Post Fossil Planet

thanks to you, the real opposition

END OF YEAR SENATE SPEECH TO GET A FEW THINGS OFF MY CHEST.

dear jo

this december, we celebrate a very important 30th anniversary: it is 30 years since jo vallentine was elected to the senate.

On October 19 I was invited to participate in a ‘Men of Letters’event in Sydney — an occasional departure for the wonderful women of letters team. ten of us were…

i. checkmate

There is an old story about the original creator of the game of chess, a wily mathematician who submits his invention to the ruler of the country. Asked by the delighted queen what he would require by way of reward, the mathematician requests to be paid in gold. He proposes the queen place one single…

WA2.0 — a preview

An impressionistic view of the place we want to create: home town, home state

Solar Goldfields

True Progress Southwest

at the end of the world

i. cause

The rice paddy on the edge of Iitate village is 30km back from the coast, framed by steep forested hills, and we stop here briefly because the scene is so strangely heraldic.

I rise to speak…

I rise to speak on the Mining Tax bills with mixed feelings.

This comes partly from being a Western Australian Senator. Dealing with these bills has exposed the degree to which Canberra views my state as little more than a lucrative and ever expanding hole in the ground.

Our West Wing moment

So, I’ll admit it. I got just as carried away as everybody else on the occasion of United States President Barack Obama’s visit to Australia. I was looking forward to the chance to see him up close and to get a sense of the rhetorical power that first caught the attention of the world at the…