Category: Politics

  • RAMESH THAKUR. Attempts to appease Trump will end badly

    When the Iran deal was signed three years ago, it met with stiff opposition from hardliners in Tehran and Washington. The former were infuriated at closing off possible pathways to the bomb while the agreement lasts in return for sipping from the poisoned chalice of an untrustworthy Satan. The American neocons were frustrated that regime change by all means necessary was closed off as long as the agreement held. (more…)

  • DMITRI TRENIN. Russia and Ukraine: From Brothers to Neighbours.

    Russia is parting ways with both Ukraine and Belarus. This did not have to be a tragedy with Ukraine, and can still be handled amicably with Belarus. Moreover, an independent Ukrainian state and a Ukrainian political nation ease Russia’s transition from its post-imperial condition and facilitate the formation of a Russian political nation. (more…)

  • RICHARD BUTLER. United States and Israel: Known By the Company We Keep.

    In our voting with the US against a resolution of the UN Human Rights Commission to establish an independent enquiry into recent Israeli use of lethal force against Palestinian demonstrators, we have shown far and wide, our subservience to the US and, by extension, to the policies of Benyamin Netanyahu. (more…)

  • JOHN TULLOH. Count Australia out on Iran, Uncle Sam.

    A U.S. presidential executive order makes it illegal for America to target a foreign leader for assassination. But it seems it is perfectly acceptable to try to throttle another country’s struggling economy as a means of getting rid of its leader through regime change. This appears to be the raison d’être of President Trump in dealing with Iran.   (more…)

  • JOHN DALEY AND BRENDAN COATES. We can’t begin to fix our housing crisis until our leaders start levelling with the public

    Governments at both Federal and State level are still avoiding the politically difficult changes that would make a real difference to housing affordability. But we won’t make progress unless our leaders eschew the popular but ineffective options in favour of planning and tax reforms that could actually improve affordability. (more…)

  • CHRIS MARTIN AND HAL PAWSON. Last year’s affordable housing green shoots have withered

    Budget 2018 fails the 1.5 million Australian households living in unaffordable rental housing or officially homeless, despite the urgent need for Commonwealth leadership on affordable housing policy. (more…)

  • MUNGO MACCALLUM. Liberals have a bloke problem.

    Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison were determinedly hitting the hustings last week as they tried to persuade the sceptical that their Enterprise Tax Plan was not only viable, but is actually a good idea. (more…)

  • ANDREW FARRAN. Parliamentary report on Section 44: Despite serious democratic deficit, referendum can wait!

    There could be no clearer case for an early referendum than the fact that over half of all Australians today have barriers to nomination under s.44.  In practice, the Report states, some may never be able to overcome these barriers and nominate.  Indeed, 10,779,230 people (46% of the population) were born overseas or have one or more parents who were born overseas – a percentage much the same as may have existed when s.44 was drafted in 1898; and clearly it was not intended then that all such persons should be excluded from the Parliament after Federation.  (more…)

  • JOHN AUSTEN. Newcastle port restriction – action not words please!

    Instead of handwringing politicians should act to reverse the outrageous restriction on Newcastle port. (more…)

  • HENRY SIEGMAN. The two-State solution: an autopsy

    During the latest outbreak of violence in Gaza, Israeli security forces, using high-powered rifles and live ammunition, have killed forty Palestinians (and counting), and wounded more than five thousand. B’Tselem, a leading Israeli human rights group, Human Rights Watch and Reporters Without Borders have all accused Israel’s government and its minister of defence, Avigdor Lieberman, of targeting reporters and mostly unarmed civilians. Lieberman replied that there are ‘no innocent people’ in Hamas-run Gaza. (more…)

  • Update to May 2017 ‘Making Housing Affordable’ series

    Pearls and Irritations continues to publish various blogs on housing affordability, recognising that the cost of and accessibility to appropriate housing remains out of reach for a significant part of the Australian population. (more…)

  • SAUL ESLAKE. What has changed in the housing market over the past year?

    Property prices have moderated in our largest cities over the past year, thanks in part to tightening of lending by APRA, and on inflows of foreign capital.  There is some respite for first-time buyers, but the picture for renters is mixed.  This year’s Budget had nothing significant for housing and those on lower incomes have little to celebrate in terms of housing reform. (more…)

  • MUNGO MacCALLUM. Turning a blind eye to the sheep trade.

