Tough Love: Covid-19 and the racism of low expectations
A regular series of rules for life by Pete Shmigel, a former senior state and federal political advisor and CEO…
A lockdown opponent’s wish: may I be courageous like Soviet dissidents I knew
At 58, I have for the first time become a dissident. I am in active opposition to Covid-19 related policies…
Tough love: how lockdown’s got us painting rocks and why that’s not all bad
A regular series of rules for life by Pete Shmigel, a former senior state and federal political advisor and CEO…
Today the troops appear on Sydney streets – and it’s heartbreaking that they’ve been sent there by Liberals.
From this morning 300 Australian Defence Force personnel will be deployed on Sydney’s streets after a weekend’s worth of training…
Tough love: NSW Lockdown 2.0 is very wrong
A regular series of rules for life by Pete Shmigel, a former senior state and federal political advisor and CEO…
Tough love: behave, be humble and believe in something
A regular series of rules for life by Pete Shmigel, a former senior state and federal political advisor and CEO…
Being in opposition is awesome (really)
If you ever catch a cuppa with an Australian federal or state politician who is out of government and in…
Australian political journalism is crap
‘The Coalition has abandoned debt and deficit in a monumental shift to its political narrative.’ That’s the refrain we’ve basically…
Tough love: we are letting ourselves get really dumb.
A regular series of rules for life by Pete Shmigel, a former senior state and federal political advisor and CEO…
Tough love: don’t be a fake
This is the first of a regular series of rules for life by Pete Shmigel, a former senior state and…
Three rules for young staffers – and a better Canberra
Rules are awesome. They are a safety net that minimises risk to ourselves and to others. They give us a…
How not to be a Twit
Every once in a while, if you’re even a bit like me, you see something on social media that you feel is…
We are shackling ourselves to the safe and mediocre with lazy talk of ‘the pub test’
“Not a good look.” “Bad optics.” “Doesn’t pass the pub test.” Such are the statements by which many controversial or complex ideas…
Could Trump really call out the troops?
It is extraordinary to have to ask the question: can Donald Trump somehow use United States’ armed forces to stay…
Don’t trust the polls? Follow the money
If publicly available political polling stinks – and it does both in Australia and in the case of the US…
Mental health: recognition, reaching out – and responsibility
That Australians’ attitudes to mental health have been transformed is true. That we need to further match increased actions to…
On radical centralism
It’s an interesting point in time when a non-ideological and non-partisan stance becomes radical. That seems to be the point…
Time to drop our petulant politics and respect democracy
“Pick a scar on your body and share the story of how you got it with the other people here.”…
