Joseph Poprzeczny

LAST year, State Scene had the pleasure of meeting New Zealand’s former National Party leader, Don Brash, in Blenheim, at the heart of Cloudy Bay wine country.

Some key power brokers in both major political parties have apparently been heard using the term ‘new chums’.

Well, it’s happened – Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has begun using that ‘M’ word, proof positive he’s heading down a well-worn road.

WORLD War I commenced during the first week of August 1914, nearly nine months before an Australian and New Zealand amphibious force landed on an isolated Turkish beach.

Beijing’s Olympics are coming and, as widely expected, the authoritarian Chinese government hosting them faces ongoing embarrassing incidents.

The Rudd government hasn’t exactly gotten off to flash start in the foreign relations area.

A question the Liberal Party’s national leadership – Brendan Nelson and Julie Bishop, primarily – should promptly ask is, what they hope to accomplish by merging with the Nationals, as some have suggested.

The wife of Kevin Rudd’s chief of staff, David Epstein, is to run the Canberra office of major lobbying concern, Government Relations Australia (GRA), which also operates in Western Australia.

Those  unfamiliar with the Slavic languages will need to have the phrase; “Kto Kogo?” translated and explained.

With most in-the-know political pundits confident the next state election will be held this December, it’s time to begin considering some possible outcomes.

It’s evident we’re well into a period best described as the ‘era of Liberal demise’. Although it started at least as early as 1996 – when then prime minister John Howard shamelessly dumped his party’s longstanding federalist commitment and adopted Labor’

It’s surprising that the ongoing revelations of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s close contacts with former Premier Brian Burke have sparked so little media attention

Canberra hoteliers and restaurateurs are undoubtedly looking forward to Kevin Rudd’s Australia 2020 Summit in late April, but State Scene certainly isn’t

Many readers of State Scene will remember Pete Seeger’s popular and catchy song of the 1960s, ‘Where have all the Flowers Gone’. It’s perhaps because the word, flowers, seems to rhyme with ‘farmers’ that I’ve found myself humming it lately.

State Scene recently met a Western Australian federal MP who gives considerable thought to precisely what’s happening at senior political ranks.

Many readers will know that, when reference is made to the world’s second oldest profession, it’s spying that’s being discussed.

We can be sure that Western Australia’s increasingly desperate Liberals had an exhilarating new year’s eve, the first time they have had anything to celebrate since the dark days of December 2000, when Richard Court’s impending defeat cast a pall over the

Former state Liberal leader Matt Birney’s recent announcement that he won’t be seeking re-election for the seat of Kalgoorlie means the Liberals, in less than three months, have lost two former leaders from their parliamentary ranks

State Scene hopes opportunities arise during 2008 that will enable a historical assessment of recent contemporary events, making them more meaningful in the wider context.

Future generations of Western Australians are likely to recall 2007 because of several significant, indeed unique, political events.

Now that Kevin Rudd’s 42-member ministry is firmly ensconced in Canberra, a few things need clearing up.

November 13 2007 was certainly a very unlucky day for former state upper house MPs, Shelley Archer and Anthony Fels.

“It’s the economy, stupid” was the one liner often repeated by those inside the Bill Clinton camp that so convincingly toppled George H Bush’s Republican administration in 1992.

With election day 2007 just more than a day away, State Scene now offers a last look at what the likely outcome may be.

State Scene remains apprehensive about the fact that Queensland’s multi-millionaire Rudd family is headed for Australia’s two most prestigious addresses – Kirribilli House overlooking Sydney Harbour and The Lodge in the heart of Canberra.

As Liberal parliamentarians and power brokers assess the polls, which all point to electoral demise and thus “wall-to-wall” Labor governments for the first time ever, some have begun to suspect that November 24 will bring utter devastation.

It’s not often a really fascinating tip-off falls into a journalist’s lap.

Whether or not Kevin Rudd – Kevin07 during the campaign – takes Labor into power on November 24, nobody will ever be able to take from him that he has managed to make a very average mob look like winners.

State Scene’s $20 Ozcall rechargeable phone card worked overtime last weekend.

With so many of State Scene’s leftie mates looking increasingly dour as election day approaches, I’ve felt compelled to reconsider my long-held view that Labor will form the next government.

Several years ago, nearly all of State Scene’s left and right-of-centre political pals and contacts suddenly began using the term ‘urban legend’.

This month, a page two advertisement in The West Australian, paid for by the WA Labor Party, carried a head and shoulders photograph of Liberal MP Julie Bishop, alongside a headline that read: “Is she staying? Or is she going…”