There is nothing new in stories about ‘jobs for the boys’ .Both sides of politics are equally guilty. What is surprising is that the practice endures despite the frequent media stories and the public’s obvious disgust. Behind the appointment of a new leadership team at Tourism Australia by Tourism Minister Ciobo lies another egregious example of this; ‘you rub my back and I will give you a nice sinecure’ practice. (more…)
Category: Politics
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WE ARE ALSO READING …
Pearls and Irritations provides the following links for weekend reading:
Dance of the elephants – Inside Story (Matthew Ricketson). When governments and Big Media dance together, it is not a pretty picture.
US Senate Democrats show off anti-religious bigotry – Washington Post (Michael Gerson)
Pope Francis Calls Out Trump, Accuses Him of “Pro-Life” Hypocrisy – Vanity Fair (Tina Nguyen)
Bangladeshis helping Rohingya: “I gave them shelter because I am a human being” – Aljazeera
Debate about energy needs to put people first – Pearls and Irritations Repost (Tony Maher). What coal mine workers think about the energy mess, by the National Secretary of the CFMEU.
Rooftop solar and storage, cheaper than subsidising old coal – RenewEconomy (Giles Parkinson). Coal is expensive, dirty and old hat!
The life my brother never had because he was gay – Canberra Times (David Kirby). David Kirby writes about his brother, Michael.
We’ve turned our universities into money-grubbing exploiters – Ross Gittins. It’s not just the current government’s assault on university funding. Commercialisation of our universities goes back at least 30 years and has left academics with the dismal choice of a crippling workload or a lowering of teaching and research standards.
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EVAN WILLIAMS. Nanny state? Bring it on!
Among conservatives, the term “nanny state” is enjoying a new vogue. And its use is by no means confined to a handful of loony libertarians. Any action intended to protect personal safety or curb anti-social behaviour is now seen as evidence of the dreaded nanny state taking over our lives. Gun-control laws, mandatory helmets for bike riders, plain packaging on cigarettes, compulsory vaccination for kids – all are part of a sinister left-wing plot to destroy capitalism. (more…)
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RAMESH THAKUR. Mr President, the United Nations is not a New York sub-office of the State Department
On Tuesday, Hurricane Trump made landfall at UN Headquarters in Turtle Bay. What had been feared as a category 5 storm had weakened to category 3 – which can still cause considerable destruction. Trump invoked Biblical language in justification for the harsh rhetoric against the ‘scourge of our planet’ today: ‘If the righteous many do not confront the wicked few, then evil will triumph’. (more…)
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GEOFF MILLER. North Korea: see you, and raise.
Trump’s apocalyptic speech to the UN, combined with Mattis’s comments, are designed both to daunt Kim Jong Un and to alarm China and Russia into putting more pressure on him. (more…)
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FRANK BRENNAN. Same sex marriage and freedom of religion.
NZ Prime Minister Bill English was being interviewed by Fran Kelly on ABC RN Breakfast on Monday morning. Fran asked him about same sex marriage which is now law in New Zealand. He stressed that freedom of religion is important. She observed: “You voted ‘No’ in 2013 but you’ve said if the vote was held now, you would vote ‘yes’. Does that mean that the New Zealand experience of marriage equality has been a positive one for your country?” Prime Minister English replied: “It’s been implemented. There are a number of people taking advantage of it. We haven’t had quite the same challenges around free speech and religious freedom as here but I think it’s really important that that’s maintained. But it’s a pretty pragmatic approach really. It’s in law. I accept that that is the case: we have same sex marriage in New Zealand and we’re not setting out planning to change it.” (more…)
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JOHN MENADUE. Principles to guide housing policy and programs.
Housing policy should be based on three important principles. First, we should value housing for its use-value, not its exchange-value. Second, housing policy should be part of community and neighbourhood building. Third, housing policy should promote social mixing and sharing, rather than stratification. (more…)
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TONY SMITH. The farcical appeal to ‘family values’
Some opponents of marriage equality have resorted to spurious arguments about ‘family values’. The record of arch-conservatives on war, overseas aid, asylum seekers, Indigenous affairs, the social safety net, free market capitalism, the working poor and the monarchy suggests that the reference to family values is a hollow and hypocritical rhetorical device. (more…)
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PAUL BUDDE. Smart energy – or tilting at windmills
After more than 15 years of industry initiatives aimed at smart energy, the government has successfully frustrated and/or stopped such initiatives and is actively working against the solutions preferred by the industry (smart grids, gas, renewables, batteries). (more…)
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MUNGO MACCALLUM. With Turnbull, hope is all we’ve got.
Malcolm Turnbull is doing something about the energy crisis he has manufactured. (more…)
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PETER FLINN. The brave new world of fire services in Victoria: is it go or woe?
The Country Fire Authority (CFA)in Victoria has long been recognised as one of the world’s leading volunteer fire-fighting organisations, but its boundaries with Melbourne’s Metropolitan Fire Brigade (MFB),which comprises career fire-fighters, have not changed since 1945. (more…)
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MAX HAYTON. Jacindamania in NZ
The New Zealand election campaign has produced a star but is it rising or setting or is it just a descending meteorite heading for early burnout? The polls on September 23 will give the answer. Current polls a week from Election Day are confused and confusing. (more…)
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MUNGO MacCALLUM. Murphy was a political giant, a man of voracious appetites on many levels.
