Category: Politics

  • ROBIN DERRICOURT. Inside the belly of the monster (and a Cold War mind).

    A 1960s British student leftist did not expect to find himself on a tour inside the Pentagon, or briefed by a US Army Colonel on his role there, tracking US radicals, with a distorted Cold War model of who they were – but, well, it happened. (more…)

  • GREG HAMILTON. No stomach or mind for democracy.

    Australians have a flaw in their character that shows up in their acceptance of a defective political system no decent reform can come close to changing. When their democratic system is attacked by minority anti-democratic forces, they’ll back the attackers, not their system. And, having done so, they choose to believe their system is still democratic. There’s no helping a fickle electorate.  (more…)

  • LUKE FRASER. Rail manufacturing reform and the political shot clock.

    One of the things that makes basketball so dynamic is the ‘shot clock’:  once a team takes possession, they have 24 seconds to make a realistic shot – otherwise they turn the ball over to the opponents.  This speeds up the game and discourages defensive play.

    In politics there is also a shot clock; a government which hasn’t done much risks being thrown out at the ballot box.  Even so, few governments seem to appreciate how little time they have to effect reform.  In the two decades since the governments which many would argue understood best their brevity of tenure – the Hawke-Keating administrations – another problem has emerged: an advisory deficit in the senior public service, which as many contributors to Pearls have noted, has now grown so deep that new governments can be lulled into thinking that standard bureaucratic processes will get their agenda delivered.  (more…)

  • MUNGO MACCALLUM. Progress taxation or a flat tax

    Scott Morrison’s budget has been greeted as underwhelming, which is probably the way he likes it.  The goodies are unnecessarily complex  — the tax cuts aren’t really tax cuts, they are built in to your 2018-19 return as an offset, which means  they will appear in your kick only if and when you are entitled to a net refund. No big sugar hit there. There are no real losers, apart from  black marketeers, migrants, the unemployed,  climate scientists, recipients of foreign aid, and the ABC, along with a basket of other deplorables who do not normally vote for the coalition, but, as Peter Dutton might say, they are all dead to him.

    However, hidden in the low key first bid for election is an almost revolutionary and definitely reactionary overview, which deserves rather more consideration. The centrepiece of the Enterprise Tax Plan, so-called, is to be the abolition of the progressive system of income tax which has endured in Australia for more than a century and its replacement with what is in effect a flat tax plan.  (more…)

  • GEOFF RABY. China relations can only be unfrozen with Julie Bishop’s sacking

    Once again Australian foreign policy seems to be missing in action. As events unfold at remarkable speed in our area of most strategic interest – north-east Asia – Australia finds itself unable to engage with the key participant at the centre of those events: namely China.   (more…)

  • Classes & politics.

    The return of the concept of ‘class’ to mainstream public debate is an unanticipated feature of the second decade of the new century. Whether defined by people’s relationship to production or distribution, or as a hybrid of economic and cultural identities, a consciousness of class is crystallising once again within democratic countries, and notably in the United States. Some reasons are obvious. (more…)

  • MICHAEL LESTER. Political Culture and the Limits of the APS Independent Inquiry.

    There is an old saw that cautions politicians never to establish an enquiry unless they know the outcome beforehand. The Prime Minister appears to have learnt that lesson from the ‘can of worms’ exposed in his Royal Commission on Banking.

    Turnbull has announced an ‘independent inquiry’ into the future of the Australian Public Service (APS). An independent inquiry is not a Royal Commission and its terms of reference and membership are presumably designed to keep it focused on his own political agenda.  (more…)

  • GLEN SEARLE, CRYSTAL LEGACY. A closer look at business cases raises questions about ‘priority’ national infrastructure projects.

    Infrastructure Australia’s latest infrastructure priority list has been criticised for being “too Sydney-centric” and for giving Melbourne’s East West Link, cancelled in 2014, “high priority” status. The cancelled Roe 8project in Perth was removed from the list.

    So how does a project get onto Infrastructure Australia’s list? This requires submission of a full business case, which then needs to be “positively assessed” to be given priority status. (more…)

  • CAVAN HOGUE. Malaysia’s first new government in six decades revels in a shocking victor.