    The problem with exporting live sheep is that the practice is inherently unpleasant.   (more…)

  • TAREQ BACONI. What the Gaza Protests Portend

    The battle against infiltration in the border areas at all times of day and night will be carried out mainly by opening fire, without giving warning, on any individual or group that cannot be identified from afar by our troops as Israeli citizens and who are, at the moment they are spotted, [infiltrating] into Israeli territory. (more…)

  • SUSAN RYAN. The impact of the 2018 Budget on women. It is most notable for its omissions.

    The National Foundation for Australian Women (NFAW) each year prepares an analysis of the impacts of the federal budget on women. Since the Coalition government abandoned the practice of including a Women’s Budget Statement in the official Budget documents, a policy-oriented women’s NGO, the NFAW,  has prepared this work.  This extract gives an overview of the impacts of the budget on older women.

    The clearest impact of this budget in relation to older women is this: for women home owners, there are potential benefits. For women who don’t own their home, there are few if any measures of potential assistance.  (more…)

  • ELAINE PEARSON. Australia’s lame response to Anwar Ibrahim’s detention was a mistake

    The region looks to Australia as a functioning democracy. We shouldn’t sideline human rights issues for trade and security ties. (more…)

  • GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND …

    “Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive. But to be young was very heaven” — that’s how many older Australians, with the distorted hindsight of nostalgia, look back on the turmoil of 1968. ABC Radio National has devoted a series of its regular programs to the events around 1968.  The most concise is a short discussion May 1968 revisited on Geraldine Doogue’s Saturday Extra.  Understandably most are retrospective, but there is also a program about lessons for today for those who seek social change  – the Gohn Day Memorial Lecture by Mary Frances Berry Lessons from past resistance movements.

    Medical Mystery: Something Happened to U.S. Health Spending After 1980 is the title of an article in the New York Times. Why, in spite of the huge and growing  amount of money Americans spend on health care, has America;s life expectancy not been rising as fast as in comparable nations?  The lack of universal coverage provides one explanation, as do the burden of private health insurance and the influence of Big Pharma. Also, the article’s author, Austin Frank of Boston University, attributes much to general worsening conditions for the poor. The same theme is taken up in Geraldine Doogue’s Saturday Extra last weekend where Sir Michael Marmot explains the influence of  “deaths of despair” from alcohol, other drugs and suicide, as well as inequality as contributing to lower life expectancy in parts of the USA.

    People are continuing to drop private health insurance. Figures from APRA show that in the year to March 37,000 people dropped PHI. This was a net figure after 98,000 people under 55 dropped PHI, while insurers gained 61,000 members over 55.  (Fifty-five is the age below which members are net contributors, and above which members are net drawers.) The insurance trade journal Insurance Business, citing a survey by Roy Morgan, attributes the fall to price, coverage gaps and satisfaction with Medicare. If the Coalition had been true to established form we might have expected some rescue effort in the budget, but there has been no specific mention of PHI in the budget.

    Abe walks a tightrope on Japan’s foreign worker policy (Japan Times, April 29 2018)

    The Iran deal scuppered – aspistragetist

    Alexander Downer’s secret meeting with FBI led to Trump-Russia inquiry – the Guardian.

    Nissan drives into home solar and battery storage market – RenewEconomy

     

  • MICHAEL PASCOE. Profit-rich private health insurers burning billions on non-health costs

    Australian capitalism’s sheltered workshop, the private health insurance industry, is burning billions of dollars a year unrelated to Australians’ health. (more…)

  • MICHAEL O’KEEFE. Why China’s ‘debt-book diplomacy’ in the Pacific shouldn’t ring alarm bells just yet

    Talk of Chinese “debt trap” diplomacy is nothing new, but a recent report by Harvard University researchers has resurrected long-held fears that China’s debt diplomacy poses a threat to Australian interests in the Pacific. (more…)

  • The Vicar of Bray

    The Vicar of Bray has become a cultural byword for political expediency, hypocrisy, and insincerity.  He changed his allegiances time and time again. Can you think of an Australian Minister who reminds you of the Vicar of Bray? (more…)

  • JOSE BELO and MICHAEL SAINSBURY. Timor-Leste’s new leaders warn president

    Former presidents Xanana Gusmao and Tuar Matan Ruak scotch unity government talk

    Overwhelmingly Catholic Timor-Leste could be heading for more political strife despite a coalition headed by independence hero Xanana Gusmao having a clear win in May 12 elections. (more…)

  • TIM WOODRUFF. A budget for inequality, worsening health outcomes and decreased productivity.

