Pearls & Irritations advises the sad news that Albert Mispel, who was instrumental in getting this blog started (and indeed, suggested its name) has passed away. Albert had an exciting life during which he taught school in New Guinea, was a core member of the Glebe Society fighting expressways during the 1970s and, later in life, became a computer programmer/web designer. He was enthusiastic about all progressive causes. He provided the technical know-how to get this blog up and running five years ago, and supported it thereafter. He believed in the ‘cause’. The first blog password was ‘November 1975’. With many others, he would never forget the Whitlam dismissal. Albert’s death is mourned by his wife, Kathy, two daughters, Jo and Madeleine, and his grandchildren. He will be sadly missed. Vale Albert.
John Menadue
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JOHN NIEUWENHUYSEN. Dark Days for Immigration Policy. Nation building or border protection.
The concept of Australia’s Immigration Department being a minor part of a version of the United States department of homeland security is a frightening one. What will have happened to the “Welcome to Australia” banners of years past? (more…)
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TIM COLEBATCH. Why gas prices went sky-high, and what governments need to do about it
There is an overwhelming consensus that the centrepiece should be an emissions intensity scheme, as proposed by the draft Finkel report, by the government’s handpicked Climate Change Authority, and by electricity generators and big users alike. This would give the energy industry a clear, bipartisan timetable to reduce emissions, enabling it to plan and invest with confidence. (more…)
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PETER BROOKS and JOHN WILLOUGHBY. A call for doctors to take a stand on the Adani Carmichael coal mine
The comprehensive investigation, published as The Adani Files (adanifiles.com.au), provides a litany of stories of pollution, failed clean-ups of damaged environments, and allegations of corruption and of abuse of workers. (more…)
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HANS J OHFF. A Future Submarine bonanza for France
Seen through the eyes of an engineering contractor and shipbuilder I suggest that the French have hit the jackpot. They will be falling over themselves to sign the proposed Framework Agreement between the Government of Australia and the Government of the French Republic concerning cooperation on the future Submarine Program. (more…)
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PHIL ROBERTSON. A new wave of atrocities is being committed against Muslims in Burma’s Rakhine state
The burned-out mosques in Sittwe, the capital of the Rakhine state in western Burma, loom as silent reminders of an atrocity, hiding behind overgrown bushes and cement walls amid the daily port city bustle. (more…)
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JONATHAN PAGE. Who Pays The Ferryman? Befriending Death.
The human experience is haunted by mortality. It is important to encourage deep discussion of the reality of our own individual death from an early age. The potential psycho-spiritual and behavioural benefits of this discussion are immense. (more…)
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FRANCIS SULLIVAN. Where to from here?
I don’t think anyone was prepared for the extent of the abuse and the appalling rate across male religious orders and within the priesthood.
The posturing and spin of years past has been seen for what is was – an avoidance of the truth and a failed attempt to divert the public from the scale of the abuse and the depths to which Church officials had sunk as they tried to keep it hidden. (more…)
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ALAN PEARS. The solution to Australia’s gas crisis is not more gas.
Eastern Australia has plenty of gas. The problem is that most of it is being exported at prices lower than some Australians are paying. And the price volatility resulting from the present shambles is making life difficult for some Australian industries. (more…)
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ALAN KOHLER. Hello, Elon? It’s Malcolm.
“Cannon-Brookes! That man’s an absolute nuisance. He’s been causing Arthur problems with our 457 visa plans, and now he’s trying to mess up the nice little wedge we’ve got going with Shorten and Weatherill over renewables and blackouts in Adelaide.” (more…)
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PETER PHIBBS. we must call governments out on this ‘Game of Homes’.
When politicians say supply will fix the problem, ask them why it hasn’t worked yet. And also send them a copy of the graph from Chapter 1 of any first-year economics text book showing that price is the result of the interaction of supply and demand. (more…)
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LESLEY HUGHES. Angry summers are the new normal. Our climate is on steroids.
The occurrence of the extreme summer experienced in NSW, for example, was at least 50 times more likely than would have been the case without climate change. (more…)
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FAZAL RIZVI. What students learn about Asia is outdated and needs to change.
While we readily recognise the new Asia to be culturally dynamic, and changing rapidly, we have yet to develop a more sophisticated understanding of Asia-Australia relations – and indeed also of the discourse of Asia literacy. (more…)
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GEOFFREY ROBINSON. The Royal Commission.
I am convinced that there must be a full and open discussion of all aspects of the Church if we are ever to put this scandal behind us. Quite simply, we need a different church. The Royal Commission was not constrained by any Church laws or teachings and so came much closer to the heart of the problem.
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FRANK STILWELL and CHRISTOPHER SHEIL. The IMF is showing some hypocrisy on inequality
The IMF should practice what it preaches when it comes to inequality. (more…)
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JOHN QUIGGIN. The case for renationalising Australia’s electricity grid.