Murphy may have been flawed, but he was a flawed colossus, a Labor hero. Whatever his peccadillos, history has already redeemed him. (more…)
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IAN McAULEY. Mates, lobbyists and rent-seekers
Two books, one recent the other written 35 years ago, explain how special interests are strangling the Australian economy. (more…)
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MICHAEL SAINSBURY. In defence of the tragic, impotent silence of Aung San Suu Kyi.
Can Pope Francis help with her effective silence over the Rohingya crisis being perpetrated by Myanmar’s military that is a measure of her government’s helplessness? (more…)
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JOHN AUSTEN. Doubts about infrastructure go beyond Sydney Metro.
John Menadue recently asked for an open public inquiry into the NSW Metro scheme. Given the momentous questions about that scheme and its supposed evaluation there is no doubt such an inquiry must be Australia’s highest infrastructure priority. (more…)
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RANALD MACDONALD. Testing times for the ABC with a ‘competitive, neutrality enquiry’.
One of our most trusted institutions is under real threat- and, like Humpty Dumpty, once broken may never be able to be put together again. (more…)
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WE ARE ALSO READING …
Pearls and Irritations provides the following links for weekend reading. (more…)
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WARWICK ELSCHE. From as far away as Australia it is difficult to assess America’s Trump administration.
Reading as widely as possible and watching American news reports helps but does not altogether solve the problem. Indeed, many Americans, far closer to the action are finding themselves similarly baffled. The President of just eight months has, in his own words, given us a picture of a truly remarkable occupant of the world’s top office. (more…)
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RICHARD BUTLER. New Sanctions on North Korea: No substitute for direct political engagement
The new sanctions on DPRK will likely suffer the failure of so many such sanctions orders. DPRK policy and actions have their reasons. Those must be addressed directly, politically. Will the nuclear weapon states do it, or is it too close to their bones? (more…)
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FRANK BRENNAN. We need a Bill of Rights
As Attorney General Lionel Bowen dedicated a lot of time and energy to a Bill of Rights. He introduced legislation which was doomed. But he outlined the principles for an Australian Human Rights Bill espousing the preconditions for the common good in contemporary Australia. He told Parliament: (more…)
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KOMALA RAMACHANDRA. Australia’s ‘Modern Slavery’ Proposal Falls Short
In mid-August Australia’s justice minister proposed a new law requiring the country’s biggest companies to report on their practices and policies to prevent forced labour in their operations and supply chains. The government wants to ensure that consumer products like food, electronics, and clothing – whether they’re made abroad or domestically – are not produced by people forced to work against their will. It is a laudable goal, but the steps they’ve taken are inadequate. (more…)
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MICHAEL MULLINS. Civil and religious marriage are best kept separate.
By conflating the civil law with religious ritual, we create confusion that makes it easy for the Church to claim authority that rightfully belongs to the state. In other words, the Church makes demands regarding sacramental marriage, which of course is OK. But it often weighs in on civil marriage as well, which is different. (more…)
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JENNY HOCKING. ‘Secret “Palace letters” not so secret after all’ and where is Malcolm?
The Federal Court case against the National Archives of Australia, seeking the release of the ‘Palace letters’ which are embargoed by the Queen, concluded in Sydney last week. The case centres on the critical question of whether these letters, between the Queen and the Governor-General, Sir John Kerr, at the time of the dismissal of the Whitlam government, are ‘personal’ rather than Commonwealth records. (more…)
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MUNGO MacCALLUM. An energy emergency after ten years!
Malcolm Turnbull assures us that he is concentrating on energy and its three pillars – cost, security and environment. Well, at least the first two; it must be said that the environment has not had much of a look in during the last frenzied week. (more…)
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CAVAN HOGUE. Our news media need less hysteria and more history
Australian reporting on international affairs leaves much to be desired as recent comments on the Philippines and Russia show. While the situation in Mindanao must be taken seriously, it is important to understand that only 20% of the inhabitants are Moslems and that most of the island is inhabited by Christian migrants. This doesn’t seem to be understood by some commentators. The threat is not to the island but to the south. Russia also gets superficial treatment which tends to descend into a goodies and baddies approach instead of a balanced one. (more…)
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FRANK BRENNAN. Developing an inclusive and sustainable economy (Speech launching the 2017 Social Justice Statement, 7 September 2017)
We’re here to launch Everyone’s Business: Developing an Inclusive and Sustainable Economy. 25 years ago, the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference published Common Wealth for the Common Good: A Statement on the Distribution of Wealth in Australia. Michael Costigan and Sandie Cornish who are with us this morning laboured long and hard over four years to produce that document 25 years ago. (more…)
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JOHN MENADUE. Are we stopping the boats to save lives at sea?
To justify its harsh refugee policies, the government has been telling us that its policies are designed to save lives at sea. The ALP also joins in this shabby chorus (more…)
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MUNGO MacCALLUM. ‘Come on chaps,I am right behind you’
It was not the end; it was not even the beginning of the end. But it was, finally, the end of the beginning. The High Court has at last fanned the long smouldering same sex marriage into flame, and now it has become a question of not if, but how, the inferno will play out and how many victims it will consume in the forthcoming holocaust. (more…)
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JOHN Menadue. It is scandalous how infrastructure spending escapes proper scrutiny
The gathering infrastructure mess in Australia requires open public inquiries, starting with the Sydney Metro. (more…)