Painting Fakes

So, Michael Clarke has announced his retirement from international cricket, to take place at the end of the Ashes series. It's kind of surprising and not surprising.  Surprising because he's only 34, still young for a cricketer, and because he had been so adamant that he was not retiring.  Not surprising, because his degenerative back condition always meant he would retire younger than most, and because over the past few months he has looked like his heart's not in it. No-one in elite sport is universally loved even among among their team-mates, especially not while they're playing.  Elite sportspeople are driven and competitive and this often makes them abrasive and inconsiderate.  Still, Clarke seems to have copped more criticism than most considering his achievements.  So, in the interests of fairness, here's six things to remember him by. 1. 2012 In the 2012 calendar year, the year after he took over as captain, he scored 2,400 test runs including thre

There's so much carnage in this week's Commonwealth Budget that small things are apt to slip by.  So I'm going to tell you about something from my professional life that has just become a casualty of Abbott and Hockey's slash and burn exercise.  It's a scheme called the National Rental Affordability Scheme. Back in 2004 National Shelter, the Community Housing Federation of Australia, the Australian Council of Social Services, the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Housing Industry Association, supported by a wide range of other organisations with an interest in housing, convened a National Affordable Housing Summit.  It came up with a simple but ambitious plan of action aimed at improving Australia's housing system, and set up a working party under the leadership of Julian Disney to promote this plan around the country.  They were very successful, and large parts of their agenda were adopted by the Labor government on its election in 2007. One of

Of all the farewell messages written on this blog, this one is probably the saddest. Not that it was a shock or even a surprise.  Nelson Mandela's death has probably been the most anticipated of the year.  He was 95, his health has been declining for some time.  His regular visits to hospital have been headline news all year.  His time had come.  May he rest in peace. You can read and hear endless words about Mandela and I can't really say anything that others won't say better and with more knowledge.  As President of the African National Congress (ANC) he was South Africa's most prominent post-war anti-apartheid activist.  Then in 1962 he was imprisoned by the Nationalist regime and spent the next 27 years in isolation, out of sight but never out of mind.  In 1990 he was finally released as South Africa belatedly began the transition to multi-racial democracy, and served as his country's first ethnically African President from 1994 to 1999. To my mind, the

There's a kind of post-modern irony in the fact that some of the final images of Julia Gillard as Australian Prime Minister to flood the mass media depict her knitting a toy for the new royal baby.  Why is our feminist heroine doing something so stereotypically feminine?  The rest of the tale, though, has a more classical feel, like a Shakespearean tragedy with its cycle of hubris and retribution.  Many of my feminist friends feel Gillard's treatment over the last few months is a sign of ongoing sexism and misogyny in politics and the media.  There is something in what they say.  "Ditch the witch", the fake menu and (if we reach back to the beginning) Bill Heffernan suggesting she wasn't qualified to lead the country because she didn't have children are all incredibly gendered pieces of abuse.  But when Rudd was deposed three years ago, did anyone say it happened because he is a man? At risk of alienating some good friends I have to say I'm not enti

Sorry everybody, I'm going to break the rule again and talk about something related to my work.  It's because I'm feeling frustrated.  To put it mildly. In Queensland we have a service called the Tenants' Advice and Advocacy Service (TAAS).  It's a network of little services that provide advice to, and advocate on behalf of, tenants who are in dispute with their landlords.  The service is funded from the interest on tenants bonds held in trust by the Residential Tenancies Authority. In the midst of their cost-cutting frenzy last year, the then Housing Minister Bruce Flegg announced that the program would be discontinued and the funds reallocated to build new public housing.  Flegg and his successor Tim Mander have been unmoved by the outcry that has followed this decision.  Not so the Commonwealth Government, who stepped in with interim funding to keep the services open until the end of June this year.  They even offered another $2.5m to take it up to the end

I for one will not be in deep mourning over this week's death of Margaret Thatcher.  Of course her death is a sad event for her family and friends and they are entitled to their grief.  As for the rest of us, the grieving began much earlier, as the results of her policies began to bite. One thing you can say in Thatcher's favour is that she never hid her intentions.  Our current crop of tories tend to hide their light under a bushel, pretending to be moderate and compassionate and then implementing hardline policies when they get elected.  Thatcher was always up front - pro-free enterprise, anti-welfare, anti-union.  She said she would privatise services and she did.  She said she would reduce the power of trade unions, and she did.  She said she would resist communism, and she did. If you think those are all good things, then she will be your heroine and you will be in mourning right now.  I don't, and I'm not.  Once Thatcher had won a bloody and costly battle w