Once I have dropped the children off for the first day at school I know that my return to the Parliament House part of my employment i...

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   Our future is determined to a large extent by who we are and where we live. When we are young we may have dreams of beauty, fame or weal...

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  This week has been one of remembering the tragic course of the ferocious force of nature that laid waste to sections of the Lockyer Valley and...

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My daughters keep telling me about the Mayan Indians' prediction that 2012 will be the end of the world. One day, a prediction such as that, I imagine...

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    I like genuine agnostics. They do not get bent out of shape by other religions, they are just thinking about it and them and how and w...

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The end of the year is imminent but the orbit of eclectic and core issues keeps your city in that post political glow. That glow attracts the belated ...

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  The carbon tax must have done the trick. It has been considerably colder here in Queensland lately. In fact, Queensland has had its coolest ma...

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    In GK Chesterton's Father Brown novels the world renowned criminal Flambeau makes a name for himself by forming a successful London da...

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    The Murray-Darling Basin is often viewed as a network of inter-connected garden hoses, where if you drop a litre of water in at Toowoo...

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    The Labor party did something remarkable last week, they actually paid back some money after borrowing $11 billion over the six weeks ...

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Curtin and Chifley are the Julius Caesar and Caesar Augustus of the Australian Labor Party. Leader's gifted with character and formed by the most prec...

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  The Qantas chief, Alan Joyce, has been hanging around Parliament House for the last few weeks, not because of an impending aviation calamity b...

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    It would seem that the fear of a shark attack is becoming well grounded in recent weeks. If one is concerned about the attacks of a 30...

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  When I think of regional Australia, I think of long drives, lots of wildlife and lights in the sky not on the ground. There is another thing t...

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     It is a frightening thought that our nation is about to recalibrate its economy on a colourless, odourless gas at a time when th...

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  One of the world's first billionaires, J. Paul Getty, once remarked that "the meek shall inherit the Earth, but not its mineral rights." I fin...

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    Kevin Rudd said on Tuesday, “I’m a happy little vegemite being prime minister, ah foreign minister”.    The messiah from N...

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    The framed flyer enticed me to partake in the splendour of “new season lamb with brioche parsley crumb, buttered peas and mash” and al...

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    Do you ever wonder where thoughts come from; what makes your mind wander? Are we hardwired but unaware of our predetermined cerebral v...

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    What is a philosophy? In politics, philosophies are sometimes pulled on like a football jersey for a team that you have never played i...

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  The storms have returned, the frosts have left and the ladies have returned to their ritual pre dawn constitutional. I can hear them chatting ...

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    Simia quam similis, turpissimus bestia, nobis. So said Cicero; how like us, the ugly beast, the monkey. How much can we say about the ...

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    Whilst driving my daughter to the Queensland Primary School Athletics Championships at QE2 in Brisbane I was very encouraged that I co...

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    In the mall outside the City Hall gathered the Socialist Action Alliance; speeches, placards, all fairly predictable, about eighty of ...

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    Swan should forget climate change and concentrate on debt   THE joy of vindication on the prospect of a US government default i...

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     While in a capital city on one of my 200 or so days a year on the road, I had a meal by myself, always good company, then on dep...

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TASMANIAN Premier Lara Giddings this week declared peace for the forests. I trust she wasn’t waving a piece of paper from the foot of the steps after ...

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    For those of you who have had the fortunate experience of working at an accountancy practice, you will understand the joys of every da...

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  Australia must invest in the regions that are the source of our wealth. It is nauseating to hear the pejorative "pork barrelling" used for wha...

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  Are you sick of it yet? It's only just started. The carbon tax legislation has not even been introduced yet. Why does it have so much res...

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  That's outrageous" the feigned emotive cry that echoes around the chamber. "Shame" is another quintessential superlative. I have never seen a...

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  WELL, let's be straight on this one: 27 per cent is on the verge of minor-party status. Any lower and you are close to being able to name all ...

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  Maybe I am getting the flu and that is why I am grumpy otherwise it is the complete loss of attention to the major issue of our time, and sorr...

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Valedictory speeches are like writing then delivering your own eulogy. With the Senate changing to the Greens in the next fortnight the eulogy metapho...

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    When you are travelling, and I have just got back from India and Malaysia, you always question if there are actual differences in cult...

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  Mankind has been on a quest to drag itself up from dark streets, disease and servitude. Pretty much all of mankind is now squared away on the ...

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    The pictures of the mistreatment of live stock in Indonesia have stirred an almost unanimous disgust in Australia, but I do not doubt ...

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  Well, you have just shivered through one of the coldest autumns on record. Where is that cursed button to warm things up a little around here?...

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  For all those budding double agents now is your time. Budget Estimates is on and the heads of all the public service departments are making th...

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  LET me put my cards on the table. Women can wear what they like to the beach so long as they're wearing something. I enjoy having a beer wit...

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      Canberra, as I have stated before, is an example of an effective policy of regional development.   What makes it possib...

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      The Government's latest foray into the asylum seeker issue is beyond comprehension and I would suggest, contemptible. Malaysia...

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    Next week's budget is shaping up as another rollicking frolic on the road to pandemonium. Almost a year ago, Wayne Swan delivered a b...

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  Well I will be watching it, ably encouraged by the fact that I live in a house of five females, young ladies of varying degrees of youngness t...

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  On August 9, 1916, a boy from Condongblonga Station, near the town of Adelong, 100km as the crow flies from Canberra, walked into an office, t...

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  I relax by taking a walk behind Red Hill onto the ridge that overlooks the city; the lights of our nation’s capital lay below with all their t...

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  Well we do not have a problem as long as the 7,000 mega litres of water held back by the tailings wall does not break. In total there is 11,50...

