In The Australian today:
“It was not intended to make anyone giggle,” treasurer Arthur Fadden said of his ‘‘horror budget’’ of September 1951. The wool boom unleashed by the Korean War had nearly trebled the terms of trade, adding a massive 7 per cent to real gross domestic income. With unemployment falling below 1 per cent of the labour force, the inflation rate had risen to an all-time high of 25.6 per cent and seemed likely to increase further. Yet by 1953 inflation had plummeted to less than 2 per cent, setting the scene for two decades of solid economic growth.

In The Australian today:
The audit commission is right: there is a strong case for reforming the age pension. But those changes must be part of a broader restructuring of our retirement incomes system. For unless that system can provide reasonable income security in old age, the changes will prove neither economically desirable nor politically sustainable.

In The Australian today:
"Nothing better summarises the report of the National Commission of Audit than its title: Towards Responsible Government. “Responsible” means not merely accountable but vested with a duty of care; “towards” reminds us how just far we have to go."

In the Australian today:
"The nation’s mood was grim that day..."

In The Australian today:
"Watching Barry O’Farrell’s resignation recalled Enoch Powell’s conclusion to his biography of Joseph Chamberlain that “all political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature of politics and human affairs”.

In The Australian today:

"That affluence can buy influence is hardly news. What makes Clive Palmer different is that he flaunts it. Repeatedly, he tried to seize control of the Liberal Party in Queensland. When that failed, he set up his own political movement."