What would you include in a list of Australian government blunders if you were preparing a book like Anthony King and Ivor Crewe’s 2013 book Blunders of our Governments ?
King and Crewe looked at British governments both Tory and Labour and came up with a long list including the Millennium Dome (Blair); the poll tax (Thatcher); Private Finance Initiatives; IT disasters and others.
Over centuries – when faced with adversity, invasions and threats – much of the Arab world has often yearned for a new Saladin.
In the 43 years since the last Democrat Presidential candidate, Jimmy Carter, won Texas there has been increasing speculation that it could happen again.
A century after Max Weber’s Politics as Vocation was published – and 101 years after he delivered the speech on which it was based – it is fascinating to use the speech as a yardstick against which one can evaluate politicians like Scott Morrison, Boris Johnson and Donald Trump.
When 181 US chief executives, organised by the Business Roundtable, issued a “collective statement on the purpose of the corporation” it caused fury among some investors and economists; joy among some activists; cynicism among other activists; and, horror among conservative commentators.
It is easy to be alternately frightened, appalled and head-shakingly despairing about what comes out of Trump’s United States. Officials deleting all references to climate change from official documents; immigration policies that make Peter Dutton look like a raging leftie; ongoing attempts to ban abortion or make them impossible to get; spiralling defence spending compared with poor health and social services; and, increasing inequality.
Much of the fevered discussion on the future and failings of democracy is based on misconceptions, particularly the fact that some see democratic discontent and growing authoritarianism as a re-run of the 1930s – something possible but extremely unlikely.
Tim Fischer’s death reminds us that the Australians fought an even bigger, longer and more deadly battle in Vietnam than Long Tan – the Battle of Coral- Balmoral – at which he was wounded.
They did what they were trained to do, a friend and fellow Vietnam veteran said about the new film, Danger Close, when we caught up this week. This was not to denigrate in any way the sacrifice and bravery of 108 infantrymen with supporting artillery, helicopters and ultimately Armoured Personnel Carriers. Rather he meant to emphasise that the Australian Army trained, trained and trained its members to confront exactly that sort of situation and worked to inculcate a culture and camaraderie which produced professionalism, resilience and bravery.
As well as having to keep an eye out for Russian electoral interference we now need to watch out for the fake news promulgated by knights of the realm – and the employee whistle blowers who provide the evidence of what their knightly employers, such as Sir Lynton Crosby and his company CTF Partners, do.
The phrase putting lipstick on a pig is probably unfair to pigs. For a generation brought up on Miss Piggy it might even be incomprehensible. But it does sum up a public relations innovation which resulted in a man who had been convicted of sexual assault getting positive coverage in the US magazines Forbes, HuffPost and National Review.
Cairns in Far North Queensland is a remarkable place where remarkable things – excellent, good, bad and odd – occur.
“From whence and whereof cometh yon Trump? From some distant time or world?” Well that’s how it might be put in cod Elizabethan dialogue.
The defining characteristics of Australia’s right wing cultural warriors – whether in the Liberal Party, the Murdoch media or the usual think tank suspects – are their breathtaking hypocrisy and the very real threat they pose to the liberal values so many have fought to inculcate in society.
There is nothing more beloved of apocalyptic thinkers, intelligence agencies, conservative politicians and general scare-mongers than the threat of some disaster. It is even better when the threat is insidious, little understood and able to be transformed into policies which actually have other purposes.
UK Tory Government climate policy is enough to create a slight yearning for the days when Australian conservatives looked to the so-called Mother Country for guidance.
Remember the Alamo, remember the Maine, remember the Gulf of Tonkin, remember the weapons of mass destruction and now remember the Kokuka Sangyo tanker.
The automatic response when you hear the word Tweet is to associate it with Trump. Yet some recent Pew Research Center suggests the Tweeter in chief is out of step with most other Tweeters.
Well, after a couple of weeks’ consideration, just another Steven Bradbury phenomenon, something else altogether, or perhaps just a re-run in more virulent form of the fake news and social media negative campaigns seen in the 2016 Presidential election and Brexit referendum?.
As Anzac Day approaches are you getting ready to remember afresh how Anzac defines Australian culture and history and why we fought; how the French will never forget Australia and its role in WWI; and, how our Vietnam veterans were spat upon, reviled and denied welcome home marches?
“This is the West sir, and when the legend becomes fact, print the legend” says the reporter to the Governor who is returning to a town for the funeral of a friend,Tom Doniphon, in the final scenes of the 1965 film The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. The quote came to mind when reading an obituary of the economist, Alan Krueger, just after reading yet another quote from yet another business leader saying that increasing the minimum wage would increase unemployment. And this wage-unemployment myth is very much part of a modern Western myth just as much as it was part of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance US western cow town myth.
If you were running the Victorian Government what would you do with a spare billion dollars? Education, health, clean energy, public transport, the arts, reduced taxes or something else entirely?
It is symptomatic of much that is disturbing and dangerous about Australian political discourse that Australia’s continuing decline in international public sector corruption rankings is given so little attention.
Kim Jong-un has managed to achieve something that Presidents Johnson and Nixon couldn’t – get the draft dodging Donald Trump to Vietnam. Of course Trump didn’t stay long – soon leaving on a jet plane. (more…)
As Australia is heading for the mother of fear campaigns for the next election it is significant that in the USA – home of fear, loathing and negative campaigns – voters are becoming alarmed about the most fundamental threat (other than nuclear war precipitated by Trump sitting on the button) to the future of our world. (more…)
Despite Donald Trump, Scott Morrison and others there is a significant change of opinion on climate change around much of the western world – particularly in the US of all places – for the better. (more…)