Abbott’s instinct will be to support the Commissioner, and Heydon’s instinct will be to hang on. This is a mistake: it seems unlikely that he will survive past the end of this week, and he should resign as quickly as possible. His career is also unlikely to survive, whether he answers the questions raised about this issue or not.

Tony Abbott will turn 56 in November, around the time parliament returns to sit. By the time he is voted out in late 2022 (unless he is removed by nervous Coalition backbenchers earlier that year), he will be almost 65 – a few years shy of retirement age, but close enough. Abbott will be Australia’s last boomer Prime Minister.

The real problem for the Left is that we are seeing the eclipse of a century-long era institutionalisation of politics around a rigid Right/Left axis. Further, Rudd’s project of directly attacking the remnants of labourism (that is, the organised intervention of the trade union bureaucracy in official politics) has created a situation where the traditional reference points are no longer there to orient more radical political projects.

Politics has become something of a career move for a self-manufactured professional class. There aren’t a lot of plumbers or factory hands in politics. For the elites who see politics as a good career move the question remains: What is it about politics that attracts them? When one looks at the premiers of our various states, none of them appear to be paragons of sanity. In truth, they all seem like very disturbing people.

If winning or losing in politics was merely a matter of who had the best one-liners to throw along with their stones, then Gillard won yesterday hands down. But politics is not simply about whip-smart wisecracks and cutting speeches.

If our recent political debacle lends itself to analysis beyond Australia’s political choices being pretty dire, it may as well be two pet theories of mine. The first is pretty simple and goes like this: it isn’t enough to diss the other guy. You have to have policies, principles, and, above all, a plan for […]

Although it is reasonable to expect any election campaign to focus predominantly on domestic issues, it is nevertheless somewhat disappointing that matters of foreign policy have been put on the backburner in this unfulfilling 2010 Labor/Liberal contest. Aside, that is, from the essentially meaningless Tony Abbott mantra ‘turning back the boats,’ and both sides affirming […]

What I can say is, after all my whining, all my shunning and head-in-hands dismay, something’s caught my eye, snared my attention, caused me to contemplate – even with some degree of intrigue – the Federal Election. It’s not just the winning and losing – although that holds its own nail-biting attributions – it’s what’s […]

Sunday: the Liberal Party ‘launched’ their election campaign and everybody watched on in complete apathy because their election campaign has been going since November 2007 and we’re sick of it already. I’m willing to bet the Labor Party’s campaign launch (scheduled for 16 August) will be just as much of a faff-filled non-event. I want […]

It’s time to decide Australia. It’s time to stand up and grasp the rope of democracy – woven from the fabric of thousands of Anzac souls – and swing between apathy and outrage, determination and despair, boldness and boredom. It’s possible to swing between Julia and Tony as well, although the association of ‘Tony Abbott’ […]

GetUp! has a new ad about Tony Abbott and his archaism:

And so to an election on 21 August. It’s not an inspiring prospect: a contest between two candidates, each of whom could plausibly be described as the most conservative leader their respective parties have ever fielded. About Tony Abbott, nothing need really be said. He is precisely what he seems, an amalgam of John Howard […]