Category: Politics

  • IAN McAULEY. Reframing public ideas Part 1: Leadership

    Leadership is the hard task of getting communities to make progress on difficult problems requiring adaptive change. It is not to be confused with authority. Beware of the call for a “strong leader”. (more…)

  • HANS-J. OHFF. Acquiring an orphan submarine. A REPOST from January 2017

    If the RAN holds firm to the concept offered by DCNS it will acquire an orphan no other Navy will contemplate commissioning into service. It will own a submarines that will be expensive to build, expensive to maintain and expensive to operate. It will be a class that has no equals — sadly for all the wrong reasons.   (more…)

  • GEOFF DAVIES. Score voting: a simpler, less distorting measure of voters’ will

    Score voting avoids the vagaries and gaming that are intrinsic to preference ranking systems. It is simpler and more reliably reflects the will of voters. You have probably used it if you have completed a survey. We should use it in political elections.  (more…)

  • JOHN TULLOH. Time for the ayatollah’s of Iran to reflect.

    ‘Every year thousands of students graduate, but there are no jobs for them. Fathers are also exhausted because they don’t earn enough to provide for their family’. Iranian protester.

     As unpalatable as it may be to the ayatollahs of Iran, increasing numbers of their countrymen are becoming unhappy after nearly four decades of theocratic rule. The BBC says the average Iranian has become 15% poorer in the past 10 years. Youth unemployment stands at 40%. Three million Iranians are jobless. The prices of some basic food items, such as poultry and eggs, have gone up by 50%. (more…)

  • Malcolm Turnbull’s new slogan has an ominous ring.

    Malcolm Turnbull’s New Year resolution is apparently to update his slogan – jobs and growth is so 2017, and thus is ready for a rejig. (more…)

  • ANDREW FARRAN. The Iranian demonstrations.

    There are few signs that the country is yet a tinder box for a counter-revolution requiring just a spark to set it off.  (more…)

  • JOHN MENADUE. Is war in the American DNA? -A REPOST from JULY 2016

    In his book ‘Dangerous Allies’ Malcolm Fraser warned us how we can be drawn into US conflicts that are of no concern to us. We have seen that in  following the US into disastrous wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan , Iraq and Syria. Malcolm Fraser spoke of  our ‘dangerous strategic dependence’.

    We are ‘joined at the hip’ to a country that is addicted to  permanent war. In recent decades most of Americas’ wars have been  failures for themselves and countless millions of innocent people.

    But the failure and torpor continues . Politicians and the military in both the US and Australia try to reassure us that it will be better next time or at least the time after that! As a  frightened country  we cling child like  to a declining,erratic and dangerous protector

    What disaster is necessary to force a fundamental rethink by  Ministers,the Opposition and all their senior advisers.?

    (more…)

  • American Imperium – Untangling truth and fiction in an age of perpetual war

    In this article ANDREW BACEVICH says ‘Republicans and Democrats disagree today on many issues, but they are united in their resolve that the United States must remain the world’s greatest military power. This bipartisan commitment to maintaining American supremacy has become a political signature of our times. In its most benign form, the consensus finds expression in extravagant and unremitting displays of affection for those who wear the uniform. Considerably less benign is a pronounced enthusiasm for putting our soldiers to work “keeping America safe.” This tendency finds the United States more or less permanently engaged in hostilities abroad, even as presidents from both parties take turns reiterating the nation’s enduring commitment to peace.’

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  • CAMERON MURRAY.  Game of Mates: How favours bleed the nation A REPOST

    Excerpt from Chapter 1 of Game of Mates: How favours bleed the nation. 
    Get the book via gameofmates.com. Follow author Cameron Murray on Facebook and Twitter. Come to the Brisbane book launch on 23rd May, 6pm at Avid Reader, West End (Details and RSVP link).  (more…)

  • LUKE FRASER. Good debt, bad debt: Poor infrastructure choices, no reform – and Lee Kuan Yew -A REPOST

    In the Fairness, Opportunity, Security policy series and the resulting book, Dr Michael Keating AC and I wrote of Australia’s out-of-control transport infrastructure spending that:

    ‘It is scandalous that this investment escapes proper scrutiny, while at the same time the proponents are calling for cuts in other government programs, including education and training programs that would actually increase productivity and participation’.[i]  (more…)

  • GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND …

    Ross Gittins says that we would be mugs to panic and cut our company tax rate.

    In his book review of Polanyi’s A Life on the Left in the New York Review of Books, Robert Kuttner argues that ‘Democracy cannot survive an excessively free market and containing the market is the task of politics.”

