ITK has looked at Labor’s emissions reduction target – the 45% cut from 2005 levels by 2030 – and we estimate the community wide costs to be less than $2 billion per year, as summarized in Figure 1. (more…)
John Menadue
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David Pope’s view: We shall fight them on what’s left of the beaches (Canberra Times 3.5.2019)
In her ‘gotcha’ style of questioning Leigh Sales on ABC challenged Bill Shorten about the cost of his climate change policies. People with any real knowledge of the subject know there is no simple answer. What is clear is that we face an existential threat to our planet.David Pope in the Canberra Times pointed to the nonsense of questioning by Leigh Sales and the Murdoch media on irrelevant detail – all in the name of so called ‘balance’.The main steam media is failing us dismally on climate change.(John Menadue) (more…)
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JACK DE GROOT. The hidden cost of low rent housing
Although just paying the rent is enough of a challenge for most low-income households – as Anglicare’s latest Rental Affordability Snapshot demonstrates – their housing affordability challenge is further impacted by the cost of energy and transport. For them, it obviously forms a much higher proportion of their take-home pay and therefore puts housing affordability even further out of reach. An increased supply of social and affordable housing is an essential part of the solution, as too are more energy efficiency and public transport solutions.
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RAY MOYNIHAN, PAUL GLASZIOU. We need new rules for defining who is sick. Step 1: remove vested interests (The Conversation)
Did you know the definition of high blood pressure (hypertension) in the United States was recently greatly expanded? Overnight, tens of millions of people were reclassified, leaving one in every two adults with a diagnosis of hypertension.
The move has been welcomed by some but also widely criticised, amid concerns the expanded definition may bring more harm than good to many people, from unnecessary illness labels and unneeded drugs. (more…)
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RICHARD COOKE. News Corp: Democracy’s greatest threat. (The Monthly. May 2019)
Denialism, nihilism and the Murdoch propaganda machine
The slim, match-fit form of The Daily Telegraph columnist Piers Akerman, resplendent in a blue Tony Abbott T-shirt, and standing next to the former prime minister, was not supposed to be there. Not supposed to be in the photo, that is. It was Abbott who posted the picture to social media, accidentally revealing his mate on the hustings. (more…)
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STEPHANIE LORENZO. Uncovering the Gender Inequality in my Church.
If the power structures of the Catholic Church remain unquestioned and unchallenged by the unknowing conformity of the masses, maybe we are complicit in its scandals. (more…)
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AMY ZEGART AND MICHAEL MORELL. Spies, Lies, and Algorithms. Why U.S. Intelligence Agencies Must Adapt or Fail. (Foreign Affairs 20.4.2019)
For U.S. intelligence agencies, the twenty-first century began with a shock, when 19 al Qaeda operatives hijacked four planes and perpetrated the deadliest attack ever on U.S. soil. In the wake of the attack, the intelligence community mobilized with one overriding goal: preventing another 9/11. The CIA, the National Security Agency, and the 15 other components of the U.S. intelligence community restructured, reformed, and retooled. Congress appropriated billions of dollars to support the transformation. (more…)
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JEFF KINGSTON. Filling the post-Heisei void (East Asia Forum)
Emperor Akihito is a tough act to follow. He is known as the people’s emperor because he brought the monarchy closer to the people by sharing the pain of those displaced by disaster and advocating on behalf of the vulnerable and marginalised. This included people suffering from Hansen’s disease as well as the mentally and physically handicapped. His reign contrasted that of Emperor Showa (Hirohito) who was aloof and awkward in fulfilling his public duties in post-war Japan. (more…)
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GRAHAM ENGLISH. Virtue signallers, the left wing, and the politically correct
I try to follow the advice of one of my old teachers that if you cannot write as well as Jane Austen or one of the greats you can at least aim to be intelligible. Avoiding clichés and popular catch phrases is always a good start. (more…)
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VACY VLAZNA. The Sarafand Massacre and Anzac Cover-up, Part 2
Cover-ups are a reprehensible part and parcel of military history and testimonies collected on Australian Military History of the Early 20th Century: Desert Column siteare tainted with fundamental lies and racist justifications that have become the prototype for subsequent historical and newspaper accounts of the Sarafand Massacre. (more…)
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RICHARD BARCHAM. Not Sorry.
Speech that dehumanises marks the limit of what a tolerant society can accept. (more…)
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AVI SHLAIM. Benjamin Netanyahu and the death of the Zionist dream.
Israel’s founding fathers are turning in their graves. (more…)
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JOHN MENADUE. Scott Morrison claims again quite wrongly that he stopped the boats. (ABC News 30.4.2019)
In the leaders’ debate in Perth, Scott Morrison said: “I fashioned a policy to deal with [boat arrivals in Australia] and we fixed it.” (more…)
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GEORGE MONBIOT. Only rebellion will prevent an ecological apocalypse (The Guardian)
No one is coming to save us. Mass civil disobedience is essential to force a political response. (more…)
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JOHN MENADUE. Political leadership . Morrison or Shorten?
We are regularly polled about who is the best leader as if it a popularity contest. That is not what leadership is about. And leadership and charisma are quite different.
Good leadership is about facing the country or group up to the hard issues. Without clearly defining why and how we need to change and creating some disequilibrium there will be no worthwhile change. Climate change is the great issue we face. Steady and focussed leadership is essential.
