It would be very comforting if Anthony Albanese and Richard Marles were adopting the ‘status quo’ stance regarding China’s aspirations in respect of Taiwan. Sadly, the evidence says the opposite, according some other recent P&I posts. (more…)
Ray Bricknell
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Defence policy for Australia now a no brainer.
John Menadue’s post of the Chinese weapons summary by Godfree Roberts landed on my desk just in time for my U3A Brisbane Current Affairs class on 11 May 21. Not surprisingly, the class was scheduled to discuss the recent talk about a possibly imminent war with China coming from our federal government ministers and senior public servants. Whether for domestic political ends or not, that talk has been aggravating China.
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It took an accounting book to teach me the importance of Indigenous peoples’ connection to ‘Country’
It is said that Einstein’s Theory of Relativity came to him as he was leisurely riding a bike. Christopher Stone’s inspiration to write a potentially world-changing paper came to him as a result of a flippant question he posed to a law class he was teaching in 1972: Should trees have rights? Both changed the way planet earth should logically be viewed.
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Assessing democratic governments from first principles
Australia regularly gets rated as one of the best performing representative democracies in the world. But anyone who regularly reads the posts by wise and experienced writers on the Pearls and Irritations site must surely wonder how that can be. (more…)
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A once in a century opportunity missed- A Liveable Income Guarantee
Ignoring for now the failure to promise an increase in Newstart, the general chorus emanating from commentators on the budget has been critical of the omission of serious money for social housing, for an increased childcare subsidy, and for increased rental assistance – all of which would have provided instant and widespread stimulatory bang for the buck. (more…)
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Aged care has become a property play – perhaps even for some church groups?
Whenever governments outsource or subsidize a community service, it is amazing how quickly and cleverly the private sector finds a way to milk it.
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Political parties are a fact of life, that’s what makes them damaging to democracy
We have a tendency to assume the way things are is the way they’ve always been. Nothing could be further from the truth. It’s time to re-examine the political party.
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Aged Care as part of a National Care Service.
This post was inspired by a piece posted on Pearls and Irritations by Sue Rabbitt Roff which was so comprehensive and profoundly logical that it was only on a second reading that its full value was appreciated. (more…)
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Childcare subsidies. I was wrong – childcare should be subsidised
In a recent post I listed a range of points which had me convinced that childcare should not be subsidised by the community. Christopher Budd (CB) kindly took the time to counter each of my points in turn, and I gratefully acknowledge that he has convinced me I was wrong. This post summarises the arguments which changed my mind. (more…)
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Poverty is a policy choice, made for the poor by the affluent
We live in the most interesting and uncertain times ever. This can be stated with certainty because the rate of change today is an order of magnitude faster than even one hundred years ago. So let’s try a new economic policy mindset. (more…)
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Childcare – why should it be subsidised at all?
Increased subsidisation of childcare seems to be the received wisdom these days, so perhaps I am the only one in step. But please tell me again why other members of the community should pay to subsidise those parents who want to farm out the care of their young children so they can do other work in lieu. (more…)
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RAY BRICKNELL. Solving the Morrison government’s Newstart problem
Having ditched the Holy Grail of a budget surplus, admitting in the process – in deeds if not in words – that unemployment is a bigger problem than government debt, the Morrison government now faces a serious quandary. (more…)
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RAY BRICKNELL. Will traditional economic ideologies in Australia survive the pandemic unchanged?
Never waste a crisis – we are hearing this a lot, and for good reason. Covid-19 is presenting politicians with a lot of opportunities to slip significant changes through relatively un-noticed. (more…)
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RAY BRICKNELL. Fixing our Democracy – Step one – Community Involvement in Policy Formulation
The Problem. As indicated in an earlier post, there is a fundamental deceit in the concept of governments claiming to have a mandate to introduce particular policies on the basis that the policy was presented as part of a multi-policy election platform, and the party proposing that policy was subsequently elected. (more…)
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RAY BRICKNELL. Australia’s Broken System of No-Longer-Representative Democracy
A problem recognised is half solved.The biggest single problem facing Australia today is the fact that two major political parties have taken a stranglehold on our system of representative democracy. (more…)