Category: Politics

Bill Shorten’s decision last week was a real shock – but it was the second decision, not the first, that was the surprising one. (more…)

For even the most masochistic of political tragics, parliamentary question time can be wearing.  A constant screaming match of ever more virulent abuse and insult, it sounds (and sometimes looks) less like a part of the democratic legislative process and more like the final of the big swinging dicks competition, open to all members regardless of allegiance or even gender.   (more…)

Australia bugged East Timor’s cabinet rooms during the 2004 bilateral negotiations over the Timor Sea Treaty. The operation was illegal, unscrupulous and remains unresolved. The perpetrator was the Howard government, although the Rudd, Gillard and Abbott governments are co-conspirators after the fact. I can explain today that the scandal has just gotten a whole lot worse, because the Turnbull government has now moved to prosecute the intelligence officer who blew the whistle on the secret operation, along with his legal counsel, Bernard Collaery. (more…)

These days, opinion polls and surveys provide the basis for many a proclamation about the state of the world. According to the 2018 Lowy Institute Poll, only 47% of Australians between 18 and 44 years of age say ‘democracy is preferable to any other kind of government’. As someone who still thinks of democracy as the least-bad system of government, that figure alarms me. (more…)

Now that Bill Shorten and the Labor Party have begun to propose some sensible restrictions on the irresponsible tax reductions proposed by the LNP government the old adage of “class warfare” is being invoked again in the mainstream media and by hard right politicians. But how useful is this as a rhetorical device and will it have any resonance for anybody other than those who use it? (more…)

Letter from Dr Anthony Pun, OAM, National President, Chinese Community Council of Australia and Chairman of the Multicultural Communities Council of New South Wales.   (more…)

A regular connection of links to writings and broadcasts covered in other media. (more…)

Humanity had a chance to avoid the class war now raging.  It might have come from The Harvard War that was fought and lost in the early 1930s. Hardly noticed at the time, it gets no mention today, yet it had the most profound impact on our civilization of any since the ructions in Judea of yon.    (more…)

The Murdoch media and its political minions in the Coalition have declared that Bill Shorten is conducting a class war against hardworking Australian “aspirationalists”. The pseudo-conservatives in the media and the parliament equate Labor’s opposition to their taxation policies with seriously undermining the Australian economy while destabilizing Australian society. (more…)

Every time Labor in Opposition proposes to remove or reduce a publicly funded benefit from a high earning individual, or a medium to large company, anguished cries of “class war” ring out

Is it class warfare to reduce investor tax concessions at a time when in NSW alone over five years homelessness has increased by 48%? (more…)

Emeritus Professor Jenny Hocking last week secured an important decision on costs from the Federal Court of Australia in her case against the National Archives of Australia seeking the release of the ‘Palace letters’ about the dismissal of the Whitlam government.  (more…)

BEIJING (Reuters) – Beijing has begun downplaying Made in China 2025, the state-backed industrial policy that has provoked alarm in the West and is core to Washington’s complaints about the country’s technological ambitions, diplomatic and Chinese state media sources said. (more…)

Whichever way you look at it, Saturday’s by-election in the hills of Perth was a heavy blow to the West Australian Government and Premier Mark McGowan and a corresponding boost for the Liberal Party. (more…)

Next week the group attempting to oust board directors at Internet domain names authority auDA will have an opportunity to explain in detail the reasons for their concern and their solutions. (more…)

On the last weekend in June, the ALP will hold its NSW Conference. The agenda is packed with items including indigenous, community and country issues, education, health, and social justice. Right at the end is ‘Australia and the World.’ This is to be expected, as State governments aren’t responsible for foreign affairs and defence – although they do have to consider treaties. But resolutions from the NSW ALP will go forward to Labor’s National Conference in December, where they could influence the more vigorous debate you might expect about the growing list of problems facing Australia. (more…)