A collection of articles and talks by Dave Holmes
Sixtieth birthday remarks
[Remarks made at a dinner in Melbourne to celebrate my 60th birthday, August 2006]
The card Andrea gave me for my birthday said that now I'm 60 I should make lists and offered one for today — first, check my zipper; two, make a wish; three, blow out candles; four, eat cake; and five, wipe my face. Well, I checked my zipper before I got up and I'll practice the rest later. But I did want to write down what I wanted to say tonight so it comes out right.
[Green Left Weekly, #668, May 15, 2006]
For the past two months Melbourne's Age newspaper, owned by the Fairfax media group, has been energetically campaigning for free public transport in the city. Former Victorian Liberal premier Jeff Kennett — who privatised public transport in 1999 — revealed in an interview that he argued within his cabinet for a simple universal gold-coin fare system. He said his biggest regret in public life was that he failed to stick to his guns in the face of bureaucratic opposition. Kennett's cabinet colleague Robert Maclellan canvassed the idea of making public transport completely free until leading officials talked him out of it.
[Green Left Weekly, #665, April 26, 2006]
Every society deals with crime and punishment in its own special way. Modern capitalism, for all the ludicrous claims of its media hacks and propagandists, is a class-divided society based on the exploitation and oppression of the many by the very few. It ceaselessly generates crime at all levels.
'Renewal' ALP-style
[Green Left Weekly, #659, March 8, 2006]
The ALP is undergoing a process of "renewal" as a clutch of ambitious right-wing trade union officials seek preselection against Victorian sitting federal MPs.