Greg Bailey

In responding on Monday to the severity of the NSW and QLD fires two senior NP politicians made statements attacking the Greens in a manner that was most intemperate and which has attracted almost universal criticism? But was their underlying motivation genuine concern for those affected by these predictable fires, or a desperate attempt to win back some of the electoral support slowly dripping away from them? (more…)

The intemperate language used by McCormack and Joyce points to the Nationals’ own desperation about their constituency. Equally it has given an opportunity to the prime minister to appear statesman-like and the ALP to remain silent. Both illustrate how politicians regard the attention span of the electorate in regard to worsening environmental conditions.
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It has been pointed out numerous times that neoliberalism, the prevailing orthodoxy of governance, grew off the carcass of neo-classical economics. That this intellectual paradigm has failed is obvious to most people except for politicians in the Anglo-Saxon world and the EU. A new paradigm that brings together rigorous rationalistic thinking based on empirical evidence is needed to bring economic thinking back to where it should always be: in the service of the society/environment as a whole. (more…)

The revelations surrounding the fast tracking of visas for Chinese high rollers coming to Crown Casino and betting gargantuan amounts of money have been extensively covered over the last week in the media.  Corruption there certainly seems to be and not a little incipient anti-Chinese sentiment in sheeting this back mainly to wealthy Chinese gamblers. (more…)

The sudden elevation of Christopher Pyne – formerly Minister for Defence Industries – to defence consultant with Ernst & Young may have taken some people by surprise. Surely, though, it was always on the cards, especially since he retired from parliament at a relatively young age of 51 and with a pre-election likelihood of not being returned as the member for Sturt. However, his appointment points directly to wider developments in the politico-economic culture of this and other countries.

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Now that the grieving over the electoral loss of progressive political forces is beginning to be transformed into sustained soul searching about the characteristics of the Australian electorate and the tactic used by the ALP, it is time to ask whether the ALP could have won given the forces rallied against them. In truth the election was close, but the effect of unrealistic expectations has led to anguished questioning of whether a party with comprehensive progressive policies for an increasingly fractured future will ever be successful in Australia and whether the ‘sensible centre’ is the only option. (more…)

Irrespective of who finally wins Saturday’s election-and it looks like the ultra-conservative forces–, certain deeply disturbing observations can be made about the state of the Australian polity and the electorate. These evoke cultural and regional fissures long existing in Australia and an apparent shift away from any kind of critical thinking in making political and other judgements affecting the future of the country. (more…)

For the last three decades the Australian public has been told there will be massive changes which they will have to run with or just suck it up. Now, after five and a half years of floundering and negativism by the government, the people are waking up to what these changes have produced. Such changes have been substantially helped along by the government’s promotion of the market as the arbiter of all things and all interrelations, changes exacerbated by the impact of digital technology and its individualising tendency. For its absence in attempting to properly guide these changes, this period of governance will be long remembered. (more…)

Retrospective reflections are now beginning on what might be the heritage of the five and a half year long Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison governments. In advancing such reflections attention should not just be focussed on the political infighting within the government, and between it and the opposition. Consideration should also be given to what has occurred outside of, or in spite, of government in defining Australia’s governing culture and the cohesion of its society. (more…)

In writing on this subject I was initially going to focus on the manner in which a lobbying company funded by Glencore had undertaken a marketing campaign in support of coal and to plant doubts about the capacity of renewable energy to substitute for coal. If this might have represented the beginnings of a conflict between renewables and coal, it has now gone far beyond that, with a new war front opening up between the two wings of the coalition government.
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If, as seems likely from the polls, the ALP wins the next federal election it will not be through the failure of the LNP to throw up a massive scare campaign. Conservative parties ranging from the medium to the far right adopt lowest common denominator strategies to foment an underlying sense of fear that seems constantly resident in so many voters. But now the generational change between the Baby Boomers and Generation X and Y is becoming more and more pronounced and creates problems for those conservative parties who seek to retain power through the retention of a fear based campaign. (more…)

On Monday morning two days after the Victorian state election the ALP had 51 seats, the LNC 24, the Greens 1, other independents 1, with 11 still in doubt, but the outcome of which will not affect the Labor Party’s massive majority.  No doubt there will be considerable speculation as to the causes of this landslide. Even at this early stage we can ask whether it represents a general skepticism about the impression the Murdoch press has been trying to create about the lawless state of Victoria and the corruption of its Labor politicians. (more…)

Australia has had six Prime Ministers since 2008, with the likelihood of a seventh in May 2019. Is this an index of instability in Australian politics and society, one perhaps marked also by the massive swing in last Saturday’s Wentworth by-election? Is this instability a consequence of the emergence of a series of extremely ambitious, stubborn and vindictive individuals over the past decade, or is it something deeper which has penetrated the system and would continue even if such individuals were to be excluded  or absent themselves from the political arena? Does it stand in contrast to the apparent stability of most levels of Australian society and economy?  (more…)

