Stooping to a new low, the Turnbull government has begun cutting off the welfare payment to vulnerable asylum seekers and given these people three weeks to vacate their government-supported accommodation. (more…)
John Menadue
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JOHN MENADUE. Abbott and Turnbull are the real culprits on the energy policy mess. (repost)
This is a repost of an article that was originally posted on 14 June 2017. I have reposted this in light of current controversy on extending the life of coal fired generators.
In his journal, The Constant Investor, Alan Kohler sheeted blame very directly to the Coalition and Malcolm Turnbull. He said
Those crises have now arrived in the form of blackouts, and they are not caused by too much renewable energy… it’s due to a lack of investment, in turn due to a lack of policy certainty and clarity. This is entirely the Liberal Party’s fault — not just Malcolm Turnbull’s, although he is a rather pathetic figure now. If he didn’t go along with the hoax, he’d be sacked and another PM would. By taking the low road in 2009 instead of the high road, and deciding to mislead Australians about the true cost of energy, the Liberal Party condemned the country to a decade of confusion and stasis on energy policy. That reached a nadir of absurdity last week with the Treasurer’s coal stunt. The rest of Australia’s leaders, in particular the CEOs of our largest companies, should declare now that enough is enough, and pull these idiots into line. (more…)
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ROD TUCKER AND JOHN DE RIDDER. How to fix the NBN pricing model: An open letter to Bill Morrow.
Dear Bill,
The NBN pricing model is in urgent need of repair. In this letter, we offer our thoughts on how an overhaul of the pricing model can solve a number of problems facing the NBN. (more…)
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KATHARIN R. LESTARI. Indonesia speaks up as global support for Rohingya grows
The Indonesian government has stepped up its support for ethnic Muslim Rohingya promising humanitarian aid and a new hospital in their homeland in Myanmar’s Rakhine State as the military continues to torch villages while battling homegrown insurgents. (more…)
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PAUL FRIJTERS. What does the North Korean situation say about China?
It is easy to get drawn into the drama of rockets fired over Japan, and massive hydrogen bombs tested by a North Korean regime that likes to threaten mass extinction of its enemies, particularly with the tweeter-in-chief responding in kind. I worry though that the real game is in China, because the suspicion is that China has helped NK develop its technology, and one has to wonder what could drive the Chinese leadership to do such a thing. (more…)
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TEJSHREE THAPA. Watching Burma in Flames from Bangladesh
I stood at the edge of the Naf River on the Bangladesh border watching heavy smoke rise from a village on the Burma side. Bangladeshi border guards talked of fires all along the border targeting villages of Rohingya Muslims. (more…)
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PAUL FRIJTERS. It’s not about state versus markets.
It is said that all generals prepare for the last war. So too it often seems in ideology land, where the conflict with the Soviet Union seems to have left us with an obsession with state versus market. Just as we are not preparing for the cyber wars of the future by building obsolete submarines that would only have been useful in WWII, we are not addressing today’s economic challenges by thinking in Cold War economic terms either. (more…)
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PETER MCCULLAGH. Good Suicide versus Bad Suicide
Will legalised suicide, even when presented as ‘assisted dying’, adversely impact on efforts to reduce do-it-yourself suicide?
If it looks like a duck and it quacks, then . . . (more…)
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MAUREEN TODHUNTER. Imaginations of the world, unite!
As news and other media apparently edge us toward a war-ready footing, we need to think critically about what informs our views, to imagine our way into more enlightened, more peaceful co-existence. (more…)
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K. HUSSAN ZIA. American Objective in Afghanistan
The Afghans are not a nation as such but a composition of numerous tribes. These form loose groupings based on ethnicity. Individuals owe their allegiance first and foremost to the tribe and after that to the ethnic group. Among the latter, Pashtoons constitute the dominant force and are the main element in the insurgency. They are divided into a number of tribes and sub tribes that have a common code of conduct known as Pakhtoonwali. There are more Pashtoons in Pakistan than in Afghanistan. They have traditionally treated the border between the two countries as informal and interacted with each other freely. (more…)
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JIM COOMBS. Nicholas Gruen and the lessons of history.
Nicholas Gruen’s piece in the Saturday Paper, Making the Reserve Bank a “people’s bank”, while gratifying in its support for my recent piece, lacks a particular historical perspective: we’ve been there before. (more…)
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STEWART LITTLE. Titles registry sale a super storm.
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian will bequeath the state a financial disaster for millions of property owners thanks to her government’s leasing of Land and Property Information’s 150-year-old Land Titles Registry. (more…)
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ARCHBISHOP FISHER. Does Pope Francis support same-sex marriage?
A number of commentators have recently suggested that loyalty to Catholic teaching, and especially to Pope Francis, would allow, even require, support for same-sex marriage; by implication, the Australian bishops misunderstand Catholic teaching and have been disloyal to Pope Francis by saying Catholics should vote NO. But what has Pope Francis actually said about this? (more…)
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JOHN MENADUE. ‘Faster economic growth demands better chief executives’. (Repost from 27 September 2016)
In the AFR today (1/9/2017) under a headline ‘The big end of town has no-one but itself to blame’, Laura Tingle said “Big business preaching against the rising tide of government is undermined by its own failures”. This was theme that I wrote about in September last year on the failures of our chief executives. This repost follows. (more…)
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PETER DAY. When Church leaders forget to tell the story that liberates.
Human sexuality is a complex and fragile thing; far greyer than black or white. It is best tended to by gentle, wise, and humble hands – religious leaders might like to consider dropping their megaphone diplomacy, then? (more…)
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JOHN MENADUE. What a post-war contrast – Germany and Japan; Angela Merkel and Shinzo Abe.
