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…)
John Menadue
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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 What students learn about Asia is outdated and needs to change.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…)
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JIM COOMBS. Do We choose reason and proportion or “Economic Reform” ?
So long as government vacates the field, the balance between rich and poor lurches further towards the rich. 8 individuals control half of the world’s wealth. Is that Balance or proportionate ? (more…)
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WAYNE SWAN. Coalition energy policy.
It’s a lost decade we couldn’t afford on climate change and energy policy – but when the consequences are felt in years and decades to come, it’s incumbent upon us all not to forget the political opportunists and charlatans who led us down this path. (more…)
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PETER DAY. ‘The smell of the sheep’ (Pope Francis)
It should be noted that the intention of this reflection is not to play ‘the man’ (bishops, clerics), but rather ‘the ball’ (church governance, culture): to shine a light on a deeper and systemic illness that needs root and branch reform. Without such reform we will continue to produce fertile ground for the abuse of power, of which sexual abuse is a catastrophic symptom. (more…)
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TONY KEVIN. Update on Trump impeachment possibilities, and reaction in Moscow
The US liberal media onslaught on Donald Trump’s claimed absolute unsuitability for the US presidency continues. In every possibly way, Trump is being dissected forensically and brutally. (more…)
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CAROLYN WHITZMAN. States drag feet on affordable housing, with Victoria the worst.
Moral panic over recent increases in visibly homeless people in central Melbourne has brought to the fore the critical shortage of affordable housing across the metropolitan areas of Australia’s wealthiest cities. But living on the street is only the tip of the iceberg. Many more households are living in insecure and/or overpriced accommodation. Their plight is due to an undersupply of appropriately priced, sized and situated rental housing. (more…)
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PETER GIBILISCO. Where are the public intellectuals like Hugh Stretton.
“The worst kind of bad social science, Stretton argues, purports to select the things to be explained, and the ways of explaining them, without resort to values and valuation” (more…)
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PETER PHIBBS and NICOLE GURRAN. Why housing supply shouldn’t be the only policy tool politicians cling to.
If politicians were serious about the affordability crisis, they would be trying to support the important but underfunded affordable housing sector. Better targeting tax breaks towards new and affordable rental housing, rather than fuelling demand for existing homes, would also help. But until our politicians can see past supply slogans we can expect very little policy change. (more…)
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WALTER HAMILTON. Fake news triumphant
Japan’s Shinzo Abe, US President Donald Trump and Russia’s Vladimir Putin have a great deal in common, particularly their aversion to being exposed to a free press. (more…)
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STEVE GEORGAKIS and JADE WARD. The first week in February 2017: A Landmark for Women’s Football Codes
Histories are silent on any real influence that women have had on their respective sport. This is because involvement in these sports have historically emerged from the connotations that such sports were about providing opportunities for men to develop a masculine character. (more…)
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KAREN WILLIS AND SOPHIE LEWIS. Increased private health insurance premiums don’t mean increased value.
A topic of discussion at many barbecues this summer will inevitably be private health insurance. Is it worth it? Do we need it? Every year it gets more expensive. The average 4.8% increase in premiums just announced will have more Australians raising these questions, and debating with their friends how much they value choice of doctor, reduced waiting times for elective surgery, and having a private room when in hospital. (more…)
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KATHLEEN McPHILLIPS. Royal commission hearings show Catholic Church faces a massive reform task.
In research prepared for the Royal Commission, 7% of priests were identified as perpetrators. By far the worst offenders were in religious orders: for example, over 40% of John of God Brothers, 22% of Christian Brothers and 20% of Marist Brothers were identified as alleged perpetrators. These figures are particularly shocking because the rate of disclosure of abuse by victims is generally held to be under 20%. (more…)