Rowan Dean

Sunday

Rowan Dean

Tony Abbott survives Liberal Party spill motion

From our UK edition

Tony Abbott is not dead yet. He has survived a spill motion this morning by the narrowest of margins (61 – 39). Had the vote got into the forties it would have been extremely difficult for Mr Abbott not to hold a leadership ballot, in which case Malcolm Turnbull would have challenged and almost certainly won. Mr Abbott is a renowned political fighter, but due to poor recent polls and a series of unusual events, dissatisfaction with him clearly runs high. How much time he has bought himself remains to be seen, but he is clearly a wounded beast. It is likely that Mr Abbott will find himself under pressure to either make immediate changes to his Treasurer Joe Hockey and/or chief of staff, Peta Credlin.

Rowan Dean

Is Twitter about to claim its first prime ministerial scalp?

From our UK edition

Within the next three hours, the seventeen-month reign of Australia’s conservative PM Tony Abbott may come to a crashing close, terminated not by policy differences but by populism and personality. Could Twitter be about to claim its first prime ministerial scalp? The contrasting characters of Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull could not have been more cunningly scripted had Jeffrey Archer invented them: one a staunch monarchist (whose act of awarding an Aussie knighthood to Prince Philip on Australia Day exactly two weeks ago led directly to this morning’s party room spill), the other the former frontman of the (failed) 1999 Republican referendum.

Friday

Rowan Dean

The Royal Family beats Australia’s dreary political class hands down

From our UK edition

Only a few hours before the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge landed in Sydney for the start of their much-hyped royal Australian visit, Barry O’Farrell, the popular Premier of New South Wales, stunned the nation by resigning. His reason? He couldn’t remember having quaffed a bottle of wine. (No ordinary wine, mind you, but a bottle of 1959 Penfolds Grange, valued at around GBP 1,700.) In years to come, no doubt among Barry’s many regrets will be the fact that he didn’t get to hob nob on the harbour with the glam royal couple. A timely coincidence, because what links these two events goes to the heart of why Australia’s constitutional monarchy is so popular. The polls are unequivocal.

Saturday

Rowan Dean

Diary Australia – 16th June

From our UK edition

London I always wondered what happened to that ghastly floating Chinese restaurant that used to meander around Sydney Harbour. Now it’s turned up as the new Royal Barge, from whence Elizabeth, Phil and the rest of the blue-fingered bluebloods watch the Jubilee Regatta making its way down the muddy Thames on a freezing winter’s, er, sorry, summer’s day. ••• Wisely, I choose to avoid the entire event and instead sneak off to a barn in Buckinghamshire for what the poms call a barbie. Sausages, gently cooked, pink on the inside, are served up at room temperature.

Saturday

Rowan Dean

Diary – 3 September 2011 | 3 September 2011

From our UK edition

The three girls sitting opposite can’t take their eyes off us. Eventually it becomes too much for one of them (the pretty one) and she saunters over and shyly introduces herself. To Mark, of course, not to the rest of us. Mark smiles and shakes her hand, and that’s all it takes for the other two to rush over, pen and napkin poised for an autograph, mobile phones at the ready for the inevitable photograph. ‘We really miss you,’ gushes one of them. She even grabs his hand. ‘You should sooo never have quit. You should be the PM, not her.’ The other two giggle in agreement. Mark smiles bashfully and gives a dismissive wave of his over-sized hand. ‘Naah,’ he says in his unmistakable Werriwa drawl, ‘I had my crack at it.