Donald Trump has resorted to tariffs, imposed against friend and foe alike. There are no compromises or special deals because it’s not about favours for friends, or compliance, or punishment. Tariffs are part of a desperate bid to stave off insolvency. (more…)
Category: Policy
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Minority government: what will it look like?
After the election Australia is likely to have a minority government with the independents, who will hold the balance of power, negotiating each issue on its merits. But democracy is best served if each independent states before the election which party they will support to form a government by guaranteeing supply. (more…)
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What happens if no party achieves a parliamentary majority?
This article is taken from Ian McAuley’s regular Saturday round-ups of links to writings, interviews and podcasts of Australian political and economic issues. (more…)
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The good, the bad and the downright ugly: Our media is broken
We have become accustomed, not too happily, to a form of political journalism in which opinion and news have increasingly merged, blunting the essential distinction between political commentary and detached objectivity. With journalists now routinely writing both news and opinion, this distinction has become impossibly blurred, undermining the impartiality and accuracy on which political journalism depends. (more…)
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Trump Mk II, McKinley and late-imperialism
Donald Trump’s first term as president tested the US’s political boundaries, but his second term has demolished them. A month in and his second presidency is already notable for upending US domestic democracy and completely recasting US foreign policy. Some of this was predictable. (more…)
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People’s inquiry into campus free speech on Palestine to shine a light on repression
When power oppresses, civil society must hold it to account. Like media and the arts, university campuses in Australia have become sites of censorship and suppression of free speech on the question of Palestine. (more…)
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Dutton’s stuff-ups: Nuclear plan will blow up Paris and emissions targets, CCA says
Choosing a nuclear power future over renewables will blow up Australia’s carbon emissions budget and create a carbon time bomb of up to two billion tonnes in extra greenhouse gases by 2050, a new analysis from the federal government’s Climate Change Authority says. (more…)
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A fantasy: The revolution that shook the world
It began with a whisper. A voice, quiet but clear, weaving its way through the fabric of Australian society, carrying with it a simple, but radical, idea: that power should belong to the people, not just those who sat in Parliament House. At the heart of this movement was an historian, and a woman of extraordinary vision. (more…)
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The Grandmother Effect, an evolutionary lesson for housing policy
Evolution works by conserving traits that carry value for the species, but more often it is perceived as “survival of the fittest” or in “social darwinism”. These are literary licences: scientifically, they are close to misinformation. A look at the Grandmother Effect will show you why. (more…)
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The government hasn’t exactly been doing nothing
With a Federal Election looming, Australians will soon be asked to make a choice about which party they want to lead the nation — whether in majority or minority government — for the next three years. (more…)
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Who should take responsibility for youth crime?
A baby might be kicked into life as the result of a careless moment behind the woodshed or a romantic frolic in a grand four-poster bed. Either way, nine months later, that squirming mass of new life will enter the world – wanted or unwanted, prepared for or not. (more…)
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Free meals threatened – and threatening
Before the 18th century Enlightenment, church and state in Europe were one. In Indonesia, fears that Islam will infiltrate civic affairs go back to the founding of the Republic. Instead, the threats are not from the mosques, but the military. (more…)
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Appeasement in the 21st century
Commentary around Donald Trump tends to gravitate to the delusion that he is the leader of the most powerful country on the planet. Every time we blindly accept that delusion, we reinforce it, we assume that we are powerless in the face of such a powerful country. We forget that America’s power is a product of alliances struck during the cold war. Alliances based on the principle of co-operation. That co-operation was/is based on shared values of justice, the rule of law, human rights and constitutional democracy. (more…)
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The politicisation of casting actors: Policy versus common sense
Casting for stage plays should be sensible, but right now in Australia sense has been diminished by sensitivity policies. An actor inherently appropriates his or her character’s culture. She or he must. That’s the job. But now “cultural appropriation” policy and procedures have some actors fearful of damaging their careers if they stray from the current dictates. A straight woman fears playing a lesbian. A man listing his Spanish accent on his CV turns down the role of a Spaniard. (more…)
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Denigrating refugees: Media Watch is no exception
Australian citizens and residents who originally came to this country seeking asylum, as they are clearly entitled to do under international law, have been in the news recently, through no fault of their own and not in a good way. Sections of the media and some politicians have attacked them for doing what all citizens and residents have a right to do, that is to bring their partners and close relatives to Australia. (more…)
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Enchained to a world departed? Australian policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
The two-state solution is no longer viable, and Australia must rethink its approach to Israel-Palestine in line with its evolving values and demographics. Instead of privileging one ethno-religious group, Australia should advocate for a single democratic framework ensuring equality and shared sovereignty for both Israelis and Palestinians. (more…)
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Working for Whitlam
Future MP Race Mathews had an insider’s view of policy development — not least health policy — in the office of the leader of the opposition. (more…)
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A massive mandate?
