Australia has navigated a somewhat stormy passage through the Pacific Islands Forum in Nauru. Scott Morrison’s new-look government faced renewed accusations at the summit about the strength of Australia’s resolve on climate policy. (more…)
John Menadue
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ELIZABETH EVATT. Where are the threats to religious freedom?
The Prime Minister Scott Morrison has called recently for laws to protect religious freedom, in order, he says, to safeguard personal liberty. While there is little evidence that religious freedom is under threat in Australia, there is a demand in some quarters for legislation to extend the exemptions from laws which protect against discrimination on the ground of sexual preference. This is unnecessary and would be regrettable. (more…)
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MICHAEL D BREEN. Head, Heart and future Hope.
Now there is talk about a new generation in Australian Politics. So what is new? Not the players. Not the structures, nor the rules of engagement. Could it be a more basic factor is needed? Could it be, for want of a better term, the ‘moral infrastructure’? Is this the bedrock foundation, the sine qua non for any successful rebuild? This would involve the ways in which individuals and groups regulate their behaviour. (more…)
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MARK DANTA, CHUN MA, RICHARD DAY, DAVID MA. Dealing with the spiraling price of medicines: how “low” can it go?
New medications are increasingly expensive. In Australia, where the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) covers the vast majority of prescription medications, the spiraling cost of medicines has a significant impact on the sustainability of our health system. In countries where patients are required to contribute substantially to the medicine cost, high prices can negatively influence their health outcomes. (more…)
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LYNLEY WALLIS, BRYCE BARKER, HEATHER BURKE. How unearthing Queensland’s ‘native police’ camps gives us a window onto colonial violence.
In 19th century Queensland, the Native Mounted Police were responsible for “dispersing” (a euphemism for systematic killing) Aboriginal people. (more…)
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GARRY EVERETT. No Way To Start.
To be a dissenting voice is a risky business. If you oppose the prevailing orthodoxy, you are either disowned because you are wrong; or you struggle to have your voice heard, because your message is not popular. (more…)
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ILAN WIESEL, LISS RALSTON, WENDY STONE. How the housing boom has driven rising inequality.
The Productivity Commission – the Australian government’s highly influential economic advisory body – released a report titled Rising Inequality? last week. The question mark indicates its scepticism about other research findings on rising inequality in Australia. The commission responded to its own question in the report’s very first heading: “Over nearly three decades, inequality has risen slightly in Australia”. (more…)
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HUMPHREY HAWKSLEY. US-led Indo-Pacific alliance against China is an outdated idea (Nikkei Asian Review, 03.09.18)
Asia should avoid being divided by Sino-American rivalry. (more…)
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CLIVE HAMILTON. None So Blind As Those Who Will Not See
Jocelyn Chey has a bee in her bonnet. In a series of articles on this blog she has repeatedly characterised my book, Silent Invasion: China’s Influence in Australia, as anti-Chinese. In her latest attack, she claims that I engage in racial profiling, lump all Chinese-Australians together and feed into anti-Asian propaganda. (more…)
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GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND
A regular collection of links to writings and broadcasts covered in other media. (more…)
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GEOFF GALLOP. What does it mean to be educated?
In the Campion Lecture at St Aloysius College, Sydney, on 15 August 2018, Geoff Gallop, former Premier of WA, spoke about the post-truth world and the importance of understanding the role of education in our society. He said in conclusion:
Over the centuries human beings have learnt much about nature and society, how to co-exist with the former and how to humanise the latter. Educated people are those who embrace this progress, act on the basis of the knowledge it creates and who seek even more. It recognises difference and seeks reconciliation rather than division and truth rather than prejudice. As Pope Francis put it: “It is not easy to arrive at harmonious composition of the different scientific, productive, ethical, social, economic, and political interests promoting sustainable development. This harmonious composition requires humility, courage, and openness to the comparison between the different positions, in the certainty that the witness given by men of science to truth and the common good contributes to the maturation of social conscience”17 To replace this understanding with a value-free and opinion and interest-laden view of the world which sees power not as a means to an end but an end-in-itself, would be a tragedy for humanity. What we have is a culture war that can’t be avoided.
For the full text of this lecture see: Campion Lecture final (2)
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MARIE SELLSTROM. Rural Australians for Refugees making a statement in rural communities.
There is a growing consciousness in rural and regional Australia…..it is centred in NSW and Victoria and is spreading through Queensland to Cairns and moving south through to Tasmania and South Australia and across to Albany. It is the responsiveness of men, women and children in country Australia who support people seeking refuge and asylum on Australian shores and who are raising their voices in anger at the government’s treatment of these men, women and children. (more…)
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DAVID JAMES. Industry superannuation, banks, competition,capitalism and socialism
The bullish speculations by Mark Carnegie (see below) about industry super funds clawing back their share of the superannuation market from the banks, and potentially capturing a quarter of Australia’s mortgage and business lending, certainly got attention. It is worth some closer examination, including his claim that it would mean Australia’s financial system might more resemble German-style participatory capitalism, whereby “workers take part in the ownership and supervision of the companies that employ them.” (more…)
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JOHN QUIGGIN. Our financial system only works for the 1%. It will take another crash to fix it (The Guardian, 03.09.18)
The royal commission into banks has uncovered fraud and misconduct on a massive scale, amounting to nearly $1bn and perhaps more. The usual defences of “bad apples” and “rogue advisers” have fallen apart as it becomes evident the problems are systemic, driven by relentless pressure from the top to maximise profits at all costs. (more…)
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JIM COOMBS. Alternatives to the “big four.
