Next week I will be posting articles asserting that we are running great risks in being tied to what Malcolm Fraser called “our dangerous ally”, an ally almost always at war. The risks pre-date Donald Trump. Think Vietnam and Iraq.
In recent issues of P & I I have posted many articles about the US and its almost perpetual involvement in war. I repost an article below “American Imperium – Untangling truth and fiction in an age of perpetual war” by Andrew Bacevich.
In Pearls and Irritations recently, Elizabeth Evatt (Why not protect all our rights and freedoms?) called for a Human Rights Act to protect all our rights and freedoms and not just freedom of religion.
The issue of freedom of religion is being examined by Phillip Ruddock and his ‘expert panel’. This issue is also being examined by a Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade. (more…)
Trump’s State of the Union speech was filled with menaces to enemies both foreign and domestic. US policy is now comprehensively militarized and in the hands of Trump’s Generals. It was a dangerous pantomime, with much cheering from Republicans who still seem to hope that no one will notice the Faustian bargain they have done with Trump and militarism. (more…)
The release last month of (albeit heavily redacted) Treasury advice to the Turnbull Government on the likely effects of the policies the Labor Opposition took to the 2016 election regarding negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount once again highlight the extent to which those defending the status quo in this area are willing to create their own ‘alternative facts’ in order to promote their arguments. (more…)
We need our national innovation strategy to be targeted at solving identifiable problems and assessed according to its contribution to social benefit as well as economic outcomes. (more…)
The revolving door of politics represents a particularly difficult problem for modern democracies. And when senior public servants leave their positions to work as lobbyists for the infrastructure industry – an industry that takes a lion’s share of government spending, and is afforded substantive protection from scrutiny by “commercial confidentiality” – that problem grows substantially. (more…)
Next week I will be posting articles asserting that we are running great risks in being tied to what Malcolm Fraser called “our dangerous ally”, an ally almost always at war. The risks, disasters and dangers pre-date Donald Trump. Think Vietnam and Iraq.
In recent issues of P & I, I have posted many articles about how America has never had a decade without being at war, how it has subverted and overthrown numerous foreign governments and has a military, industrial, and intelligence and political complex that depends on continual wars. We have become part of that complex.
I repost below an article that I initially posted in July 2016 “Is war in the American DNA?”
(more…)
The TPP was never all about the economic gains, even for the most dedicated rent seekers. The strategic planners – especially in Australia, Japan and South Korea – saw the original TPP as a means of locking America involved in Asia as a permanent bulwark against the dominance of China, whose government was pointedly excluded. (more…)
This article supports Hugh White’s conclusion that the US is unlikely to succeed in fighting China for primacy in Asia. The US has been living beyond its means for a long time, and has depended on foreign finance, and especially Chinese finance, to sustain its living standards. Challenging China would require sacrifices from the American public that they are ill-prepared to make. Accordingly, it is very risky for Australia to continue to base its foreign and defence policies on the presumption that the US can be counted on to maintain its position in Asia without substantial change. What country seeks to go to war with its banker? (more…)
The hard fact is that the lists which bulk up the morning papers each year are far from representative of our diverse population, and suggest that there is at least a vestige of the despised British class system still lingering at the edges of the cultural cringe. (more…)
The Australian Government’s short and pointless document, published just before Xmas and entitled Strategy For Nature 2018-2030, has been accurately described as a ‘global embarrassment’. It is useful only insofar as it reminds us that Australian government policies for nature conservation have, in the last five years, easily matched the destructive irrationality of polices directed toward climate change. (more…)
Letter from London
Britain finds itself trapped like a fish with no way out other than capitulation to the best terms it can get – in relation to which the remaining 27 EU members have the upper hand. (more…)
Capitalism must change to avert climate change, according to the vice-chair of the world’s largest asset manager, Blackrock. (more…)
‘We’ve turned our unis into aimless, money-grubbing exploiters of students‘ [Ross Gittins, Canberra Times, 17 September 2017]
Part 1 of my response to Gittins’ article dealt with the human side of the current university scene and noted pressures to conformity and uniformity, but this underestimates the element of underlying competitiveness. (more…)
In 1998 I was a freshly minted law grad who felt great purpose in joining the Harbour Bridge march for the first ‘Sorry Day’. I had just begun my first real job with the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, and my country was grappling with the Stolen Generation Report. It seemed the time was right for recognition and reconciliation, and I shared a sense of optimism about Australia’s identity and place in the world. (more…)
On Saturday Extra this 27th January Geraldine Doogue is discussing the cost of government consultants with Julian Hill, ALP member for Bruce and businessman Tony Shepherd; Changes to gambling laws with Charles Livingstone from Monash University and Sam Duncan from the Holmesglen Institute in Victoria; Supreme Court judge and author Michael Pembroke on his book Korea: Where the America Century began and A Foreign Affair discusses reforms in Saudi Arabia, diplomacy successes in South Korea, Vladimir Putin and the anniversary of the secret police and one hundred years since Woodrow Wilson’s 14 point speech with Anthony Bubalo, Lowy Institute, Kyle Wilson, ANU and Lauren Richardson, ANU.
Companies that pay more tax deliver shareholders better returns. Writing in The Conversation Kerrie Sadiq and Bronwyn McCredie report on their research covering ASX200 companies from 2012 to 2017. They found that a higher percentage of tax paid by a corporation correlated with a higher dividend returns and that that share prices were more likely to increase.
In a report on the quality of the advice given by financial advisers at the four major banks and the AMP, the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) has found that in three quarters of the customer files they reviewed the advisers had not demonstrated compliance with the duty to act in the best interests of their clients. They found that “10% of the advice reviewed was likely to leave the customer in a significantly worse financial position”.
