Pearls and Irritations

John Kerin

  • If the Nationals cared about farmers, they’d be concerned about land clearing

    If the Nationals cared about farmers, they’d be concerned about land clearing

    As the National Party focuses on opportunities to rort taxpayers, land clearing and global warming are costing farmers dearly.

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  • Our challenges in dealing with China

    America was built on the Bible, the gun and slavery.Our interests in dealing with China are not the same as America’s interests. We have differences with China, but we must handle them in our own way rather than joining Trump’s strident chorus of criticism.

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  • What can the ALP possibly do? Part 2

    I do not think it is impossible for the ALP or whoever to mount sound policies that show that there is an alternative way to the path we are on, but the movement as a whole needs to articulate them and repeat them, relentlessly.

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  • What can possibly be done with our political and policy malaise.Part 1.

    Two new books are available or soon will be; (“How to Win an Election” by Chris Wallace and “What is to be Done?” by Barry Jones). Both focus on the state of the nation and the state of the ALP.

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  • JOHN KERIN: Reform and the ALP

    Australia’s oldest political Party, the ALP, is becoming ossified in its structure and totally resistant to reform. It also has many other challenges in representing today’s Australia as a progressive party. (more…)

  • JOHN KERIN: The Latest Commonwealth Government Drought Package.

    The latest ad hoc response to the current drought cannot be criticised in terms of the politics of the situation we are now in. If it rains in, say, by March, or in the first six months of 2020, then we will be back to the status quo of drought policy. We simply don’t have a National Drought Policy, nor can I see one being agreed between the Commonwealth and the States which will ever be agreed by all parties and commentators, or which may have predictability or flexibility.  The debate about the Murray Darling Basin plan, after30 years of development, is in the same basket. There are so many actors with so many responsibilities  that everyone cannot be satisfied. (more…)

  • JOHN KERIN. Dairy markets and regulation?.

     The dairy industry has been subject to plenty of government enquiries and more are in train,but is anything going to come of them? (more…)

  • JOHN KERIN. We have no drought policy.

    The current Coalition response to just another drought is pathetic,short term, divisive and dishonest. All it is doing is managing the drought politically. (more…)

  • JOHN KERIN. Trump’s latest Farm Bill and Implications for Australia’s Farm Exports.

    Trump’s trade policies and reaction to the rebound of them has resulted in another increase of $23b subsidisation on top of the $12b supposedly one-off package last year for US farmers who are ‘collateral damage, as a result of his policies. Put together, this represents two thirds of Australia’s total agricultural output.Do good allies damage Australian farmers like this ? (more…)

  • JOHN KERIN. Wage compression and its wider implications, economic and political.

    All macro-economic variables relate to one another. The economic growth  rate, monetary and fiscal policy, budgetary policy, business profitability, investment, taxation (and the avoidance and evasion of tax), the wage rate, transfers and trade balance all interact and adapt to many factors, some beyond our control. There are always choices to be made at various times on the basis of evidence and analysis, but ideological and philosophical political choices always need critical analysis. A major problem in Australia’s economic management is that short term fixes increasingly deny the chance for reform.  (more…)

  • JOHN KERIN.  Free Trade (sic), Current ‘Negotiations’ (Part 3)

    The world is agog with the constantly changing state of play between the US and China on trade issues and also the possible outcomes of Brexit. Both have the high probability of affecting our economy. (more…)

  • JOHN KERIN. ‘Free Trade’ (sic), Theory and Experience (Part 2)

    As with most economic theories about the optimal way to proceed, there is a difference between theory and results. For example, do company tax cuts necessarily mean that companies will invest in new production? If demand is suppressed will they use them to invest? Will they spend them to invest abroad, spend on mergers, pay off debt, or pocket them? This is to be expected because of changed situations and the behaviour of many ‘actors’. The same applies to trade theory. (more…)

  • JOHN KERIN. ‘Free Trade’ (sic), Some Fundamentals (Part 1).

    Australian trade policy has dramatically changed over the last fifty years. What we now face is nothing like the situation we have been used to. The general public has little idea of the complexity and importance of trade negotiations, the reality of what we now face and the current implications of the US/China imbroglio and Brexit. None the less, some trade policy fundamentals for Australia persist, having been the main historical features of our endeavours. Agricultural trade policy has been central in the past, where we have still not advanced much, which is still relevant, but is no longer the main game. (more…)

  • JOHN KERIN. Australian soils.

    We live in the driest occupied continent. Most of our soils are old and fragile. Rain is variable in our most arable areas and our precipitation to evaporation ratio is low. Dust storms and soil exposure caused by unprecedented, catastrophic bush fires in Queensland in the last weeks of November remind us of the fragility of our land mass, 60% of which is in the stewardship of our farmers and graziers. To many, but not all, of these landholders it is not a mystery that soil and water, as with the relevant sciences, is the basis to all agriculture. It has been calculated that each of our meals costs 10 kg of soil. Food security is a real debate in a world facing the accelerant of climate change on our resource base; care of our soils becomes critical.  (more…)

  • JOHN KERIN.   Trump Economics.

    Not being aware of what is being written in economic journals by the profession I find it difficult to understand why more of our commentating economists and academic economists are not publicly calling out Trump’s economic policies. Are we to believe that what many commentators say about the US and its economy only currently applies to the US or should we re-write our economic text books? (more…)

  • JOHN KERIN. Phasing out the Live Sheep Trade.

    It is now nearly 60 years since the accelerated live sheep trade commenced from Australia to the Middle East. Early opposition to the trade came from the meatworkers union (AMIEU) in the 1970s, but has increasingly come from animal welfare groups and exposure of the cruelty in the trade (550,000 dead, 2000-2012?). After all this time it is more than evident the trade cannot be conducted without animal deaths and animal cruelty, either on ships or in slaughter by buying countries.  (more…)

  • JOHN KERIN. Droughts and Drought Policy

    Drought policy has always been marked by the near impossibility to satisfactorily match efficiency, preparedness, risk management and resource base (environmental) management with welfare measures once large areas of the continent are declared to be in drought by State Government authorities.   (more…)