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SOPHIE HARDEFELDT. Political parties’ international trade policies
For the last 20 years the global trade and investment regime has been used to institutionalise neoliberalism, establishing international rules and norms through the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and bilateral trade and investment agreements that increase the power of global corporations while undermining human rights and the environment.
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VACY VLAZNA. The Sarafand Massacre and Anzac Cover-up, Part 1
In the early winter of 1918, the wheat, barley and sesame fields of Sarafand al-Kharab lay fallow. Oranges, figs, almonds and olives had been harvested, the summer honey stored. At night the goats and sheep were brought into the warmth of the adobe brick houses. (more…)
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JOHN MENADUE. The Greens– good policies and poor politics.
The Greens have correctly directed criticism at the cruel policies of the ALP and the Coalition on refugees in Manus and Nauru. They are also rightly critical of the major parties on climate change.But on both issues the Greens have not been very helpful . (more…)
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ISABELLE REINECKE. How strategic litigation can strengthen our democracy
Australian politics is becoming increasingly polarised. Policy decisions are made for short term political gain against the advice of experts, and democratic checks and balances are being degraded. Strategic litigation is a tool that can be used to cut through the politics and surface the facts – even for causes that vested interests with deep pockets are stacked against. But litigation is costly. A new organisation, Grata Fund, is working with philanthropy and crowdfunding to provide financial assistance to help private citizens push back against unfair laws and policies through the courts. (more…)
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IOLA MATTHEWS. Bridging the gender pay gap, one case at a time (Sydney Morning Herald 26 April 2019)
The path to more equal pay for women is one issue that could be significantly affected by the result of the forthcoming federal election. (more…)
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RON WITTON. Zionism and Terra Nullius: a haunting parallel between Israel and Australia
When I was growing up in Sydney in the 1950s, I knew that I came from a Jewish family and I was aware of the little blue and white Jewish National Fund money boxes collecting funds for Israel. Recently I have remembered a phrase from my childhood, “A land without a people for a people without a land” which I had unquestioningly accepted as justification for the establishment of Israel. (more…)
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FRIDAY FORUM. Easter Sunday’s suffering in Sri Lanka – seeking and finding answers
The Friday Forum, Sri Lanka
The Friday Forum is an informal and self-financed group dedicated to democracy, good governance, human rights and the rule of law. It has for over five years sought to alert the public on issues concerning the rights of the citizen. We work on a non-partisan basis and have been critical of both the Government and Opposition. (more…)
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JOHN MENADUE. The scourge of lobbyists is part of our political malaise. An update
Lobbyists are back in the news but it looks as if the scourge of lobbyists will continue in Canberra if Bill Shorten wins the next election. There is no sign that the ALP, like the Coalition is prepared to curb the way lobbyists are corrupting public policy in Australia.. The media reports that lobby firms are taking on ‘labor staffers’ so that they can influence a future Labor Government. And ex Labor, Liberal and National ministers figure prominently in major lobbying firms. (more…)
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ANDREW SALMON. South Korea unveils national strategy for 5G (Asian Times)
South Korea expects to create 600,000 new “quality jobs” by 2026 thanks to fifth-generation, or 5G, mobile technologies, and hopes to leverage its first-mover advantage in the sector globally, a senior government official said on Monday. (more…)
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SAUL NEWMAN. The Australian Government funds both pro- and anti-alcohol research efforts
Revelations in The Guardian on Good Friday, Former CSIRO researcher accuses science agency of pro-alcohol research, about the pro-alcohol bias of Australia’s premier scientific organisation the CSIRO have been made by a former employee in a letter recently published in the prestigious British medical journal The Lancet (End government support for pro-alcohol research). Dr Saul Newman has questioned the CSIRO’s enthusiasm for pro-alcohol research in the face of the significant and growing evidence of the magnitude of harm caused by the consumption of alcohol in Australia. Below he expands on his concerns.
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MARC HUDSON. In Australia, climate policy battles are endlessly reheated (The Conversation)
This article is part of a series examining the Coalition government’s record on key issues while in power and what Labor is promising if it wins the 2019 federal election.
It might feel like the past decade of climate policy wars has led us into uncharted political waters. But the truth is, we’ve been sailing around in circles for much longer than that. (more…)
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MELISSA SWEET. What might Greta Thunberg tell the Australian Parliament? (Croakey)
This week, 16-year-old Greta Thunberg, who must surely go down in history as one of the great champions for global health, addressed the British Parliament. (more…)
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GRAEME STEWART. Major holes in Medicare.
For a very large and growing number of poorer Australians, the high out-of-pocket expenses for medical care in Australia to which Ross Gittins refers (SMH ‘Prevention is better than cure’, April 24), are tearing major holes in the safety net Medicare was designed to provide to us all, rich and poor. (more…)
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JOHN MENADUE. Jobs at Adani or on the Great Barrier Reef.
There are very strong grounds for Australia to phase out the mining of steaming coal as soon as possible and certainly not to promote new coal projects such as Adani. Our planet is increasingly at risk. Protecting the Great Barrier Reef is likely to save and promote more jobs than the few jobs in prospect at Adani. Tourism is a growth industry of the future. Coal mining is a declining and dying industry. (more…)
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PAUL ELIE. What do the Church’s victims deserve?
The Catholic Church is turning to outside arbiters to reckon with its history of sexual abuse. But skeptics argue that its legacy of evasion continues. (more…)