    The surprising Malaysian election results show yet again that we shouldn’t put faith in polls and pundits. Despite serious gerrymandering and other bits of nastiness the Barisan Nasional lost the election. The return of Dr Mahathir raises questions about the future. He has promised to hand over to Anwar Ibrahim but hasn’t said when. Najib looks like he is in trouble and may be charged with corrupt practices. (more…)

  • MUNGO MacCALLUM. Nicknames

    Treasurer Scott Morrison got very excited last week, bouncing and bubbling all over the place.  And it wasn’t just because of his pretty ordinary budget: building a stronger economy may be a worthy slogan, but it is hardly inspiring. What was really turning him on was that he (or someone talking to him) had invented a new nickname for Bill Shorten: Unbelieva-Bill.   (more…)

  • RICHARD BUTLER. US and the Iran Agreement: True Lies and Chaos.

    In explaining his decision on the US leaving the Iran nuclear agreement (JCPOA), President Trump told a number of true lies. His National Security Advisor, John Bolton, then told the truth: it was to conform with Israel’s wishes. Israel and Iran commenced hostilities in Syria, immediately.  (more…)

  • LINDA SIMON. TAFE upfront in Shorten’s Budget speech in reply.

    Whilst the Government’s 2018 Federal Budget failed to recognise the importance of TAFE and skills development to Australia’s economy, TAFE and funding were upfront in the Labor Opposition’s speech in reply. Labor has put TAFE back as the centrepiece of national skills training, promising to scrap upfront fees for 100,000 TAFE students as part of its platform. (more…)

  • JOHN MENADUE. How and why corporate regulators have failed us.

    The failure of corporate regulation and regulators is in plain sight for all to see. And it is not just in banking. Political ideology and corporate conceit has enabled the powerful to tilt the ‘market’ in their favour at the expense of the less privileged. The result is growing inequality and insecurity.

    The Liberal Party branch offices,the BCA,News Corp and the Australian Financial Review also failed to uncover corporate failure and malfeasance on a grand scale.Was this deliberate or were they just asleep?

    It is unlikely  that the regulars were wilful .. It is more likely that they just wanted to please the big end of town.   (more…)

  • LAURIE PATTON. Heeding government warnings, auDA strengthens governance – adding new board members

    With debate continuing over Australia’s domain names registration arrangements, the company appointed by the federal government to oversee the process has added three highly qualified new directors to its board. (more…)

  • MICHAEL KEATING. Budget commentary, Part 2: Sustainable tax cuts for low-income households

    Part 1 of this series of Budget comments criticised the credibility of the Government’s projected return to a budget surplus and argued that the proposed tax cuts were therefore not in fact sustainable. In this second part I will argue that nevertheless some tax relief targeted at low-income households should be supported, and other alternative sources of revenue should be found to return the budget to surplus and make those tax cuts sustainable. (more…)

  • GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND …

    A sense of complacency, a lack of intellectual curiosity, a failure to think about the bigger picture, a pursuit of consensus lessening constructive criticism.  These are some of the findings in the Australian Prudential Regulatory Agency report into the Commonwealth Bank.  It concludes that “CBA’s continued financial success dulled the senses of the institution”.  Its management understood the financial risks, but not the non-financial risks, facing the company.

    While we’re on the subject of finance the budget has attracted a wealth of commentary on Pearls and Irritations. John Falzon, Michael Keating, Giles Parkinson, Ranald MacDonald, Michael Pascoe, Ross Gittins, Ian McAuley and Mungo MacCallum have all contributed. Such is our obsession with fiscal figures that the 1000 pages of budget documentation are almost all about money. But what is money? On the ABC’s Minefield there is a rich discussion about money – what it is, what it isn’t, how it’s socially useful, and the danger of believing that money has value in itself.

    Something as distant from the budget as possible –  Bach in Japan, Bach in Hermannsburg. On the ABC’s Spirit of Things Noel Debien is engaged in conversation with Masaaki Suziki, director of the Bach Collegium of Japan, and Morris and Barbara Stewart who have taken the Aboriginal women’s choir to Germany. Hear about Christianity in Japan, the Hermannsburger Missions Gesellschaft, and the adaptation of German liturgical music in different cultures. It ends with a promo for the film The Song Keepers.

    Cambodian Government forces sale of last independent newspaper – Human Rights Watch

    All eyes on India’s key Karnataka election – ucanews

    Saturday Extra:http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/saturdayextra/

    Trump’s only possible Iran Strategy is a fantasy – Washington Post

    It’s a neoliberal budget when we no longer believe in neoliberalism. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/may/11/its-the-neoliberal-budget-when-we-no-longer-believe-in-neoliberalism?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Gmail

  • MICHAEL THORN. Corporate power unchecked: Time to redress a dangerous imbalance

    Are corporate interests too powerful? Are vested interests beyond democratic control? Are our political institutions even concerned to do so? (more…)

  • CAMERON HILL. China’s policing assistance in the Pacific: a new era?