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    President Reagan’s strength was to make up his mind, then move his cabinet, then move the politicians, then convince the people. Austr...

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    World trade and economic growth has some well meaning rules which if broken, whilst relying on others to keep them, can deliver an imm...

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  Sometimes you salivate at the liberty of the backbench to express views unencumbered. For those who are leaving parliament that liberty is acc...

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  Mardi Gras, (Mardi-Tuesday, Gras-Fat), fat Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday, Ash Wednesday being the first day of Lent - 46 days from Eas...

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  Ever sat back and wondered who on earth buys those late night products; everlasting youth, a cream to cure baldness, something to scrub the de...

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  21 years old. That is so young. He played football and was a member of the bush fire brigade from a country family on Kangaroo Island.
...

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    When you go to Parliament you don’t leave your soul or your heart at the door, or at least you shouldn’t if people are to have any rel...

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    Have you ever been accosted at a bus stop by a junky who wants $5 for food? Can you afford it? Yes. Does he look like he needs a good ...

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  When I was young, just before I entered parliament, the comment about Canberra was that it "looks like Chatswood, votes like Cessnock." Howeve...

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  He sidled up next to me as I paid the bill. He was short and fit looking, about 55 with balding cropped grey hair; a dark green "I am making a...

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  Now, with the passing of Christmas and the majority of the floods the cogs of ritual are finally grinding forward. The kids are being bundled ...

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  No one can prepare themselves for what has happened in Toowoomba and the Lockyer Valley this week. Not for one moment do I propose that an eve...

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  It would be remiss if the Shadow Minister for Water did not talk about water in one of the nation’s biggest floods in history. A flood area ap...

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  New Year’s resolutions, why bother? Does the party conclude with “happy new year” then a half pickled rendition of Auld Lang Syne before the h...

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  Christ was not born on December the 25th. It is far more likely that it would have been in late September, autumn, if Mary and Joseph were, as...

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  Canberra has become a fascinating place in the last week. However, fascinating in this instance does not necessarily bestow a grace, but might...

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  Christmas is a time we when we aspire to goodwill between all men and women, which I presume includes all political parties. It therefore is v...

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Surplus? Pigs might fly It is always an interesting cultural change of gear when I leave the hyper-analysed, politically sensitive world of Parliamen...

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  The perils of uncertainty Late on Wednesday night, our time, we were given a shocking and tragic reminder of the fragility of global politics...

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  In Canberra, when able to escape Parliament House, the politician’s regular precinct is Manuka and Kingston. Manuka is more; let’s go have ...

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    Certain things paint an indelible image in your mind. One happened to me lately when my mother in law told me that whilst doing meals ...

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  After returning from the canonisation of Saint Mary MacKillop in Rome, I wondered what would have been the impressions of Roman Emperor Consta...

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      Canberra has some real reasons to have buy-in on the Murray-Darling debate, and not only because it is the largest city, by fa...

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  Canberra will celebrate its centenary in 3 years’ time. Canberra is a living breathing and vital example of what regional development can achi...

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  REALITY has dawned for a Labor party that has played politics with the Murray-Darling Basin for the past three years.   A report that s...

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I am currently driving to Moree in a car that was made overseas, with fuel that comes from overseas. I am wearing clothes that come from overseas and ...

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The Murray Darling Basin is one of the greatest water assets of our nation. Over 2 million people live in it and the agricultural capacity is vital fo...

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Every now and then, a select group from the economic illuminati retire to their monastic study and devise a splendid idea to try and pay off their pre...

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  Well, I hope you all feel comfortable that you now owe $140 billion. If you take our population as approximately 22 million, that means you ow...

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The old fashioned, but I think correct view, of spending public money is to approach it as if you were spending your own money, with immense care and ...

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Australia’s gross foreign debt, that covers both public and private sectors, as pointed out by Senate Estimates in the last fortnight, is in excess of...

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From The Punch by Barnaby Joyce 05 JUN 05:35AM This first piece should inspire the question about the political basics. What is it that differenti...

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From The Sydney Morning Herald Barnaby Joyce May 25, 2009 I had a naive belief when I entered the Senate that it was a house protecting states' r...

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Policies, not personalities, maketh the political party Tuesday, May 05, 09 (12:04 am) DEAR Big End Of Town Person, I read via your interlocutor,...

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From NEWS WEEKLY, APRIL 4 2009 President Obama's decision to support scientific experimentation on human embryos and the Rudd Labor Government's use ...

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Barnaby Joyce Profile 2008 byline: Matthew Cawood In the closing days of 2005, when Rural Press first caught up with Barnaby Joyce for an extended i...

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Australian family farmers and small businesses are being rolled by forces that have grown powerful in the absence of dissent, Barnaby Joyce believes. ...

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Every age comes up with a witch to burn, a sect that apparently if it is not succumbed will bring about the destruction of an empire, an issue that oc...

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The universities of Bologna and Paris vie for the title of the oldest European university and Oxford University is the oldest in the English-speaking ...

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The death penalty is always an emotive subject, both for what it is and the reasons for why it is prescribed. The Bali Bombings of October 12, 2002, w...

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The corporatisation of rural country and the effects it has on the Australian people’s connection to the land. As much as Australia is the beach and...

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The creation of a new merged party is going to be a process which will not come to a clapping, cheering conclusion on a certain day but will have to b...

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Right from the outset I acknowledge the grief and suffering of those who have experienced loss and maiming as a result of the Bali bombings. Our conti...

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When Senators start taking their constitutional obligations to represent their state over their party seriously I will start listening to their argume...

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SIR: The Howard-Vaile Government late last week released a discussion paper outlining proposals to spend $1 billion on broadband services as a part of...

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