With the Gaddafi regime on the verge of collapse, the world is waiting for the money shot - an image of a shackled or dead dictator paraded through the streets as a lowly criminal.

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard wants to see more, she wants to see the man brought before an international criminal court; a nice thought but looking through the history of fallen dictators, let's just say "justice" is pretty unlikely to happen.

Dead, deposed or distant is all you really have to hope for, so let's hope too much blood isn't spilled in getting one of these results.

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In this two part article, Shaun Lambert writes exclusively for HomepageDAILY, taking a look at how we arrived at this juncture and what could be done to avoid repeating mistakes. . . read more

The Australian Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, came out last week and made two gaffes at the Vietnam War Remembrance Day. The first was when she said that General Giap, Vietnam's iconic war hero, was dead. The second was when she said that the Vietnam War "is just a page in the history books".

Some of the actors might have passed on (not Giap, who turned 100 yesterday) but the history isn't dead. 

For the Vietnamese it hangs over everything, appearing in literallly every single state owned newspaper every day as if it happened yesterday. For veterans on either side it also seems inconsiderate to consign it to dead history, it is very much a living memory and it will live on, long after they've gone.

Maybe it would have been better to remember them by not saying it was time to forget.  . . read more

Oh the glory and the celebration raking the news as we pat ourselves on the back for having our first female Prime Minister!

How quick we are to get on the bandwagon as a political disaster is turned into triumph. In case people are thinking this is a triumph for women’s lib and their position in society, don’t push it. This was not democracy at work. This was not the voice of the Australian people. It still isn’t. Australia now has a PM nobody elected and nobody considered.

At least in America the Vice-President goes on the ticket. Today I felt powerless as the Prime Minister we chose was removed with a less-than-reasonable explanation. This isn’t a victory. This was sloppy politics. Kevin Rudd couldn’t hold on to his party and got ousted. Labor isn’t united; it’s struggling to fix itself before the next election. Dear members of the Cabinet.

Whether Rudd is good or bad, it’s our call. Not yours. We chose him, we deal with him.

Give me some evidence that Rudd was doing real damage, and then this action is justifiable. And face it – a woman is Prime Minister not because anyone thought she deserved it, but purely because the man elected couldn’t do his job properly.

Nobody looked at her and said she’s the one to lead this country. Is that what a female PM means? To me, she’s just a seat-warmer. The real PM is the one we elect. So political allegiances aside, I’ll just say this. Win the election Gillard, and then you might gain my respect. Do it like a lady. Come on and show us that behind-the-Cabinet backstabbing isn’t the only way a woman can get into power.

Then maybe the Australian people might get my respect as well.  . . read more

And let’s look at the way it has been used in that Intervention. It has been used:

• to compulsorily acquire interest in Aboriginal private property in “prescribed communities”;
• to remove the permit system, or the right of Aboriginal traditional owners to say who can, and who cannot, come onto their property;
• to arbitrarily control individual Aboriginal incomes;
• to control Aboriginal organisations and assets.

It is, in other words, a leap back to the days of the first Intervention, to the days of assimilation, control and coercion; to the days when Aboriginal people were regarded as too naïve, and too simple, to control their own affairs. And it has nothing to do with the protection of children. . . read more

Tony Abbott, the self-styled ideological love-child of Bronwyn Bishop and John Howard has been playing some pretty petty party politics; stone-walling any Labor policy, regardless of its merits.

So step up Paul Keating, the ideological love-child of a brick wall and Jack Lang.

He has launched a vicious and burning attack on Abbott calling him an "intellectual nobody [with] no policy ambition", and the "poor man's John Howard".

Hard to disagree with, and hard to see how Abbott will slip out of the shadow of the anodyne if he doesn't start voting with Australia's, and not his interests in mind.  . . read more