My darkest memory from Vietnam is of a young Australian soldier lying wounded in an American hospital near Saigon.

It was Christmas 1966. I was taping messages from our diggers to be broadcast back home on ABC radio. This bloke - my own age, in his early 20s - was groggy from sedation but he managed a few cheerful words for Mum and Dad in country Victoria. Don't you worry, be home soon, love to all.

Out of his earshot, I asked a nurse what had happened to him.

"His balls were blown off by a landmine," she said. "But he doesn't know it yet."

Party elder John Faulkner's speech called for an engagement in politics, and the politicians sure engaged.

They stand at opposite ends of the ideological spectrum, but John Faulkner and John Hewson have come to the same conclusion about the biggest structural question of Australian politics today.

That question is the future of the progressive vote in Australia. Labor used to have it, or at least enough of it to hold power. But it lost its critical mass of progressive voters to the Greens in 2010.

from Crikey .....

Pollies grumble at writers' fest: 'good govt and ALP are strangers'

Margot Saville writes:

from Crikey .....

A fascinating, and depressing, graph popped up in The Economist this week ...

It got us thinking. If every Australian over 17 loses an average of $1300 a year on gambling - that's about $22 billion for the whole country each year - how does this compare with the money we actually spend on tangible things? And how does it compare to the money that we could spend on important or valuable things?

OK, so here's what President Barack Obama should say today about the Middle East. We will leave Afghanistan tomorrow. We will leave Iraq tomorrow. We will stop giving unconditional, craven support to Israel.

Americans will force the Israelis - and the European Union - to end their siege of Gaza. We will withhold all future funding for Israel unless it ends, totally and unconditionally, its building of colonies on Arab land that does not belong to it.

Out of all the various groups of asylum seekers in Australia, why are asylum seekers arriving by boat being persecuted by the Australian Government?

Why is Prime Minister Julia Gillard being so vindictive to desperate people arriving by boat on our shores? Why does she allow the erratic Tony Abbott and his attack dog, Scott Morrison, to set the boat arrival agenda? They don't make an issue of refugees arriving by aircraft, however those arriving by boat receive their racist bile in bucket loads.

First it was the grocery giants, then the petrol retailers, then the banks and the mining companies. Now it's the turn of Big Tobacco to unleash a campaign of mass confusion on the Australian public in an attempt to undermine government reform of an industry.

Leading this latest blitzkrieg of bluster, the boss of British American Tobacco Australia, David Crow, held a press conference to spell out the various ills that will beset this world if the government is successful in having all cigarettes sold in plain packaging.

The government has accused Tony Abbott of being in bed with big tobacco after the fitness fanatic and former health minister backed away from supporting plain packaging for cigarettes.

After saying begrudgingly a year ago he supported plain cigarette packets with very graphic warnings, the Opposition Leader said yesterday he was unconvinced the changes would help reduce smoking.

The Nationals declared it would not support the move to plain packaging.

The Liberal Party accepts donations from tobacco companies, and the Health Minister, Nicola Roxon, implied this was behind Mr Abbott's reluctance.

The Queen arrived in the Republic of Ireland on Tuesday to start the first visit by a British monarch in a century.

Accompanied by Prince Philip, she touched down at Casement Aerodrome, south-west of Dublin, at 11.55am local time to start the historic four-day visit, which is taking place amid a huge security lockdown.

The jet taxied with the sovereign's standard, which bears an Irish harp, flying from the cockpit window. Two lines of troops formed a guard of honour either side of the red carpet at the aerodrome.

When Obama defended his military actions in Libya, he said "Some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries. The United States of America is different." Two weeks later, the Arab League asked the Security Council to consider imposing a no-fly-zone over the Gaza Strip in order to protect civilians from Israeli air strikes. But the United States, an uncritical ally of Israel, will never allow the passage of such a resolution, regardless of the number of Palestinian civilians Israel kills. This is a double standard.

If you're earning $150,000 a year, are you living on Struggle Street? Should we be outraged for you if some government decides you don't need family benefits?

No. Taxation statistics imply that only 3 to 4 per cent of Australians earn $150,000 a year. Compared with other Australians, they're not struggling.

Far more Australians have household incomes over $150,000. Updating the latest household income data from the Bureau of Statistics, 17 per cent of households, or one in six, have pre-tax incomes of more than $150,000.

The illegal eavesdropping on famous people by the News of the World is said to be Rupert Murdoch's Watergate. But is it the crime by which Murdoch ought to be known? In his native land, Australia, Murdoch controls 70 per cent of the capital city press. Australia is the world's first murdochracy, in which smear by media is power.

Tony Abbott invoked the ghosts of Robert Menzies and Ben Chifley as he reached out last night to Australia's ''forgotten families'' and workers with the promise that he would lower their cost of living.

In a speech that was strongly critical of the government, deliberately short of new policies, and avoided taking positions on measures in the budget, the Opposition Leader said taxes and interest rates would be lower if he were elected.

The Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy, has hit back at criticism from the retailer Gerry Harvey over claims the government subsidy for pensioner set-top boxes is too costly.

After Mr Harvey claimed he could provide and install set-top boxes for less than half the average cost of the government's scheme, Senator Conroy yesterday challenged Mr Harvey to put his money where his mouth is and bid for the work.

Under the program, the government is offering to pay for certain households, including pensioners, to be connected to digital television at an average cost of $350 a household.

The fourth horseman thundered across the financial landscape yesterday, a discreet distance behind his three compatriots, who each paid their respects last week.

While they have yet to openly portray themselves as harbingers of the Last Judgment, there's no denying each of our big four bankers are making profits of biblical proportions.

Sir Ralph Norris is an affable kind of fellow ordinarily, except when his salary is mentioned in the newspaper, and probably would take great exception to being likened to the Pale Rider, or Death, as he is known in the Book of Revelation.