The AFR reports Mark Carnegie of the Superannuation Trustees saying that their funds could move into High Street banking as the Big Four retreat after being found with their hands in the cookie jar. Even Auspost could pile into the market ! (more…)
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DAVID FRUM. This Is a Constitutional Crisis (The Atlantic 5/9/2018)
A cowardly coup from within the administration threatens to enflame the president’s paranoia and further endanger American security.
Impeachment is a constitutional mechanism. The Twenty-Fifth Amendment is a constitutional mechanism. Mass resignations followed by voluntary testimony to congressional committees are a constitutional mechanism. Overt defiance of presidential authority by the president’s own appointees—now that’s a constitutional crisis.
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LUCIANA PORFIRIO, DAVID NEWTH, JOHN FINNIGAN. Climate change will reshape the world’s agricultural trade.
Ending world hunger is a central aspiration of modern society. To address this challenge – along with expanding agricultural land and intensifying crop yields – we rely on global agricultural trade to meet the nutritional demands of a growing world population. (more…)
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MARTIN WOLF. Why so little has changed since the financial crash (Financial Times)
“Here I am back again in the Treasury . . . but with one great difference. In 1918 most people’s only idea was to get back to pre-1914. No one today feels like that about 1939. That will make an enormous difference when we get down to it.” The financial crisis was a devastating failure of the free market followed by a period of rising inequality within many countries. (more…)
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ANGUS WHYTE. A farmers’ perspective on the drought.
As someone who is dependent on Mother Nature for a living, climate is very much a “front and centre” issue for all farmers. I graze livestock on semi-arid, native rangeland pastures in western NSW; the numbers we graze is dependent on the amount of pasture we grow, which of course relies on sufficient rainfall. Here’s what I think about the drought. (more…)
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JAMES GOLDGEIER, ELIZABETH SAUNDERS. The Unconstrained Presidency.
Checks and Balances Eroded Long Before Trump. (more…)
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HOWARD DAVIES. Was the financial crisis wasted?
As the 10th anniversary of the start of the global financial crisis approaches, a wave of retrospective reviews is bearing down on us. Many of them will try to answer the Big Question: Has the financial system been fundamentally reformed, so that we can be confident of preventing a repeat of the dismal and destructive events of 2008-2009, or has the crisis been allowed to go to waste? (more…)
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I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration — New York Times 5 September 2018
I work for the president but like-minded colleagues and I have vowed to thwart parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.
The Times today is taking the rare step of publishing an anonymous Op-Ed essay. We have done so at the request of the author, a senior official in the Trump administration whose identity is known to us and whose job would be jeopardized by its disclosure. We believe publishing this essay anonymously is the only way to deliver an important perspective to our readers. We invite you to submit a question about the essay or our vetting process here. (more…)
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BRIAN COYNE. Rupert Murdoch and the increasing division in society
Following the sensational demand from Archbishop Vigano for the resignation of Pope Francis, Michael Sean Winters wrote a commentary in National Catholic Reporter wondering if the right wing in the Church was about to launch a schism. The following commentary by the editor of catholica, Brian Coyne, was written suggesting all of society is heading for division and schism at the moment and our Australian mate Rupert Murdoch has to take much of the blame. (more…)
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EUGENE ROBINSON. Why Trump is so frantic right now.
President Trump’s incoherence grows to keep pace with his desperation. These days, he makes less sense than ever — a sign that this malignant presidency has entered a new, more dangerous phase. (more…)
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BRUCE WEARNE. Thinking About Our Political Blurring of Parliamentary Boundaries!
The first time I voted in a federal election was in December 1972. I had just graduated from university. In three undergraduate years, as a member of the turbulent Monash Association of Students, I had learned that there was deep artificiality in a political view that reduces debate to two sides. I cast my inaugural vote knowing that if the McMahon Liberal-Country Coalition were returned, I would have a National Service obligation to deal with. But then they lost to Gough Whitlam’s Labor and conscription was scrapped. (more…)
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PETER WOODRUFF. Open letter to Pope Francis on “The Pope as a Game Changer”
Dear Pope Francis,
Greetings from Australia. I am a priest who worked for many years in parishes in poor barrios of Lima, Peru. I am now retired in Melbourne, Australia. (more…)
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PETER WHITEFORD. Don’t believe what they say about inequality. Some of us are worse off (The Conversation)
If you were going to reduce a 150-page Productivity Commission examination of trends in Australian inequality to a few words, it would be nice if they weren’t “ALP inequality claims sunk”, or “Progressive article of faith blown up” or “Labor inequality myths busted by commission”. (more…)
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PAUL BONGIORNO. The spectre of Tony Abbott hangs over Scott Morrison (New Daily, 04.09.18)
Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s desperate attempts to draw a line under the leadership coup that brought him to power are doomed to failure. (more…)
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BATES GILL. Australia’s Political Division at Home Undermines Its Leadership Abroad.
Fractious domestic politics have made it all but impossible for the country to formulate coherent policy on critical regional and global issues.
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GARRY EVERETT. Have we learnt nothing?
In the work of the recent Royal Commissions of Inquiry in Australia, into the sexual abuse of minors, and the banking and financial institutions, two glaring similar findings presented themselves. The institutions involved were neither transparent nor accountable for their actions. It remains to be seen whether, following the excoriating assessments by the Commissions, the institutions have learned any lessons, and whether we the public have been duped by the decisions of those who imposed penalties. (more…)