What the Canberra commentators think …..

Sue Dunlevy, Sydney Daily Telegraph: While Labor languished in Opposition for 13 years, a key staffer used to lament his party’s tactics of continually opposing controversial Howard Government policies. “Why do we keep stopping this government from becoming unpopular?” he’d ask every time his party blocked in the Senate what it saw as bad Howard policy. Every time Labor stopped the Howard government introducing a medicine price rise or a new tax it saved the government from itself, prevented it from angeringvoters and harmed Labor’s chances of being elected. It’s the trap every Opposition Leader has to avoid – Don’t take the title literally.
Phillip Coorey, Sydney Morning Herald: The day after (last)Monday's shadow cabinet meeting, the Opposition Deputy Leader, Julie Bishop, went to the Olympics for three days as a guest of Channel Seven. Which was probably just as well, because she missed being contradicted again by her leader Brendan Nelson. Nelson's aside was subtle but significant given the debate within the shadow cabinet over which budget measures the Coalition will oppose, especially the removal of the tax break on condensate production.
For those not intimate with the petrochemical world, condensate is a light crude oil produced as a byproduct of North-West Shelf gas. Since 1975, Woodside Petroleum and its shelf partners had been exempted from paying excise on this oil.
Without warning, that exemption ended on May 13, budget night. This was the second largest single new revenue measure in the budget, after the $3.1 billion tax rise on alcopops. The excise is expected to raise $2.5 billion over four years. "This will increase the return to the community from extracting this non-renewable resource, without affecting fuel prices," the budget papers stated.
Woodside, unsurprisingly, was furious and disputed this assertion. This week it warned that consumers would pay more for gas. Bishop and other West Australian MPs, who are being lobbied heavily by Woodside, had been warning of this for some weeks.
While shadow cabinet agreed to torpedo $4 billion in budget revenue measures - primarily the increases to taxes on alcopops and luxury cars, and raising the Medicare levy surcharge - opinion was divided on condensate.
While nobody liked it, there was concern from the harder heads that there was too much revenue involved. Block that measure and the Coalition would be opposing more than $6.5 billion in revenue over the next four years. Nelson's comment was a strong hint that the Coalition will not oppose the condensate tax.
Steve Lewis, The Courier-Mail: The Liberal Party is headed for a brawl over radical reforms that could see MPs expelled and state branches taken over by administrators. Embattled Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson is backing the reforms, which will give the Federal Executive sweeping powers to discipline rogue MPs and campaign workers.They were designed to modernise the Liberal Party's creaking structure and make it more competitive against the Labor machine.But Dr Nelson faced stiff opposition from his own NSW division amid fears the changes amounted to a "national takeover".Liberal chiefs also faced a grassroots revolt, with some MPs claiming the reforms would change forever the "psyche" of the party formed by Robert Menzies 44 years ago.
Michelle Grattan, The Age, Melbourne: A quiescent party room is not always good for government. The leader should not be insulated from a full range of views. When Labor Caucus chairman Daryl Melham this week backed Liberal Petro Georgiou's private member's bill to put another check on Australia's extensive security legislation, the surprise was less Melham's opinion than that he was willing to speak out at all.
This Labor caucus is so far the most timid and quiescent in memory. No doubt individuals are beavering away at their work, but as for saying publicly anything even mildly controversial or simply their own view — that's considered dangerous territory. Best to fly with the flock, parroting officially produced lines.
When you compare the Rudd caucus with the Hawke one, the contrast is stark. The latter was feisty on issues such as uranium and economic deregulation. Sometimes caucus was walked over by cabinet, but often it had to be persuaded.
Richard Ackland, Sydney Morning Herald:: More than a year ago, there was strong evidence that the terror case against Mohamed Haneef was a farce. Yet grimly the federal police and the top copper Mick Keelty held firm to the belief that this Indian doctor posed a threat.
Based on the word of the Australian Federal Police, Haneef was stripped of his visa. The then minister for immigration, Kevin Andrews, repeatedly said he was in possession of secret information from the police that he relied on to make that decision. It was so powerful and secret that this information could not be publicly revealed.
It has now emerged that there was no evidence of criminal behaviour in the document at all. ASIO, too, advised that Haneef was not a threat to national security. The story about the doctor's SIM card being found in a burning car used in an attempt to blow up Glasgow airport was also false. Indeed, that information was already available to the police before they briefed the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions lawyers for the appearance at the bail hearing on July 14 last year.
Mark Metherell, Sydney Morning Herald: Australians with obesity are at significantly higher risk than previously thought of suffering illness, including diabetes, heart attack, stroke and osteoarthritis, a new study has found.
The reassessment of obesity's impact in Australia found that 600,000 more patients are suffering these diseases because of obesity than was estimated in 2006.
Gary Deed, the president of Diabetes Australia, said yesterday he was "alarmed" by the increase and said it highlighted the urgent need to implement the counter-measures planned by the Federal Government.
The consulting firm Access Economics, which prepared the report for Diabetes Australia, adjusted its 2006 estimates of obesity's link to diseases on the basis of revised methods of estimation by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. As a result of the adjustments, Access estimates that 23.8 per cent of type 2 diabetes cases are caused by obesity, more than double the 2006 estimate of 10.8 per cent; obesity accounts for 21.8 per cent of cardiovascular diseases, up from about 13 per cent; and 24.5 per cent of osteoarthritis cases, up from 14 per cent.
Newspaper links
Sydney Morning Herald http://www.smh.com.au/
The Australian http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/
The Age http://www.theage.com.au/
Sydney Daily Telegraph: http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/