that it delivered a national system of water management. 

Not only has this been shown to be a complete joke by the torrent of water now flowing down the Darling, it has also shown the Rudd Government’s failure to invest in the necessary infrastructure to deliver real water savings before the rain came.

Well our local monarchists have worked themselves into a royal frenzy and the hyperbole is coming thick and fast - so let me try to help them get a few things into perspective.

William and his brother Harry - thanks to their gorgeous mother Diana - are the only really normal members of the world’s most dysfunctional family.

Granny Queen is locked into yesterday with her appallingly rude and insensitive husband.

This is a message to the 80, 000 or so high school graduates who will later today log onto the UAC site and find out whether or not they received a place at an Australian university for 2010.

Whatever happens don’t panic. Especially if you have spent the entire Christmas break avoiding the questions of (well meaning) relatives asking what you want to do with the rest of your life.

It is absolutely 100 per cent OK if you (a) you don’t want to go to university or (b)fall into the 30, 000 or so people who will miss out on a place this year.

Would Australia’s sporting mainstream benefit from the introduction of a Rooney Rule?

In 2003, America’s NFL introduced the Rooney Rule to provide legitimate opportunities for minority candidates. The rule, named after Dan Rooney, owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers franchise and a strong advocate for the rule’s introduction, requires all NFL teams to interview at least one minority candidate for any vacant head coaching or front office position.

Concurrently the Fritz Pollard Alliance was established to identify candidates, submit names for vacancies and to prepare prospective applicants for the interview process.

It’s the kind of thing that would get you pelted with stones in the town square in less civilised countries. So as a celebration of our freedoms I’ll say it. Australia Day is a load of rubbish.

And it is increasingly celebrating the worst aspects of our national character, where rather than being a day for thoughtful reflection on our history and our values, it’s starting to look more a half-witted contest to see how much meat you can eat and how much grog you can sink.

This isn’t a wowser’s warning against barbecues and beer. Far from it. I’m a keen supporter of binge-drinking, I’ve never met a meat product I didn’t adore, and I think the likes of NSW Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione and federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon should quit their day jobs and seek formal employment as nannies, such is their enthusiasm for treating adults like babies and criminalising fun.