Releasing the Defence White Paper, the Turnbull government followed the unfortunate precedent set by the Rudd and Gillard governments and ignored Parliament. The snub would perplex and provoke powerful Parliamentarians from Oliver Cromwell to John …
Articles by: "Graeme Dobell"
Minder (noun): Body guard; staffer working for a politician/minister. Derived from London West End slang for a muscle man who protects a criminal or shady operator. Minding (verb): The act of working as a Minder, …
You can see the many currents in the Australia–US relationship by using different lenses: war fighting and alliance, strategy, economics and trade. Add filters for surprises and rule writing and ambition and history and the …
The first rule of alliance management is to understand the ally. For a junior ally, that’s core stuff. Read the great and powerful friend. Find the meanings. Relate domestic trends within the ally to international …
The Canberra ministerial adviser—the Minder—was born on 5 December 1972, when Gough Whitlam became Prime Minister. Like much that Whitlam did, the birth was attended by high purpose, low politics and scrambling. The short, tumultuous …
Australia faces two national elections this year—one for our leader and one for our president. Barring a recurrence of recent Canberra bizarreness, the Oz leadership race will be between Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten. The …
The Canberra ministerial adviser—the Minder—is 43 years young. The Minder is the strongest new creation of Oz politics, often more important than the public service in the way policy and politics gets done. The idea …
US Ambassador to the United Nations, Madeleine Albright, treated CNN as the Security Council’s 16th member. It was a tactic of a natural communicator: not much use being ‘on message’ if the message isn’t loud. …
‘Monetary policy is 98 per cent talk and 2 per cent action.’ – Ben Bernanke So even central banking—that combination of the dismal science and monetary madness—is virtually voodoo, driven most of the time by smoke …
Originally published 27 April 2015. Picked by David Lang. Malcolm Fraser’s greatest contribution to foreign policy was the new consensus on Asia that he embraced, fostered and cemented. Fraser’s Asia policy drew large elements of …
Australia’s coup culture isn’t about generals rolling over politicians and tanks rolling through the streets. The Oz coup culture is concerned with what political party rooms do to unpopular leaders. The willingness of parties to …
The Southeast Asian rejection of Australia joining ASEAN is simply expressed: ‘You’re not from around here. You don’t think like us. You don’t belong.’ The argument is about identity defined through geography. The previous column …