The power wielded by Labor’s backroom boys is something voters should be aware of                                                                                                                                                      
JULIA Gillard is seeking election in her own right after she replaced Kevin Rudd as prime minister six weeks ago following an eruption of factional intrigue and personal ambition in the ALP. The successful coup was orchestrated by union and party insiders whose names — Feeney, Arbib, Bitar, Marles, Farrell, Shorten, Ludwig, Howes — meant little or nothing to the wider voting public.
In a wonderful coincidence, Rudd’s fall at the hands of …

‘Ah, here’s the apostate.’ The voice was a cigarette-flavoured drawl from a slight figure with a hat tipped on his head. This, in the Bulletin office in March 1978, my first day as a journalist after six years with the Labor Council — hence the ‘apostate’. The speaker was Alan Reid, breaker of tabloid stories, most of them harmful to the Australian Labor Party, and, according to Paul Keating, an ‘infamous Labor hater’.
Labor wasn’t his only victim. John Grey Gorton, Liberal prime minister from 1968 to 1971, felt Reid had …

This fascinating study canvasses four generations of an extended family of Jewish atheists and committed communists who challenged the “established order” in Australia and overseas.
The book’s author, Mark Aarons, came under the “adverse notice” of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation in early 1965 when he was only 13, while his father’s ASIO files began when he was 14, in the early 1930s. Indeed, one of the great strengths of The Family File is the extensive use made of the detailed reports of the many ASIO agents who successfully infiltrated the …

Where truth lies
In my first year at Monash University in 1962 our wonderful history lecturer, Geoffrey Bolton, encouraged us all to read the London-born E. H. Carr’s provocative ‘What is History?’, which had been published the year before. This involved us thinking about the nature of historical truth and the complex relationship(s) between historians and the past. We were especially encouraged to confront the thorny issues of historical interpretation and of whether matters of fact and of value can clearly be differentiated.
Unlike Carr, Ann Curthoys & John Docker fundamental question …

THE Coalition’s proposal to allow schools to self-manage projects makes perfect sense.
It is a bizarre irony that the former minister for education, Julia Gillard, succeeded Kevin Rudd as prime minister when it is the waste and mismanagement of a program she is entirely responsible for that seriously damaged the Rudd government’s credibility and contributed to his downfall.
Given what we know about Gillard’s abilities, it is not surprising that, during the first few weeks of her administration, the wheels have fallen off her solution to stop the influx of asylum-seekers, and …

There is no graduation class. You have to go to the school of AA for the rest of your life, one day at a time.
His name is Ross and he’s an alcoholic. Don’t blame me. He outed himself in his own book. He can thank the Almighty God that no one reads any more or everyone will be pointing at him. On the other hand he has no one to blame but himself. He doesn’t even believe in God so he adds “Please” before the Serenity Prayer so it goes …