    While there has been renewed discussion and debate surrounding China’s infrastructure assistance to Pacific nations over the last several months, less attention has been paid to China’s growing policing and law enforcement presence in the region. While still in its early stages, this presence spans several of the Pacific Island countries which recognise the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and, in some cases, has expanded beyond the provision of facilities and equipment to include training, secondments and joint operations. (more…)

  • RICHARD ACKLAND. Peter Dutton’s power grabs may yet be his undoing

    The fate of Amber Rudd offers some hope to Australians who disapprove of Dutton and his methods. (more…)

  • RAMESH THAKUR. Spring blossoms on the Korean Peninsula.

    The leaders of North and South Korea have met, shaken hands, taken symbolic yet hugely consequential steps across into each other’s territory, talked about possible pathways to peace on the peninsula, issued a joint communique, and returned home well satisfied with the breakneck speed of progress thus far. Who deserves the most credit for this outbreak of goodwill induced by the spring of summits?  (more…)

  • BRENDAN BYRNE. History taints Turnbull’s fight against corruption

    While it is a matter of public record that the Turnbull government blocked attempts to establish a royal commission into the financial services sector on multiple occasions, the question as to why the government has been so recalcitrant on this issue — especially when it expeditiously facilitated a similar inquiry into corruption within the union movement — is of more than academic interest. (more…)

  • RAMESH THAKUR. VIP culture is a blight on India’s democracy – a culture of impunity lies behind India’s rape epidemic

    Solving India’s sexual violence crisis means holding the perpetrators of wrongdoing accountable – no matter their power in society. For Prime Minister Narendra Modi, this means ending the VIP culture within his own party. (more…)

  • ANDREW FARRAN. Brexit: Crashing out a real possibility

    The Brexiters deeply distrust the motives of the Remainers who are seeking ways and means of frustrating the process of withdrawal as exampled by the House of Lords’ actions recently requiring that the final draft agreement be submitted to Parliament for its approval and if not approved, that the government be directed to reopen negotiations. While Britain’s final destination is still unclear it might be said that this is no time for Britain and the EU to be still skirmishing over what are essentially domestic arrangements. (more…)

  • MARTIN WOLF. How the Beijing elite sees the world

    How does the Chinese ruling elite view the world? Over the weekend, I participated in a dialogue between a handful of foreign scholars and journalists and top Chinese officials, academics and business people, organised by the Tsinghua University Academic Centre for Chinese Economic Practice and Thinking. The discussion was franker than any I have participated in during the 25 years I have been visiting China. Here are seven propositions our interlocutors made to us. (more…)

  • TOM ENGELHARDT. The Caliphate of Trump, and a Planet in Ruins

    Here is my six-category rundown of what I would call American extremity on a global scale: There is US  violence at home and abroad. (more…)

  • CHAS FREEMAN. On the Souring of Sino-American Relations

    (Remarks to the Committee of 100)

    I am honored to stand before you this morning to discuss US-China relations.  It’s a challenge to speak on a subject so many here know so much about, and to do so at a moment of such radical inflection in the relationship.  But Sino-American relations are a matter of great importance to all in our country, and especially to Americans of Chinese heritage.  A candid discussion of the deterioration of those relations and its implications could hardly be more timely. (more…)

  • JOSEPH A. CAMILLERI: Australia’s China policy mired in phobia and confusion.

    Australia’s handling of its relations with China is rapidly descending into farce. Geoff Raby’s excellent piece (30 April) makes abundantly clear the principal factor at work, namely a nostalgic attachment to the US-led regional and global order of earlier years. (more…)

  • TIM LINDSEY. Post-Reformasi Indonesia: The Age of Uncertainty.

    Twenty years ago, the Soeharto era ended with reformation. Today’s post-Reformasi Indonesia is full of uncertainty, with profound implications for its foreign relations. (more…)

  • The Afghan War Isn’t Being Won, Says New Pentagon Audit

    A new summary of the country’s troubles by a special inspector general doesn’t paint an optimistic picture. (more…)

  • RAMESH THAKUR. The Long Road to Nuclear Disarmament

    With Donald Trump in favor of abandoning the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, the world has been reminded once again how fragile the nuclear non-proliferation regime is. For this reason, it is more important than ever that the international community upholds existing treaty obligations, starting with the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. (more…)