    As a financially comfortable part-time medical specialist, I will be in the group receiving the highest tax cut immediately, whilst my daughters working full time at much lower income will receive about one third of that. It’s of even more concern that, in seven years’ time, the major beneficiaries of the government  plan will be those on incomes like that of politicians, receiving eight times more in reduced tax compared to low income earners.  (more…)

  • ROGER SCOTT. The prominence of women in Queensland politics.

    Until this week, JANE PRENTICE was not on the roll of women prominent in Queensland politics, a short list which includes two ALP Premiers but also a number of women of alternative political persuasions, starting with Lady Flo and including two current party leaders. (more…)

  • KIM WINGEREI. Cultural Appropriation: Political Correctness gone bad – it is all about respect!

    The debate on Cultural Appropriation needs to be put into perspective, and the hoary old chestnut of Political Correctness derails proper debate – it is all about respect! (more…)

  • JOHN MENADUE. The scourge of lobbyists.

    There are many key public issues that we must address such as climate change, growing inequality, tax avoidance, budget repair, an ageing population, lifting our productivity and our treatment of asylum seekers. But our capacity to address these and other important issues is becoming very difficult because of vested interests with their lobbying power to influence governments in a quite disproportionate way. We are rightly concerned and distrustful of governments and politicians. We need better political leadership but lobbyists are a major contributor to the awful political malaise. The corrupting power of lobbyists must be drastically curbed.  The swamp must be drained. (more…)

  • DUNCAN GRAHAM. Praying is fine – Action is better.

    Five guards and an inmate died in a Jakarta prison riot last week, allegedly launched by Islamic State.  More than 150 terrorists are held at the overcrowded jail where turmoil erupted six months ago. 

    Then early on Sunday church bombings in Surabaya, Indonesia’s second largest city, killed nine at the start of the Muslim fasting month.

    In March police said they’d smashed an Internet jihad group known as the Muslim Cyber Army.  It was accused of spreading fake news to stir the gullible and destabilize upcoming elections.

    Where do the radicals recruit? At universities, according to Indonesia’s Intelligence Chief Budi Gunawan.

    He claimed almost 40 percent of students have been exposed to zealots ‘trying to mobilise new terrorists.’ 

    There are close to 3,000 tertiary education institutions in the Republic.  Most are private and run by religions.  Some are resisting the fundamentalists. (more…)

  • DAVID COWARD. The man who did for Mao – a review of a biography of Simon Leys by Philippe Paquet

    In 1932, Malcolm Muggeridge, then based in Moscow for the Manchester Guardian, filed reports of what he had found out about Soviet Russia, from the food shortages and forced labour to the deaths of 3 million people following the collectivization of agriculture in the Ukraine. His copy was censored and he was ridiculed by the liberal establishment, which preferred the Webbs’ rosier view of the New Civilization in the East. Muggeridge concluded that people believe lies not because they are plausible but because they want to believe them. (more…)

  • JOHN MENADUE. Are pharmacists professionals or shop keepers?

    Pharmacists are the most under-utilised health professionals in the country. The Australian Pharmacy Guild is happy to keep  it that way.   (more…)

  • STEPHEN DUCKETT. Turnbull government backs pharmacies over consumers, yet again.

    The government has totally squibbed the latest pharmacy regulation review, and consumers will be the losers.

    Every five to 10 years in Australia, the government establishes a review of the regulations governing pharmacies. Those reviews invariably come to the same conclusion: community pharmacy is over-regulated, and a reduction in regulation would benefit consumers. Just as invariably, the government response is to do nothing. (more…)

  • TIM COSTELLO. The Budget and aid.

    The Coalition Government’s fifth budget last week was carefully calibrated to offer just enough to a discontented electorate to restart the political contest ahead of the poll expected early next year.  Yet again Australia’s battered aid program took a hit, this time in the form of a multi-year cut, combined with an extended freeze on indexation to inflation – a cut by attrition.  This is the same technique being applied to the ABC.  But while attacking the national broadcaster is long-running pet project for the Government’s culture warriors and their commercial media cheer squad, the assault on aid is more puzzling, as it is surely self-defeating.  (more…)