There is nothing ethical in trading in products made with stolen natural resources on stolen land. There can be no meaningful peace process that normalizes war crimes and violations of international law. (more…)
Australia is about to sign on to a new mega-trade agreement, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). But what does this mean for the rights of 1.1 billion women and girls who live in the 15 countries involved in the deal?
Australia is the only western democracy to ban the sale and use of nicotine for vaping. Australian policy is out of step with the scientific evidence and denies smokers who can’t quit a safer and potentially lifesaving alternative. There are better policy options available. (more…)
Labor has taken Government from Conservatives only 3 times in the past 70 years. It must start representing those who have no effective power – the majority – if it wants to be taken seriously. (more…)
Get used to it, because Russian influence is coming to a region near you.
For many in the West, Russia’s return to the world stage over the past few years has come as a surprise, and not an especially pleasant one. After the downfall of the Soviet Union, the country was written off as yesterday’s snow, a regional power, a filling station masquerading as a state. (more…)
The greatest opportunity that the judgment offers is a reaffirmation of India as a secular society. It is a decision that refutes the idea of Hindu Rashtra and amplifies the practical handling of sensitive religious concerns in a secular system.
After a show of hands in my north London synagogue, I started to wonder if this rolling row had its roots in how both groups define themselves
It’s not easy to make sense of the current furore about antisemitism and the left. But it may be that a fundamental part of the explanation is quite simple. (more…)
We don’t need name calling. But we do need to talk about climate change and bushfires. (more…)
Commenting on the 2017 Las Vegas shooting that killed 60 people and injured more than 400, the US National Rifle Association said ‘This sort of response isn’t helpful. Families are mourning. Offer a prayer and temper your desire of politics…’ It sounds just like the response of the Prime Minister and Coalition Ministers to the recent bush fires. But former senior fire chiefs in their Emergency Leaders for Climate Action decided not to put up any longer with political evasion on the link between the’ urgent threat’ of climate change and the escalating bush fire risk. Hear what they had to say last week.
Fire chiefs want more than thoughts and prayers. (more…)
Despite Specialist Disability Accommodation (SDA) payments having been rolled out initially in 2016, with good intentions, the level of suitable disability accommodation in Australia is still woefully low. The approval process for individuals to get SDA into their NDIS plans has been slow, inconsistent and not transparent. Even the eligibility criteria are unclear.
As sure as night follows day, this week’s bushfires prompted inevitable debate about whether fire authorities should have carried out more hazard reduction burning, and whether opposition from conservationists prevented this. (more…)
Is Australia’s award system so complex major corporations capable of handling millions of customers and billions of dollars can’t manage to pay employees properly? (more…)
There are two stark facts about British politics. The first is that they are controlled, to a degree unparalleled in any other Western European nation, by a tiny, unrepresentative elite. Like almost every aspect of public life here, government is dominated by people educated first at private schools, then at either Oxford or Cambridge. (more…)
The Israeli political system is in a weird stalemate. Two general elections in under six months have so far failed to produce a governing coalition. The sticking point is entirely personal—the fate of Bejamin Netanyahu as he faces multiple criminal indictments. After more than ten years in office, Netanyahu continues to dominate Israeli politics. (more…)
The Government’s new submarine project continues to be subjected to serious criticism. I have written on the ill-conceived SEA 1000 project since before the decision was made to award the contract to the French company NAVAL Group Australia (formerly DCNS) in April 2016. I now argue that we must face up to the underlying issue, which is that the two critical decisions, to buy sub-optimal diesel-electric boats, and to design them for missions off the coast of China, are fundamentally incompatible. (more…)
On 1st January this year, the National Archives of Australia published a set of highly redacted Commonwealth cabinet papers dealing with a decision by the National Security Committee of the Howard coalition cabinet in September 1997 to allow the establishment of a Joint Australia-United States Relay Ground Station (RGS) at Pine Gap. (more…)
Re-reading a bit of political philosophy, I came across a 1939 quotation by the French philosopher Raymond Aron (1905-1983) who warned of ‘notre époque de religions politiques.’ If Aron were around today, he would have much to wrote about.
There is, in front of me, a book entitled “Not my family: never my child”. The title of that book is so right. WE are on the front line. We are affected. It is OUR families and our children who take these drugs. It is OUR children that suffer and die and cause us grief. (more…)
For old-time Asia watchers, there was a delicious irony in the way Chile has decided it does not want to be the site of this year’s planned APEC annual meeting. (more…)
Homo sapiens suffers from a cognitive defect in that we have evolved to deal with immediate and concrete threats, but not ones that happen to us slowly over time, like climate change. Those with Asperger’s syndrome see the world differently, and it is interesting to think that the rest of us might have to learn something from people disabled and often mocked. (more…)
When France’s president wants to carry European concerns to the world stage to find solutions for climate change, trade tensions or Iran’s nuclear ambitions, he no longer calls Washington. He flies to Beijing. (more…)
There are two basic components to the Morrison government’s latest A$1 billion package response to the drought affecting large parts eastern Australia. One part involves extra subsidies to farmers and farm-related business. The other involves measures to create or upgrade infrastructure in rural areas. (more…)
A bunch of decrepit old Australians had a particular interest in South Africa’s astonishing win at the World Cup in Yokohama last week. As a delighted and inspirational black captain, Siya Kolisi raised the Webb Ellis trophy high in victory, some of us had teary eyes. We are some of the survivors of a bunch of Australians who almost 50 years ago were heavily involved in the 1971 anti-Springbok campaign. (more…)
The government’s traditional scare campaign having failed to work – because Medevac transfers have not re-started the ‘people smuggler’ boats – a very frustrated Home Affairs Minister Dutton is running a new ‘repeal Medevac’ line: he says the Medevac law is a con because no transferees are in hospital. But it’s his own Australian Border Force that is keeping them out of hospital. (more…)
The ‘one country, two systems’ framework is coming under increasing pressure as unprecedented protests and months of unrest rock Hong Kong. Sustaining local autonomy against the background of an increasingly assertive Chinese centre has become a progressively tricky issue. (more…)
Our political contest used to be between Left and Right, Labor and Conservative. That has changed with growing anger that power is now rigged in favour of a largely unchallenged and powerful oligarchy. Our democratic system including our traditional parties are just not properly responding .Voters are fleeing the major parties and particularly Labor. (more…)
The Australian parliament voted against it.
But now 11,000 people who might know one or two more facts than a bubble of politicians have confirmed it is, indeed, happening: the whole world is in the midst of a climate emergency. (more…)
