Jonathan Green
Jonathan Green hosts Sunday Extra on Radio National and is the former editor of The Drum. His latest book is The Year My Politics Broke (MUP 2013). Jonathan Green has worked in public radio, at Crikey, The Canberra Times, Melbourne Herald, Herald Sun, Sunday Herald and The Age, where he was a senior writer, daily columnist, night editor, sections editor, Saturday edition editor and editor of the Sunday Age. He tweets at @greenj.
The next great reform will be of politics itself Opinion
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Despite some efforts, subsequent Australian politics has always struggled to match the generational drama of the Hawke-Keating reforms.
And that may partly be because their liberation of an open market economy is pretty much a one-time reform, and that job is done.
The next great reform will be of this stagnant polity itself, hopefully delivering politics that frees ideas from the camouflage of endless deflecting rhetoric. But who do we have to lead this change?
Topics: government-and-politics, federal-government, business-economics-and-finance
Are we a torn people? Yes, and so is Abbott Opinion
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Only three years ago Tony Abbott was almost therapeutically courageous when he said we are a "torn people" and the fact we've never fully made peace with the first Australians was a "stain on our soul".
And yet this week he describes living in remote communities as a "lifestyle choice" - a belittling of Indigenous life as some sort of self-indulgent tree change at taxpayers' expense.
He seems a man torn between a deep personal sense of the injustice done to Indigenous people, and an awareness of the political gain of playing to the prejudices of a vocal extremity.
Topics: government-and-politics, federal-government, indigenous-policy, indigenous-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander
A chance to refocus politics went begging Opinion
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It's such a pity that circumstances appear to have dulled the momentum behind moves to push Tony Abbott aside as Prime Minister.
This could have been a moment to refocus the political thinking, and be a pivot that carried the potential to draw our political class a little closer to the people it claims to represent.
It seems we may never know. The great opportunity of Australian politics is left hanging.
Topics: government-and-politics, federal-government, abbott-tony
The speech Abbott could have made about Triggs Opinion
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When the Australian Human Rights Commission released its report into children in detention, Tony Abbott attacked its president, Gillian Triggs.
Instead, he could have used the opportunity to highlight the achievements of his Government and addressed the perceived bias of the Commission in a diplomatic way.
Here is an alternative speech the Prime Minister could have given when the report first came to light.
Topics: government-and-politics, federal-government, abbott-tony, immigration
What about the victims of the heroin trade? Opinion
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I'm struggling to feel sympathy for Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran.
Of course state murder is appalling, futile and unpardonable and if they die in these next few days it will bring a collective outraged gasp in this country.
But then I think of all the young people who would have died back in 2005 if their plan to bring 8.3 kilograms of high grade heroin into this country had come off, and how they made that brutal decision in an attempt to line their own pockets.
Topics: government-and-politics, death, community-and-society, law-crime-and-justice
Could a spill reset our fractured political cycle? Opinion
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We've entered a political cycle where oppositions are swept from oblivion to power not through the strength of their own ideas, but by fanning animus against the sitting government.
There is an emptiness at the heart of this political equation, as we end up with small-target politicians who offer little more than confidently repeated slogans.
The hope is that this destructive and escalating cycle might soon be broken, if the Liberal Party changes course and campaigns on a more detailed and constructive program than the simple demolition of the previous government.
Topics: government-and-politics, federal-government, abbott-tony
We've allowed the 'ridicule' rot to set in Opinion
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The conventional wisdom has it that when ridicule sets in, the targeted politician is done for.
In the past week Tony Abbott seems to have elicited the trifecta: ridicule piled on an underlying bed of disengagement and distaste.
While the knighthood saga should have been a matter of momentary silliness, it has hung around as the political class proves it is now happy to throw itself blithely through the looking glass at the drop of an honour, and the sniff of a gaffe.
Topics: government-and-politics, abbott-tony
As the year unwinds the Government unravels Opinion
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Having spent its first few months undoing the deeds of Rudd/Gillard Labor, it seems the Government has now turned with some energy to undoing itself.