For all its atrocities in the 1930s and 1940s, Germany has become an exemplar country promoting prosperity and peace. Angela Merkel stands out as a world leader more than any other. By contrast, Japan has again become a divisive country in its region and its Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, has been acquiescing and promoting an ultra-nationalist cause. Germany quickly came to terms with its past. Japan has refused to.
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CHRIS MIDDLETON. ‘The Church’s teaching, if it isn’t expressed in terms of love – then it’s got it wrong.’
The postal vote on same-sex marriage will no doubt generate much discussion within families and communities, and, in particular, will play on sensitivities in Catholic circles where an understanding of sacramental marriage is so strong. (more…)
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JOHN MENADUE. When will Saudi Arabia be brought to account for its malign influence and promotion of terrorism?
Through its support of extremist Wahabism, the Saudi government has been promoting radical Islam around the world. Its influence has included funding schools, universities and mosques in over 80 countries. But like the issue of the burqa, few Australians want to discuss the highly dangerous activities of the Saudi government. (more…)
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GERMAN LOPEZ. Imagine if the media covered alcohol like other drugs
What if the media covered alcohol like it does other drugs? This was a question that came up in my coverage of flake hka, a synthetic drug that made headlines after law enforcement blamed it for people running in the streets naked in delusional paranoia. What follows is a satirical attempt at capturing that same type of alarmist reporting, but for a substance that really causes widespread and severe problems. (more…)
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‘Theresa May. Hang your head in shame.’
From Dublin to the Somme: How the Death of an Irish priest exposes the tragedy of Brexit, by Robert Fisk. (more…)
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ROB MOODIE. Seven tactics that unhealthy industries use to undermine public health policies.
Across Africa there are examples of governments trying to introduce policies that improve health and protect the environment only to find their efforts undermined by unhealthy corporations and their industry associations. A case in point is South Africa’s efforts to introduce a tax on sugary drinks to reduce the growing burden of obesity. In the process they are facing a barrage of resistance. This is one small example of unhealthy industries undermining the public’s health and the global environment. This is about how rent seekers go about protecting their selfish interests. (more…)
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EMMA CARMODY. Murray, Darling, what’s all this 4 Corners fuss about?
This article examines the contents of a recently aired 4 Corners episode, Pumped, which included allegations of water theft, corruption and regulatory capture in the Murray-Darling Basin. (more…)
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FREYA HIGGINS DESBIOLLES. The politics of public monuments: It’s time Australians looked at what, and whom, we commemorate
Recent events in the US have seen Confederate Civil War monuments pulled down and painful histories revisited. Comparing these acts to those of the Islamic State terror group, Spiked editor Brendan O’Neill evocatively called this an “Orwellian war on history” and a “Year Zero mentality” on the march. O’Neill also took aim at Australia’s Yarra Council for its recent decision to no longer celebrate Australia Day on January 26. This is a result of ongoing calls from Indigenous groups to change the date of the national day. This is because it marks the 1788 arrival of the First Fleet at Botany Bay and is thus, in their view, “invasion day”. O’Neill is wrong. It is not a matter of erasing history but a question of whose history is told. In Australia, it has been called the “the Great Australian silence”, following W.E.H. Stanner, as we stubbornly refuse to tackle these issues. (more…)
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JOHN FALZON. Politics is concentrated economics
Stark displays of inequality, such as the concentration of homeless people in Martin Place, challenge us to unite in solidarity with those who are oppressed by injustice – an injustice that is a deliberate aspect of our neoliberal economic system. (more…)
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ADAM BROINOWSKI. Picking up the pieces amid the U.S.–North Korea nuclear stand-off
North Korea is often righteously condemned for being the only nation to have conducted five nuclear tests and a barrage of missile tests in the 21st century. Led by a young chubby dictator with a bad haircut, we have long been told that the paranoid hermit kingdom known for its undeniably bombastic, intensely patriotic and anachronistic rhetoric is evil, unhinged and dangerous. (more…)
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John Menadue. The burqa and hijab – public space must be neutral and secular.-a repost
The burqa and the hijab are stale news in France.
There has been an important debate and discussion on Muslim head and body covering in France for many years. The simple head dress or hijab, turbans and kippas have been banned in French schools since 2004. The burqa has been banned in public spaces since 2010. The French approach has a wide consensus across the political spectrum. (more…)
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PHIL O’DONNELL. A Tale of Two Churches
Threats by Catholic bishops to dismiss employees who marry same sex-partners reveal not only a lack of compassion, but also a deep gulf between the authoritarian and conservative concerns of the church hierarchy and the pastoral and justice concerns of many of its priests, religious and parishioners. (more…)
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The Myth About Marriage
Paul Collins’ recent article, An Open Letter to Sydney Archbishop Anthony Fisher, has attracted record numbers of readers for this blog. The following article by Garry Wills elaborates on the ‘myth about marriage’.
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MICHAEL LAMBERT. The shambles of Australia’s national electricity policy.
Australia has rich energy resources, both fossil and renewable, and a well considered electricity market design, as evidenced by the National Electricity Market (NEM), so why is our electricity market policy overall in such a shambolic state? Successive national governments have failed to address the core policy issues that are fundamental if the ‘trilemma’ of current challenges are to be resolved. (more…)
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RANALD MACDONALD. ABC deal comes back to haunt the Government (Episode Two).
Last week I began my summary of the Government’s complex negotiations aimed at getting its Media Reform Bill through the Senate with the words: “Make a deal for political expediency and then unforeseen consequences usually follow. The ABC and its future is not a ‘bargaining chip’ for the Government to use to pass legislation in the Senate. Yet a deal brokered by Communications Minister Fifield to gain Liberal Democratic Senator David Leyonhjelm’s vote some months back, has already come back to haunt it……..”. Well, the ‘haunting’ continues. (more…)