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Nine prime ministers have been observant Christians. Two have been conventional Christians. Ten have been nominal Christians. Five have been articulate atheists or agnostics. One was a nominal atheist or agnostic.
Adversarial politics can be seen as a necessary and positive aspect of Westminster style parliamentary politics. This does not include needless aggression that is expressed in a nasty tone and apparent anger.
Kevin Rudd and Malcolm Turnbull's past faults and misdemeanours have been forgotten and they have been charged with new responsibilities at the heart of Australia's domestic and international futures. The new leaders must wish their vanquished colleagues great success. But not too much.
Though the Independents are raising expectations about a 'new politics', the forces behind the status quo are strong and the public is fickle. If they fail to deliver they might eventually suffer a backlash, like Kevin Rudd and the Democrats before them.
The result suggests some fascinating questions. Prime among them is whether Labor panicked and threw away this election when it deposed Kevin Rudd and replaced him with Julia Gillard in June. Would Rudd have done better? The answer is probably yes.
Appearing last week on ABC1's Q+A, Julie Bishop claimed that following a preference deal with the Labor Party, the Greens were now effectively a Labor faction. Preference deals are as old as the preferential system itself. The impact of these deals should not be exaggerated.
Christians rarely agree on what they want from government. The Australian Christian Lobby jumped the gun last week with its forum for political leaders to address Christian voters: the elevation of Julia Gillard means it now needs to engage afresh with a new Prime Minister.
Gillard has all it takes to be an excellent prime minister. Her best chance of gaining that position might be from opposition. This would mean Labor losing in 2010 and rising from the ashes in 2013 under her leadership.
The Greens represent not just 20 per cent of the Tasmanian electorate but 10 per cent of the national electorate. Australian politics will benefit when the Greens are better integrated into the system rather than frozen out.
Tony Abbott had a close association with B. A. Santamaria and personifies church ties with politics through his relationship with the man he has called his confessor, Cardinal Pell. The question is whether Abbott is a one-off or represents a larger group of Catholic Liberals.
We are often quick to blame government ministers. In the case of Bill Shorten, Stephen Conroy and Peter Garrett, they may emerge with tarnished reputations. But in rushing to criticise our ministers we often let ourselves off the hook too easily.
William's visit laid bare the weaknesses of members of the Royal Family as candidates for our head of state. The package represented by William should be anathema to modern Australia's constitutional future, whatever he might have to offer as a person.
157-168 out of 198 results.