Bob Carr says Malcolm Turnbull’s reset of relations with China was inevitable, as the fears his government has allowed to spread – about Chinese money in Australia’s democracy and China’s growing influence in the region – had little substance, and have done Australia more harm than good. (more…)
Category: Politics
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JENNIFER DOGETT AND P & I CONTRIBUTIONS. -An important series on drug law reform (Croakey)
Drug law reform is an issue that has been on the political agenda for decades, with varying degrees of urgency. Yet despite the overwhelming evidence for law reform and the sustained efforts of advocates from a range of sectors, most of the political and legislative changes required to reduce the harms associated with illicit drug use have not been achieved. (more…)
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MUNGO MacCALLUM. Peter Dutton wants to rule the nation.
If Peter Dutton was to be arraigned before an international tribunal for serial abuse of human rights I would cheer. If the charges were upgraded to crimes against humanity I would regard it as a fair cop. But if the court in its wisdom imposed a death sentence I would protest in the streets. My opposition to capital punishment is absolute and unequivocal. (more…)
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HYLDA ROLFE. What’s in a name? The threat to our National Parks
For three years now, Sydney-based company Gap Bluff Hospitality Pty Ltd (GBH) has been revising an offer it made to NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) under which the company would assume a large share of the burden of repair and maintenance of former Defence and other buildings in the Gap Bluff and Green Point sectors of Sydney Harbour National Park at Watsons Bay NSW. While the financial terms of the offer were not made public, the deal envisaged the adaptation and use by GBH of several buildings in the National Park as an integrated event/function complex. The mountain laboured…. (more…)
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RAMESH THAKUR and RICHARD BUTLER. A spying scandal exposes Australia’s immoral behavior toward East Timor (Washington Post, 10.08.18)
Australia is leading the Western world in enacting tough new laws to curb foreign interference and influence-peddling in domestic affairs. The primary intended target is China. (more…)
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DEREK ABBOTT. Time to play to the ALP’s strengths
The outcome of the super Saturday by-elections have settled the question of Bill Shorten’s leadership at least until after the next general election. Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership also seems secure, if for no other reason than the lack of plausible alternatives. Both are unpopular and the by-elections (and polls) suggest that the electorate is sick of the focus on the leadership challenges and three word slogans masquerading as policy. (more…)
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DOUG TAYLOR. Drug Reform Series. Canada is set to become only the second country in the world to legalise marijuana.
Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, announced the move to legalise marijuana earlier this year. He said the move would take the market share away from organised crime and protect the country’s youth. (more…)
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GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND
A regular collection of links to writings and broadcasts covered in other media. (more…)
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RICHARD BUTLER. Foreign Policy on Auto-Pilot: In Spite of the Weather
Every week now, we are presented with another reason to think hard about exactly what our “joined at the hip” relationship with the US obliges us to do. July Bishop’s Foreign Policy White paper doesn’t meet that need. Indeed, it urges us to deepen our relationship with the US as the way ahead. Our relationship of dependence on the US renders us unable to address effectively the key current and foreseeable determinants, of politics among nations. (more…)
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RAMESH THAKUR. Syria: what if?
US President Donald Trump has been widely criticised for his supposed fawning performance in Helsinki at the summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin. But a minority of commentators have made three countervailing arguments to explain and justify Trump’s statements: preventing a US–Russia nuclear war by calming bilateral tensions that have arisen from the dangerous infection of Russophobia is a transcendental goal that should override all other considerations; if the main strategic rival in the foreseeable future is going to be China, then improving relations with Russia is a strategic move on the geopolitical chessboard; and Russian cooperation is essential to extricating the US from the mess created by the Obama administration’s pursuit of incoherent and inconsistent goals in the Middle East. (more…)
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MICHAEL McKINLEY. Whither Political Science?: Not dead but on life support – a response to Roger Scott.
In a recent post Roger Scott asks an appropriate question but it’s anachronistic – like asking why doesn’t Elvis do live concert anymore? Political Science was always a bastard, left-handed, red-haired child of the turn to scientism by the social sciences in the late 19th Century and it never recovered, thanks to the domination of successive generations of third-rate positivists deriving chimerical insights from mathematics ill-suited to a decent understanding of their subject matter. (more…)
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JERRY ROBERTS. Termites and other animals.
When West Australian Opposition Leader Mike Nahan appeared on the news under fire for dual citizenship I hope everybody else shared my reaction. Not again, I moaned. Surely, we had enough of this nonsense in the federal Parliament. Do we have to go through it in the States? (more…)
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ROGER SCOTT. Whither Political Science 2: A parochial perspective
The World Congress of the International Political Science Association (IPSA) was held jointly with the annual conference of the Australian Political Studies Association (AuPSA) in Brisbane in July 2018. The papers on Australia provided a snapshot of the breadth of scholarship and also underlying attitudes among political scientists towards the political system within which Australian universities function. (more…)
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RICHARD WOOLCOTT. An Updated Approach to Australia’s Engagement in the Asia and the South West Pacific.
The Australian Government and the Opposition must now base policy on three realities, namely that;
(a) Trump is essentially a unilateralist, despite the contradictory comments he often makes;
(b) United States involvement in Asia and the South West Pacific will be less active during Trump’s Presidency; and that
(c) China’s role in the Asia and the South West Pacific will be much more active in the decades ahead, including its ‘One Belt, One Road’ project. -
JOHN MENADUE. National Parks and the new squatters
The new squatters on public land are being given a leg-up, as they were in the 19th Century, to seize and occupy public land. By deliberately underfunding National Parks developer-friendly governments are putting commercial interests ahead of the public interest.
