John Menadue

Italy is not Greece. But not all the differences are encouraging. Its economy is 10-times bigger. Its €2.3tn public debt is seven-times bigger; it is the largest in the eurozone and fourth largest in the world. Italy is too big to fail and may be too big to save. The question is whether its new government will trigger such a crisis and, if so, what might follow? (more…)

Because our Reserve Bank has given every indication that it has no intention to raise official interest rates, a degree of complacency about Australia’s high levels of household debt has set in.  But in an article on the ABC’s website, business reporter David Taylor shows how rising US bond yields could flow through to Australian interest rates, even if the Reserve Bank maintains its low official rates.

While our government has been sending mixed and confused messages about our relationship with China, Deutsche Welle reports that German Chancellor Angela Merkel has led a high-level delegation to China aimed at strengthening two countries’ already strong economic cooperation. Merkel said that Beijing and Berlin “are both committed to the rules of the WTO and want to strengthen multilateralism.”

Which of our two main parties is better at managing the economy?  Ross Gittins diplomatically doesn’t answer that question, but he does outline the budgetary differences between the parties. “Labor would make income tax more redistributive, whereas the Coalition would make it less so. If that doesn’t offer voters a real choice, I don’t know what would” he writes.

Karnataka poll outcome indicative of India’s coalition future – UCANEWS.

Unions support Liddell’s clean energy transition – RenewEconomy

Brexit won’t happen – Simon Wren-Lewis

Get to know Elliott Broidy, the next major trump scandal figure – Washington Post

New Italian Prime Minister is a latin version of Jacob Rees Mogg – Spectator

Almost half of Australians being ‘conned’ into taking supplements – New Daily

Racism and the China debate: a response to Chris Zappone – David Brophy

Trump too good to be true – Emanuel Pastreich, Korea Times

A Gandhian stand against a culture of cruelty – New York Review of Books

In Saturday Extra (ABC Radio):    Over the last six months the Cambodia Daily closed, and the Phnom Penh Post, an English-language newspaper widely seen as the last bastion of free press in Cambodia, was sold to a Malaysian investor with ties to the Cambodian government.   In Thailand the editor of the Bangkok Post has said he was forced to step down. We examine threats to press freedom in South-east Asia.   Anniversary of the Uluru statement from the Heart anniversary. Guests: Prof. Megan Davis & TBC Julian Leeser, Chair of the Joint Select Committee on Constitutional Recognition Relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples .    Pressure on boards and directors – Eric Kutcher, McKinsey senior partner and second guest to be confirmed.    A Foreign Affair: Elsina Wainwright, Kean Wong, Hervé Lemahieu.   The Epic Voyages of Maud Berridge: The seafaring dairies of a Victorian lady

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/saturdayextra/

Having watched with interest the unfolding debate over the future of auDA – the organisation charged with managing the Internet domain name space here on behalf of the federal government – I was delighted to recently be invited to join its new Consultation Model Working Group. auDA has drawn together a group of 16 members, which includes a broad range of people with knowledge and expertise in the running of the Internet in this country over many years.  (more…)

Governments at both federal and state levels continue to rely on the supply of bricks and mortar to solve Australia’s housing issues. We should be focusing not only on how many buildings are supplied, but what those buildings contain – people, trying to make a home. (more…)

2017 was hoped to have been the year of the renter.  As Federal Budget 2018 ticks by, the picture remains grim for low-income renters, despite property prices having come off the boil (for now) in some capital cities.   (more…)

This year’s Federal Budget delivered no vision, plan or commitment for addressing the growing housing affordability crisis, yet again failing to recognise how fundamental it is to our nation’s wellbeing to prioritise solving this problem. (more…)

No joy from Budget 2018.  Governments do have the resources to tackle affordable housing shortfalls.  They just don’t have the will to accord it the requisite priority.  In so failing, they ignore not only the deep and lasting social costs of such neglect, but also the strong economic case for addressing housing affordability. (more…)

The housing affordability report card for the last 12 months is a mixed one.  A welcome reduction in price and rental pressures in some capital cities is offset by rising homelessness and ongoing housing stress for those on lower incomes, for whom more direct help is needed.  Policy debate is often still very confused, even amongst some of our most revered institutions, including the RBA. (more…)

Governments at both Federal and State level are still avoiding the politically difficult changes that would make a real difference to housing affordability. But we won’t make progress unless our leaders eschew the popular but ineffective options in favour of planning and tax reforms that could actually improve affordability. (more…)

Budget 2018 fails the 1.5 million Australian households living in unaffordable rental housing or officially homeless, despite the urgent need for Commonwealth leadership on affordable housing policy. (more…)

Property prices have moderated in our largest cities over the past year, thanks in part to tightening of lending by APRA, and on inflows of foreign capital.  There is some respite for first-time buyers, but the picture for renters is mixed.  This year’s Budget had nothing significant for housing and those on lower incomes have little to celebrate in terms of housing reform. (more…)

“Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive. But to be young was very heaven” — that’s how many older Australians, with the distorted hindsight of nostalgia, look back on the turmoil of 1968. ABC Radio National has devoted a series of its regular programs to the events around 1968.  The most concise is a short discussion May 1968 revisited on Geraldine Doogue’s Saturday Extra.  Understandably most are retrospective, but there is also a program about lessons for today for those who seek social change  – the Gohn Day Memorial Lecture by Mary Frances Berry Lessons from past resistance movements.

Medical Mystery: Something Happened to U.S. Health Spending After 1980 is the title of an article in the New York Times. Why, in spite of the huge and growing  amount of money Americans spend on health care, has America;s life expectancy not been rising as fast as in comparable nations?  The lack of universal coverage provides one explanation, as do the burden of private health insurance and the influence of Big Pharma. Also, the article’s author, Austin Frank of Boston University, attributes much to general worsening conditions for the poor. The same theme is taken up in Geraldine Doogue’s Saturday Extra last weekend where Sir Michael Marmot explains the influence of  “deaths of despair” from alcohol, other drugs and suicide, as well as inequality as contributing to lower life expectancy in parts of the USA.

People are continuing to drop private health insurance. Figures from APRA show that in the year to March 37,000 people dropped PHI. This was a net figure after 98,000 people under 55 dropped PHI, while insurers gained 61,000 members over 55.  (Fifty-five is the age below which members are net contributors, and above which members are net drawers.) The insurance trade journal Insurance Business, citing a survey by Roy Morgan, attributes the fall to price, coverage gaps and satisfaction with Medicare. If the Coalition had been true to established form we might have expected some rescue effort in the budget, but there has been no specific mention of PHI in the budget.

Abe walks a tightrope on Japan’s foreign worker policy (Japan Times, April 29 2018)

The Iran deal scuppered – aspistragetist

Alexander Downer’s secret meeting with FBI led to Trump-Russia inquiry – the Guardian.

Nissan drives into home solar and battery storage market – RenewEconomy