It’s time to revive the republican debate: we cannot keep pushing it off into the future. On Late Night Live, Phillip Adams interviewed historian Benjamin Jones, author of This Time: Australia’s Republican Past and Future. Writing in the Canberra Times, John Warhurst calls on republicans to assert their case: they “must not be afraid to call out monarchist myths and needless distractions”.
Donald and Melania Trump approached New York’s Guggenheim Museum, requesting a loan of Van Gough’s Landscape with Snow for the White House. The museum declined the Trumps’ request, but they did offer another exhibit, Maurizio Cattelan’s exhibit “America”, a solid gold toilet instead.
Since bitcoins are not useful as a medium of exchange, or desirable in themselves, their true value is zero – John Quiggin in Inside Story.
UK regulator has blocked Rupert Murdoch’s bid for Sky – the Guardian and the Economist.
Massacres and protests: Australia Day’s undeniable history – Calla Wahlquist (Guardian)
The Australia Day barbeque-stopper is the same every year – Paul Daley. The whispering in our hearts.
The government’s objective is the main problem with the NBN – Greg Jericho (Guardian)
Sydney transport planners off the rails with metro plans – Canberra Times
Tesla battery moves from showboating to making money – RenewEconomy.
Why is Trump’s staff turnover higher than the 5 most recent presidents? – Brookings Institution
One-percent of Australians own more wealth than the bottom 70 per cent combined – the Guardian
I’m unapologetically pro-life and ashamed that Trump spoke at the March for Life – Haley Stewart
The United States and Russian may find themselves in a nuclear arms race, again.
The true author of “The Art of The Deal” says Donald Trump is more self-absorbed than you can possibly imagine.
How Sydney’s transport system has gone off the rails – the Conversation.
Mixed messages from the United States as Turkey attacks Syrian Kurds – the New York Times
Last November, Australian casino giant Crown Resorts announced it had appointed former Federal Health Department head Jane Halton to its board.
In the post below, Dr Melissa Stoneham laments the high profile move, asking why a health leader who had taken on the tobacco industry would now work for another industry that causes great harm to individuals and the community, and what Crown might hope to get from the appointment. (more…)
All the talk about Australia Day – what it symbolises, for whom and when we should celebrate – prompted me to delve into the history of the date, which has long been contentious. Before we lock in the date, we need to decide what we want our national day to commemorate. (more…)
Much medical research is incomplete or wrong. The participation of drug companies in sponsored research and continuing education for doctors whereby the results of research are communicated to them demands healthy scepticism. (more…)
(In tribute to the late John Hirst and his masterpieces Freedom on the Fatal Shore)
The heroes of famed Waterloo
Or great Nelson’s mighty crew,
If chance had gone a different way,
Might well have peopled Botany Bay.
The Duke himself, he called them “scum”
Kept under by the lash and rum,
Not from Eton’s playing fields
But from poverty’s seething yields,
So, too, our founders, if truth be told
Soldiers and convicts – “undesirables” manifold.
So Dutton, Hanson: shame on your smear
Better than you have by boat come here.
“True patriots all, for be it understood”
“They left their country for their country’s good”. *
Their founding service you might emulate
Improve this nation – and emigrate.
No good you do by staying here,
Purveying hate and feeding fear.
What of Australia do you really know,
Of migrant waves who’ve made us grow,
Since Phillip Britain’s flag unfurled
To take possession of a stolen world?
Graham Freudenberg
26 January 2018. (more…)
Another Australia Day; another angry national debate! Little has changed, then, since last year. The partisans of both persuasions have returned to their old trenches. The rhetorical exchanges are much as they were twelve months ago.
Despite Australia committing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 26-28% by 2030 compared with 2005, the Australian government is projecting, but trying hard to cover up, a 3.5% increase in greenhouse gas emissions between now and 2030. It is also encouraging companies to increase their emissions if they can increase their productivity – thus confusing ‘efficiency’ with the need to reduce the total amount of greenhouse gas pumped into the atmosphere if we are to limit global warming to manageable levels. There is a need for greater transparency and honesty in government communications. (more…)
The unhinged madman foreign policy of US President Donald Trump means Tokyo must walk a tightrope to manage the US–Japan alliance. On security policy, on trade and on North Korea, Japan will increasingly have to develop its own independent regional vision. (more…)
The forecast positive impact of the Trump tax package mainly results from a temporary incentive to bring forward business investment. This is irrelevant to the cuts in company tax rates proposed by the Turnbull Government, and cannot be used as vindication for their policies. Furthermore, the Trump tax package fails to address the fundamental flaws in the US economy, and in the longer term, has a negative impact on US economic growth. (more…)
The moral basis of contemporary Australian society is being squeezed dry by political opportunism and contempt for civic virtue among our political leaders. The ignorance those leaders demonstrate about the insult Australia Day has become for many Indigenous people is evidence that Australia has become a morally backward society. (more…)
Pope Francis has been away in South America this past week and, while in Chile, he drew only modest crowds of supporters. It was the frostiest reception he’s received on any of his 22 foreign trips — at least to those countries with a majority of Christians and certainly in the traditionally Catholic lands of Latin America. (more…)
So even if we ignore the bunyip in the room – the invasion, the stealing of the land and the children, the destruction of the culture, the systematic trampling of the many nations which once made up the continent – there are copious reasons to question whether our national festival of nationalism and booze is, to use one of Turnbull’s favourite words, appropriate. (more…)
Let’s change the date of Australia Day, not just for Aboriginal public relations, but to prove that we can do something – anything – to cast off the chains of our pusillanimous politicians and their little mates, the boofhead media commentators. (more…)