The GP co-payment plan has been retooled, the PM's signature policy of paid parental leave is being unwritten, and the increasingly fraught internal politics around climate policy is sparking talk of disunity.
Despite having enjoyed a "year of achievement" the Government might be forgiven for looking a little fondly towards the Christmas break.
Topics: government-and-politics, environmental-policy, media, abbott-tony
Is history repeating itself already for Tony Abbott? Opinion
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The echoes of recent political history are coming thick and fast.
There was little quarter given when the country turned against Kevin Rudd, with, as the polls suggest, an antipathy that equals the distaste it now harbours for Tony Abbott.
That sense of destructive certainty, of simple crisis is lacking for the moment in the reporting of the Abbott Government. But will that continue?
Topics: abbott-tony, federal-government
A querulous Senate might be a blessing in disguise Opinion
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The lesson for the Federal Government as it deals with its policy barnacles is this: if the fragmented Senate can be convinced, then so might the broader Australian people.
Topics: federal-government, federal-parliament
When broken promises become tests of character Opinion
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We're flexible enough to admit that campaign promises are largely rhetorical gestures that shouldn't stand in the way of greater responsibilities.
Yet there is another level of political truth on which honesty matters very much indeed. Beyond the convenient promises of campaigning lie the deeper moral obligations of the state ... to fairness, justice, equity, opportunity.
How will Tony Abbott respond as Indigenous Australians face the prospect of being driven once more from their traditional lands?
Topics: federal-government, abbott-tony, indigenous-policy
A new reason to remember the fifth of November Opinion
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The fundamental disconnect of politics is here: that it substitutes something vindictive and obstinately childish for mature open-minded discussion.
It's not as if there were no models out there, versions of public discussion that might simultaneously inspire us and flatter our intelligence.
Noel Pearson might just have provided one. His address to the Gough Whitlam memorial yesterday was a landmark moment in the Australian conversation. An inspiring oration from an Aboriginal man seeking solutions beyond politics, partisanship and patronage.
Topics: federal-government, federal-parliament
Will Murdoch's great unwashed youths rise up? Opinion
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Rupert Murdoch's warning of the "inevitable social and political upheavals to come" might very well be spawned from the masses of underemployed youth.
These jobless youths are across the country, in regional centres stripped of life and purpose, in outer suburban sweeps detached from the jobs, infrastructure and resource lifeblood of the cities.
The result may be illness, anger, despair and perhaps jihad ... but it might also be a broader sense of unrest and deep dislocated disturbance for a generation left in Team Australia's dust.
Topics: government-and-politics, business-economics-and-finance, youth, community-and-society
Mourning the death of 'big P politics' Opinion
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There's more to all of this than our quiet awe as the fondly recalled components of the Whitlam legacy are paraded.
There are cheers for the policy pageant of land rights, universal health care, tariff cuts, equal pay and all the rest.
But there is also a darker undertone. At the heart of this moment of national sadness and reflection is a comparison: between then and now, between a time of transformation and the bitterly contested mundanities of the present.
Topics: federal-government
The real problem with 'love it or leave' Opinion
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The slogan of "love it or leave" so famously plastered on an Aussie flag singlet at Woolworths this week is not patriotic, but something sadder, paranoid and uncertain
The truth of "love it or leave it" lies here: this is not a consensus conclusion but the angry protest of a minority who feel their view of what constitutes "Australia" is under challenge.
It rankles not so much because it's racist, or bigoted, but because it is so weirdly distant from the truth: a hostile defence of an idea of this country that never truly existed.
Topics: community-and-society, race-relations
Our reckless media fans the flames of disquiet Opinion
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The reckless and inflammatory reporting on terrorism and national security makes me wonder whether we'd be better off without a media apparatus that can sink so low.
They cry wolf, they cry terror, they fan the flames of disquiet and distrust. Because fear sells.
There is a lack of restraint, a grasping of commercial opportunity at whatever the cost and a lack of regard even for the fundamental truth, that is particularly worrying.