Lobbyists are increasingly being recognized as a blight on the political landscape and as one of the negative forces in the progressive weakening of democratic processes in government. That they have come to form a distinct component in creating and distorting policy, indeed in creating politics almost as a “privatized sphere” is now become incontestable. But how does one change the system of governance back to one more firmly representing the electors? (more…)

What about the ALP which, despite its protestation about its commitment to social justice and the social wage, has also effected neoliberal outcomes over the past three decades? Just witness its recent support to Australia becoming a member of a revised TPPT. And it has done this even in the face of objection from parts of its left wing and the remnants of the union movement. Yet the union movement itself has been corporatized with a number of high profile ex union leaders having moved into the corporate sector.  (more…)

Australian politics as judged by the antics of the two major parties over the past three weeks is almost a (hyper-) reality television show, replete with microscopic media coverage of the principal personalities involved. Building up for many years this has implications for the survival of these parties, but disappear they certainly will not. The task for long-term survival is certainly before the LNP, whereas for the ALP the prospects seem brighter. (more…)

Who wins from last week’s disastrous week in politics and what can we expect it to give rise to if anything? Nothing occurs in a vacuum and now that the carnage has been temporarily suspended the commentariat is attempting to find continuities and discontinuities that might possess some explanatory value. (more…)

Statistics of voting patterns over the past forty years have shown a consistent drift towards fringe and minor parties. Such a drift seems likely to continue whilst the duopoly of the LNP and the ALP  continue to ignore the mainstream, both ideologically and as group worthy of receiving some intrinsic recognition. (more…)

A recent article published on The Conversation “found attitudes of elitism among public servants, which effectively led them to resist public input…” and that “A clear democratic conduit between citizen and policymaker is largely absent.” But is this the best way to understand the present status of the Public service and public servants’ attitudes? (more…)

Now that Bill Shorten and the Labor Party have begun to propose some sensible restrictions on the irresponsible tax reductions proposed by the LNP government the old adage of “class warfare” is being invoked again in the mainstream media and by hard right politicians. But how useful is this as a rhetorical device and will it have any resonance for anybody other than those who use it? (more…)

Two prominent members of the IPA have just edited a book calling for the privatization of the ABC. This has long been a desire of this group, but with Minister Mitch Fifield, an IPA member, now taking the role of the LNP government’s attack dog against the ABC, is privatization a possibility? (more…)

As if the Public Service did not have enough pressure placed on it – over the past three decades it has been politicized, it has been continually downsized and its professionalism has been called into question by an homogenous collection of party hacks, consultants and lobbyists, perhaps picking up on a long-standing public disdain for the efficiency of public servants. If this is not enough, it is now under attack from John Lloyd, Commissioner, Australian Public Service Commission, and at times an IPA member. (more…)

Readers of Pearls and Irritations will be fully appreciative of the considerable influence exercised by the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) on the commentariat and political decision-making through its representatives in various parliaments and its presence in the media. And given its discernible influence or occasional lack of it – witness James Paterson’s aborted attempt to neuter the outcome of the marriage equality survey – on shaping political opinion, we might ask whether it too will be required to open the books relating to its financial sources as part of an investigation of foreign influence on Australian lobby groups. If it is good enough for Get Up and various environmental groups to be targeted in this way, why not the so-called libertarian groups which are all really public relations fronts for the corporatization of government and the private sector.  (more…)

John Menadue has offered a series of nine excellent practical proposals as to how the current two party system – which has virtually assumed monopoly status as a duopoly–might be converted into a multi-party system. This would seemingly reflect the real concerns of Australian voters whose voting patterns – by the increasing percentage of votes going to minor parties – show increasing support for a multiparty system. But can the very useful suggestion of “a professional and independent review of our parliament and the democratic renewal” really come to fruition and what would be needed to bring it into operation? (more…)

Recent exposures of the extent of lobbying in Canberra and the revolving door of politicians becoming lobbyists highlight the extent to which politics here and in other Anglo-Saxon countries has become privatized. The effectiveness of the lobbyists–who are essentially mercenaries–poses a threat to democratic process and contributes strongly to what I call “the privatization of politics.” Government has always to some extent been an oligopoly of vested interests. Lobbyists have cemented this situation even further. (more…)

On July 2 the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) had at least two of its members elected to parliament in the Double Dissolution, James Pattison and Tim Wilson and that Senators Bob Day and David Leyonhjelm, at times members of the IPA, also were reelected, albeit on small quotas. LNP politicians like George Christensen and Cory Bernardi, both assumed to be thorns in the side of Malcolm Turnbull, have received the praises of the IPA because of speeches they have given, echoing broad IPA doctrines such as small government, abolition of the nanny state and individual self-reliance. But the propitious environment for the likely direct influence of the IPA on the formation of policy has changed, though not as in clear cut a manner as one might think. (more…)