The public debate over the problems of electricity supply displays a curious disconnect. On the one hand, there is virtually universal agreement that the system is in crisis. After 25 years, the promised outcomes of reform – cheaper and more reliable electricity, competitive markets and rational investment decisions – are further away than ever. (more…)
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GARRY EASTMAN. Response to Jack Waterford: We need a Catholic Yom Kippur, and a serious sacrifice.
There are now no survivors or parents of survivors on the Commission nor are there any on the Australian Towards Healing or Melbourne Response agencies for handling complaints by victims of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. The same criticism applies to the Truth, the Justice and Healing Council and the newly created company, Catholic Professional Standards Ltd. (more…)
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RICHARD WOOLCOTT. The US has ‘wasted $6 trillion’ in the Middle East without achieving any success.
In a statement on 27 February President Trump said that the United States
had spent $ 6 trillion in the Middle East and had ” got nowhere “. It had produced a “mess” and a ” hornet’s nest “. In a conflict United States must always be “winning ,or not fighting at all”. (more…) -
PAT POWER. The Royal Commission and the need for reform.
Despite all the warnings, I don’t know of anyone who has not been shocked by what has emerged from the Royal Commission. For twenty years or more, we have heard accounts of abuse, sometimes very close to home. But somehow the magnitude of it all has been almost beyond comprehension. (more…)
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PAUL CLEARY. How Australia wasted the mining boom.
The countries that have mastered the development of their resources, most notably Norway, worked out long ago that to truly prosper in the long run, the citizens who own these assets are entitled to share in the super profits derived from extracting their finite resource wealth. (more…)
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TIM LINDSEY. Jokowi Lite: The Indonesian president’s non-visit
The relationship between our two countries is now back on a more normal diplomatic footing for the moment but we need to do better than that if we are to make the most of our proximity to this gigantic nation of 270 million that considers itself now ‘rising’. (more…)
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NICOLE GURRAN and PETER PHIBBS. Housing policy is captive to property politics, so don’t expect politicians to tackle affordability.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s recent warnings that house prices would fall steeply under a Labor government confirm the underlying politics of housing policy in Australia. The default position for politicians is to sound concerned about housing affordability, but do nothing. (more…)
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NICOLE GURRAN & PETER PHIBBS. How the Property Council is shaping the debate around negative gearing, taxes.
We see their spokespeople quoted in the papers and their ads on TV, but beyond that we know very little about how Australia’s lobby groups get what they want.
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DOUG CAMERON. Commonwealth can, and must, do more on housing and homelessness
The failure of the market to provide housing for all who need it is compounded by several political failures. (more…)
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RICHARD WOOLCOTT. Policy for now and the future.
The United States has led Australia into one lost war ( Viet Nam),two ongoing losing wars ( the second invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan ) and,most recently, into the dubious operations in Syria opposing Assard . Russia ,China and Iran will not allow Assard to be removed and,as Ross Burns has so well argued,Australia would be prudent not to involve itself in this complex conflict . (more…)
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GREGORY CLARK. Amazing 1964 Hasluck request to Moscow for help over Vietnam
In 1964, I was witness to another independent Canberra initiative over Vietnam. It was a bizarre attempt by then External Affairs minister, Paul Hasluck, to persuade Moscow to join with the West in Vietnam to stop alleged Chinese aggression. (more…)
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BRIAN COYNE. The randomness and chanciness of life…
In this short essay, Brian Coyne, explores how much randomness and chance play in the outcomes we experience in life. He asks how much we are influenced by the Christian biblical mythology that an afterlife where the first will be last the last will be first helps us cope with the inherent unfairness and injustice that is the outcome of randomness and chance in life. (more…)
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DAVID JAMES. Trump’s pro-globalisation critics miss the key questions
The most pressing question: Is the global system there to serve people, or are people there to serve the global system? They also never address a central contradiction of globalisation: that capital is free to move, but for the most part people are not, unless they belong to the elite ranks. The inevitable backlash has begun. (more…)
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HAROLD LEVIEN. Solving our Housing Problem.
Housing investors have largely crowded out first-home-buyers from the Sydney and Melbourne housing markets. The Coalition Government has not simply failed to address this problem; its policies have been the principal cause. (more…)
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CHARLES LIVINGSTONE. South Australia’s gambling tax highlights the regulatory mess of online betting.
The South Australian government will introduce from July a “point-of-consumption tax” to claw back some of the gambling tax revenue it is seeing disappear over the border. The new tax is a reasonable response to a growing problem, and probably won’t send bookmakers to the wall. But it does highlight the current regulatory mess surrounding how we tax internet wagering in Australia. (more…)