The Australian, 25 November 2010

The NBN is a cracking idea and if it ever gets built, in no time people will be wondering how the hell we ever managed without it. However, I’m not sure the government is really entering into the spirit of our dawning Information Age. When you’re spending 40-odd billion dollars replacing the gigantic monopoly that is Telstra with an even more gigantic monopoly that will be the NBN, it is not unreasonable to expect a fair bit of scrutiny of exactly how you’re going about it, simply on the grounds that getting the details right before you start breaking out the yellow helmets and fluoro vests is much less expensive than doing it afterwards.

The Australian, 18 November 2010

In my theoretical filing cabinet (I do in fact own a filing cabinet, though I struggle with the filing part) I file “royalty” right next to “religion” in that I don’t really mind if people hold a self-evidently irrational belief in a superior being (or beings if that’s their thing) as long as they don’t go on and on about it. Sadly the not going on and on about it part may be in scant supply over the next nine or so months.

The Australian, 16 November 2010

I don’t know about everybody else, but the assertion that Qantas’ recent string of  “incidents” are entirely unrelated with one another is less rather than more reassuring.

The Australian 29 October 2010

The great economist Joe Hockey once said “give me a lever long enough and strong enough, and I’ll stick it so far up the banks that the experience ceases to be pleasurable for them”. Now we all know that this is rank populism, not because we wouldn’t all love to see a Bank CEO Kebab, but because we all know that if Joe ever does become treasurer, he’ll fall back on Wayne’s plan of being Very Cross when the banks do whatever they bloody well like, because, well, they can.

The Australian 4 November 2010