Topics: government-and-politics, media, defence-and-national-security, terrorism
The 'Opposition' is not living up to its name Opinion
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Why is the ALP both famously in "lockstep" with the Government on issues of security and fiercely adversarial in almost ever other area of Government endeavour?
The quick justification for this unanimity over national security is the gravity of the issue, but surely it is this very seriousness that demands a robust and reasoned adversarial process to test the worth of new laws.
It seems Labor is determined to remove the possibility of that most appalling and incendiary of sleights, that it is weak on terror.
Topics: government-and-politics, security-intelligence, defence-and-national-security, terrorism
Our disconcerting certainty in battling terrorism Opinion
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We ought to wonder how a Government that weeks ago seemed incapable of attracting and holding our trust is now cast as the solid paternal guardian against nameless dread.
We ought to wonder, with whatever calm we can muster, just how much we are prepared to give to secure ourselves against the unknown.
And perhaps we ought not be so certain.
Topics: government-and-politics, defence-and-national-security, terrorism
The recidivism of our gnarled conservatism Opinion
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Is there something about Australia, the recidivism of its gnarled conservatism, that makes leaving seem the only option to a culture that seems incapable of escaping itself?
Emptiness of the Gillard accusations laid bare Opinion
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At last, "Juliar" was under oath. Brought before the union Royal Commission to answer questions that have been denied again and again.
And yet there was nothing new to note when Julia Gillard was finally excused at 3.34pm. No sudden combination of elements that would throw matters in a new light. None of the missteps that might hint at a lie.
The emptiness of what had been a bitterly contested political campaign, and from there an accusatory media culture war, was laid bare.
Topics: government-and-politics, royal-commissions, law-crime-and-justice, media, unions
Saved by security as Coalition asks what's next Opinion
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One year on, the government finds itself with a policy agenda that - bar some bricks, mortar and bitumen - is largely fulfilled.
That's the problem with a narrowly cast platform that doesn't provide a coherent social and economic vision, but simply proposes the simplest, most unadorned of selling propositions: vote for us, we are not them. Once that platform is so quickly delivered, we're entitled to ask, is that all there is?
Of course national security is an answer to all of that.
Topics: abbott-tony, tax, government-and-politics, federal-elections, defence-and-national-security
The paradox of political dysfunction Opinion
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There is a troubling paradox at the core of our political dysfunction: the things that succeed in modern politics are the very things that also undermine its worth as a system.
The relentless tearing down of an opponent might result in political success, but it erodes the faith in the institution.
The fear is that the destructive but smashingly successful uber politics of recent years might become self-replicating. A model for future politics: permanent and destructive.
Topics: government-and-politics, abbott-tony, bill-shorten, federal-election
Team Australia: the reality of the figures Opinion
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The Prime Minister's concept of Team Australia seems so simple: the Australian way, you're for it or you're against it.
The Australian reality though? Well that's a more complex thing altogether.
When we crunch the numbers we see Australia is not a homogeneous mass but a hugely varied nation that is sure to bring different views to the table.
Topics: government-and-politics, community-and-society, abbott-tony
Manipulation and the politics of fear Opinion
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By instinct we have always been mindful of the shadowing presence of evil: the footstep behind us in the dark, the anxious space beneath our beds ... and in politics this is fair game for manipulation.
We could do better. Trading in the politics of fear leaves us only one or two points separated from the people who would use that same tactic against us.
Our supposed enemies wish us to be fearful. So do the people hoping to gain from offering us their defence.
Topics: government-and-politics, unrest-conflict-and-war, community-and-society
Remember, there is no privacy in Team Australia Opinion
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This anti-terrorism and privacy overhaul is all a bit woolly, but then this is national security, an area of public life in which we extend our Government a considerable benefit of the doubt.
We might feel happier about the privacy shakedown if the ministers in charge - who presumably have thought this through - could make something even approaching sense.
Instead we get obfuscation and the catchy embellishment that we ought toe the line and surrender our metadata as dutiful members of Team Australia.
Topics: government-and-politics, abbott-tony, information-and-communication
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