Our early wealthy and powerful squatters forced indigenous people off the land they had occupied for tens of thousands of years. The new squatters are taking over more and more of our public land – national parks, botanic gardens and public reserves.
There is currently an attempt by a latter-day squatter, aka developer – Gap Bluff Hospitality Pty Ltd – to in effect destroy the ‘peaceful enjoyment’ of the Sydney Harbour National Park by developing a series of quite inappropriate features for weddings, ‘bucks’ and hens’ parties’ and student formals. (more…)
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NICK BISLEY. Is there a problem with… the Quad?
At the sidelines of the 2017 East Asia Summit (EAS) in Manila, senior officials from Australia, India, Japan and the United States’ respective foreign ministries met under the aegis of the ‘Australia-India-Japan- United States consultations on the Indo-Pacific’. This was followed by a stage-managed meeting of the four countries’ naval chiefs at the Raisina Dialogue, a Track 1.5 process in India. The 2007 still-born Quadrilateral Security Initiative was back. (more…)
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WILLIAM PESEK. Toyota driving into a fierce economic storm.
What GM used to be to America, Toyota is to Japan: a weathervane for macro trends. On Friday, the carmaker admitted it is downhill from now. (more…)
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JEFFREY SACHS. Trump is robbing America of what makes it great (Washington Post)
American prosperity since World War II has been built upon science and technology breakthroughs spurred by a powerful innovation system linking the federal government, business, academia and venture capital. U.S. innovation policy has been successfully emulated in Europe and Asia, most recently by China. President Trump’s trade war against China aims to slow China’s technology ascent but is misguided and doomed to fail; instead, American prosperity should be assured by doing what America does best: innovating at home and trading with the rest of the world. (more…)
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IAN DUNLOP. A Parliament Without Trust or Legitimacy Must Go
The insults hurled by David Leyonhjelm at Sarah Hanson-Young recently put parliamentary discourse in the gutter. Leyonhjelm was roundly condemned, but not by our leaders. A limp slap across the knuckles from Turnbull and Shorten, then on to more pressing matters, hoping it will all go away. (more…)
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JOHN MENADUE. The Great Barrier Reef Foundation and crony capitalism
Just imagine if a Labor prime minister handed out a $444 million grant to a small reef ‘charity’ without any due process. The Murdoch media would be even more apoplectic than usual. There is a lack of transparency and probity in this case. The Chairman’s Panel for this reef charity is full of mates and cronies. (more…)
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ANTHONY PUN. The Battle for Indo-Pacific.
China is surrounded by at least 16 countries, some with common borders and territorial disputes with her. Japanese PM’s proposal in 2005 to form a Quad alliance (US, Australia, India and Japan) is seen by China as the introduction of Cold War in the Asia Pacific. Former Australian Ambassador to China, Geoff Raby provides a deep insight why Australia should not be a part of it. The analysis of individual countries surrounding China revealed that the BRI initiatives are making an impact on the recipient countries and they are more likely to be neutral or distance themselves from the Quad. India and Japan are likely to changes sides when it suits their national interests and that leaves Australia holding the unwanted baby. (more…)
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ALAN KOHLER. Another fine energy shambles (The Australian, 07/08/18)
Years of cat-herding by those who actually know and care about Australia’s electricity market will come to fruition this week with the meeting of COAG energy ministers to discuss the National Energy Guarantee, and possibly make a decision about it. Or maybe not. (more…)
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RAMESH THAKUR. Australia’s invisible Asians
There are three components to any spoken or written act of communication: the intended message (what was meant by the sender); the message as conveyed (what was actually said); and the message as received (how it is interpreted by the recipient). The emphasis on language and inoffensive speech – with offence being subjective as per the recipient’s feelings, not the intention of the author nor the actual content of the message – allows the virtue-signalling instinct to be satisfied. The price is a neglect of the advancement of the substance of the inter-group equality agenda. (more…)
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GEOFF MILLER. Trump’s unilateral use of economic power: will it work, and what about the consequences?
Trump’s actual and threatened use of the United States’ economic power to bring about changes in other States’ behaviour raises questions about the utility of such behaviour and its likely consequences, as well as about the United States’ commitment to multi-lateral institutions. (more…)
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ROGER SCOTT. “WHITHER POLITICAL SCIENCE? – An International Perspective”
Fundamental questions are starting to be asked by governments everywhere about the value-for-money of tertiary education in general and about various components of the humanities and social sciences in particular. A world congress of political scientists meeting in Brisbane confronted this topic from a number of different perspectives and noted growing expectations that political scientist academics should be focussing their efforts on making an impact on the policy process. (more…)
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RICHARD FLANAGAN. The world is being undone before us. If we do not reimagine Australia, we will be undone too
In the full transcript of his speech to the Garma festival, the author says the country can make itself stronger by saying yes to the Uluru statement (more…)
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MICHAEL JENSON. Nigerian farmers are under attack, so why don’t we hear about it?
We’ve heard a lot lately about white South African farmers being killed in farm murders. But another group of African farmers are being killed in far greater numbers and we’ve barely heard a whimper. (more…)
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JOHN MENADUE Drug reform series
From next Monday Pearls and Irritations will be posting fifteen articles on the need for drug reform. (more…)
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FINTAN O’TOOLE. ‘Yeats Test’ criteria reveal we are doomed (Irish Times 28/7/2018)
There are many ways to measure the state of the world and economists, ecologists and anthropologists labour mightily over them. Opening the Yeats International Summer School in Sligo last week, I suggested another one: the Yeats Test. The proposition is simple: the more quotable Yeats seems to commentators and politicians, the worse things are. As a counter-example we might try the Heaney Test: if hope and history rhyme, let the good times roll. But these days, it is the older Irish poet who prevails in political discourse – and that is not good news.