Donald Trump and the MAGA gang point to the ‘massive mandate’ he obtained to justify any policy he may implement. (more…)
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Only pathetic bootlickers spend their energy criticising China
The buzz around Xiaohongshu and then DeepSeek has had an unusually high volume of westerners speaking positively about China for the last couple of weeks, which of course means we’re also seeing many westerners falling all over themselves to say “Well actually China is actually quite bad actually” in response. (more…)
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What is Dan Tehan and the Coalition offering on asylum seeker policy?
As the overall number of asylum seekers in Australia continues to rise and is now over 120,000, Shadow Immigration Spokesperson Dan Tehan regularly criticises the Labor Government for not doing enough to get control of asylum seeker numbers. But with a Federal Election just months away, we do not know what either the Coalition or Labor will do to get on top of the issue. (more…)
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Mainstream media fails to mention positive Labor policies
The new year in Australian politics, an all-important election year, began on a high with a host of initiatives taking effect from January 1, 2025. (more…)
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After the theft of a continent, welfare benefits beat work
Land rights now! By a strange quirk of fate, I was working in the Minister’s Office in 1976 when Parliament passed the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act. Great was our pride, and our expectations. In terms of securing title to land and sea the Act has been highly effective. But in terms of creating assets for wealth generation, and lifting household incomes, and providing the means for people to participate in the economic activity of the Country, not so much. (more…)
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How stupid is America’s ruling class?
Yes, there is an American ruling class, and we’ve now got the photos to prove it. (more…)
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Australia’s experiment with drug summits
Australia’s first official meeting referred to as a ‘drug summit’ was convened on 2 April 1985 in Canberra by Bob Hawke, the then ALP Prime Minister. (more…)
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Overcoming Australia’s Euro centric Anglo cultural paradigm and symbiotic military alliance with the U.S.
The ABC should be the voice of reason in Australia’s society, and that reason should loudly proclaim that Australia is in the middle of Asia and it is in its self interest to act in accordance with that geographical fact.
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All at (sixes and) sevens and eights: Taiwan policy
The fate of the world may well rest on Taiwan but our policy is at sixes and sevens, or rather, according to recent statements in the Australian press, at sevens and eights. (more…)
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25 years of reviews and policy statements: What do they reveal about Australia’s R&D challenges?
Australia’s ability to harness the full potential of its research and development (R&D) capacity has been a subject of intense scrutiny for at least 25 years. (more…)
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Policymakers confused about compost
Food waste collection services have dominated the discussion around landfill emissions recently. With a lot of things happening in the organic waste sector, I have recently mapped and met with many small-scale composters around Australia, to get an idea of the contribution that decentralised organic waste processing could make towards landfill reduction targets. The pattern emerging is that rural communities take to composting quite well, while the number of composting communities in Sydney and Melbourne is quite small. Brisbane, however, is quite surprising. (more…)
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The US sees China through the dark mirror of its own unbridled aggression
As China grows and prospers many in the US want us to believe that China will follow the same path that the US itself pursued – global military aggression, the overthrow of numerous governments around the world and persecution of minorities at home. (A repost from February 2023.)
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Dutton’s policy exposes the Liberals as slow learners
Prudent public policy seeks to protect us against black swan events. Black Swan Theory (BST) is a metaphor that describes a rare, unexpected event that has a huge impact and is difficult to predict. These events are considered outliers because there is no past data to indicate when they could occur. (more…)