Australian politics – Pelican Yoga

Word Power: “ Above all, the Liberals would do well to lose the sneer” + pertinent musical bonus.

Published May 8, 2025 by Pelidoug

Word Power: “ Above all, the Liberals would do well to lose the sneer” + pertinent musical bonus.

The headline above is the key sentence in an essay published on 04 May 2025.

That essay’s headline: Are the Liberals in danger of becoming the Kodak of Australian politics?

Yesterday’s Pelican Yoga post included its most telling paragraph.

It is a direct quotation from a speech delivered in 1946 by a young, multiply-wounded ex-RAAF pilot; in 1949 he became a Liberal senator.

In 1968 he – John Gorton – became Prime Minister.

As the essay’s author observes:

His vision was generous, compassionate and cosmopolitan: of an Australia and a wider world “in which meanness and poverty, tyranny and hate, have no existence.”

Flinders Island, March ‘25 (#4 in series: high points) + post-election “Word Power” teaser

Published May 7, 2025 by Pelidoug

Flinders Island, March ‘25 (#4 in series: high points) + post-election “Word Power” teaser

An hour earlier, I had been standing in brilliant sunshine, as my eyes and camera gazed across intensely blue water, a rocky shoreline, coastal scrub, and colourful, granite-loving lichens.

By 2.45 pm, however, our little group was walking under a light grey sky, and heading just a little inland.

It was no longer pointless to point a camera lens at the “roof” of Flinders Island.

Australia Day in Mandurah (2 of 2: sans flags, mostly)

Published January 28, 2025 by Pelidoug

Australia Day in Mandurah (2 of 2: sans flags, mostly)

This post’s featured image shows two young Australians, having a lovely time on Australia Day.

It is reasonable to assume that they had zero awareness of – let alone ardent opinions about – the “rights” and “wrongs” of national flags, what we “should” or “should not” celebrate on Australia Day, and “appropriate” v “inappropriate” dates.

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Australia Day in Mandurah (1 of 2: flag-flying)

Published January 27, 2025 by Pelidoug

Australia Day in Mandurah (1 of 2: flag-flying)

For most of the 20th century, the buying, flying and waving of flags was not really a mainstream Australian “thing”.

Big crowds flocked to see and greet “Liz & Phil”, but most hands were empty, or waving streamers rather than national flags.

In photos, flag-wavers “stood out” precisely because they were the exception…and because flag-wavers liked to be at the front of the pack.

(click here for a raft of illustrative images)

In 2025-vintage Australia, “the royals” no longer loom large in our collective consciousness, but Australian flags – albeit, UK-accented ones, still – have never been “bigger”.

All photos were taken yesterday, as brightly-flat Australia Day sunshine illuminated a veritable “orgy” of flag-flying.

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Word power: “the new shape of Australian politics”

Published December 9, 2024 by Pelidoug

On this blog, a Word power post is always an attempt to draw your attention to an essay, article, report, poem or book that is particularly worth reading.

This post’s title is in fact the subtitle of the current Quarterly Essay; Minority Report, by George Megalogenis.

If I could “prescribe” just one “essential” piece for every intelligent Australian voter to read before our next Federal election….

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Word power: tax (cartoonist’s, economist’s & songster’s perspectives)

Published October 9, 2022 by Pelidoug

Word power: tax (cartoonist’s, economist’s & songster’s perspectives)

Australians’ 2022 views on taxation – and on taxation “reform” – are “informed” by a confusing array of truths, lies, twaddle, insight, credulity, chicanery, chutzpah, self-interested opportunism (sometimes naked, sometimes disguised) , rank hypocrisy, timidity, virtue-signalling, obfuscation, indifference, compassion, cruelty, ignorance, knowledge, and honest uncertainty.

The featured image is (Jon) Kudlelka’s cartoon for the 08 October 2022 edition of The Saturday Paper

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Word power: politically “astute”, utterly irresponsible, lethal…

Published October 3, 2022 by Pelidoug

Word power: politically “astute”, utterly irresponsible, lethal…

In this writer’s view, such a headline fairly describes how Australian governments, plural, have now “dropped the ball” on COVID-19.

Don’t take my word for it, but please do pay attention to the words and views of actual experts on epidemic management:

The number of deaths from COVID in Australia in the first nine months of 2022 is more than ten times the annual national road toll of just over 1,000 – but we are not rushing to remove seat belts or drink-driving laws so people can have more freedom…

While it was hoped hybrid immunity from vaccines and prior infection would reduce subsequent infections, this has not been the reality. Reinfection is becoming more common….

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Word power: not-blind Fred on ‘22 election

Published May 4, 2022 by Pelidoug

Word power: not-blind Fred on ‘22 election

It is worth remembering that these are the observations of a former senior Federal Government Minister, also – in Opposition – a Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party, and that he departed Parliament at a time of his own choosing, as one of its more widely-respected members.

A government that must deal with sensible independent centrists is better than a government that must rely on the support of the most eccentric ends of its party spectrum.

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Word Power: pertinent/impertinent observations on ‘22 Election

Published April 24, 2022 by Pelidoug

This is #1 in a temporary series of not many episodes!

Utterly underwhelming as Australian vote-seekers’ performances have been, a few observers of “Scomo”, “Albo”, “Clive” et al – and of us, their target – have delivered choice, pithy observations…

We have inertia because we have arrived at the era of personal greed and the major parties feel obliged to pander to that greed.

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Unique flora, vertebrate pollinators…and “good” tax policy

Published August 3, 2021 by Pelidoug

Unique flora, vertebrate pollinators…and “good” tax policy

Southwest Western Australia’s flowering, feathered and furry members of the first two categories need each other, vitally.

Could their survival prospects have anything to do with the third category?

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Tag: Australian politics