    In his book review on Inequality and the Coming Storm, Edoardo Campanella comments: “the super-rich are not all the same. Some are entrepreneurs or entertainers who create real wealth for society. Others run hedge fund, private equity firms or other rent seeking businesses who contribute nothing or little.” Inequality and the Coming Storm by Edoardo Campanella – Project Syndicate

    Laura Kipnis in the New York Review of Books says ‘Like  beauty contestants, women at Fox are hired on the basis of looks, then laminated into near mannequins…the optics at Fox make clear what’s expected from women’. Rupert Murdoch boasts his businesses reflect his values.

  • MICHAEL THORN. Countering vested interests A REPOST

    That corporations wield enormous power is not news. That this power is wielded to benefit the corporation and its agents is not news either. Neither is seeking to counter the power of these corporations by public interest organisations, like the Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education (FARE). (more…)

  • JERRY ROBERTS. Neoliberalism, Neoclassical Economics, Twinkle-toes Turnbull and a New Year’s Resolution

    We have put the gender issue to bed.  The priests have had their five years of infamy.  The electors of New England and Bennelong have told the High Court where to stick the dual citizenship clause.  Is there an opening for the Parliament and the press to consider the only issue that matters – the problem that causes all the other problems – the galloping inequality, the public squalor and private splendour of a neoliberal, deregulated capitalism? (more…)

  • House prices are not necessarily correlated with changes in supply and demand

    A recent research report, Regional Housing Supply and Demand in Australia, by the ANU’s Centre for Social Research and Methods, has reignited the debate about the relationship between house prices and imbalances in the supply of and demand for housing.

    Few would dispute that steeply rising prices in some of our largest cities have made homeownership much less affordable in recent years.  This has been exacerbated by slow wage growth. Many disagree however on the causes of such rapid price growth, and on what is to be done to improve affordability.  The Federal and NSW governments put the blame firmly on inadequate supply.  Doubt thrown on this causality by the ANU Report is one of the reasons it has sparked such interest.
    (more…)

  • CHRISTINA HO. Racist reporting still rife in Australian media

    Half of all race-related opinion pieces in the Australian mainstream media are likely to contravene industry codes of conduct on racism. (more…)

  • GEORGE WRIGHT. A year of dashed hopes and tyranny in Cambodia

    To many, dissolution of the main opposition party caps a year in which the country became a full dictatorship. (more…)

  • Worries about Malaysia’s ‘Arabisation’ grow as Saudi ties strengthen

    Malaysia’s growing ties to Saudi Arabia – and its puritan Salafi-Wahhabi Islamic doctrines – are coming under new scrutiny as concerns grow over an erosion of traditional religious practices and culture in the multi-ethnic nation.  A string of recent events has fuelled the concern. Hostility toward atheists, non-believers and the gay community has risen.   (more…)

  • IAN MCAULEY. Reframing public ideas

    Our capacity to understand political and economic issues, and to shape better public policy, may be helped if we break out of established but no longer functional ways of looking at public policy – re-framing in other words. Over January I will write eight articles about the way we frame public ideas. They will cover ideas of leadership, the role of government, economy and society, economy and environment, competition, jobs, capital and choice. (more…)

  • HAMISH MCDONALD. Australia still on smoko over Asia.

    When Malcolm Turnbull hosts the ten leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations for an unusual summit in Sydney in March, the Australian public will know virtually nothing about most of them or the current state of affairs in their countries. (more…)

  • DUNCAN MACLAREN. Brexit beats pantomime for farce in the festive season.

    The pantomime season is upon us in the fabled Kingdom.  For farce, Cinderella has moved over to give room on the political, rather than theatrical, stage to the xenophobic pantomime par excellence of “Brexit – Taking Back Control”, featuring your favourite panto characters. But to our tale…  (more…)

  • MUNGO MACCALLUM. Turnbull ship still laden with barnacles

    The renaissance of Malcolm Turnbull’s leadership proclaimed with such jubilation by John Alexander after regaining the seat of Bennelong lasted just 24 hours. (more…)

  • RICHARD BUTLER. 2018: La Commedia Continua?

    Two new basic policy statements by Canberra and Washington offer no hope for a constructive engagement of either in finding multilateral solutions to major political and humanitarian problems. (more…)

  • JENNY HOCKING. Harold Holt: The legacy is evident, 50 years after his disappearance.

    It was a quintessential Australian death. On 17 December 1967, Australia’s 17th prime minister, Harold Edward Holt, waded into the churning surf at Victoria’s Cheviot Beach, defying a swift current and a strong under-tow that left others in his party refusing to enter. Within minutes Holt was swept up and out, “like a leaf … so quick, so final”, and never seen again.  (more…)

  • GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND …

    Writing in the Fairfax Press, Andrew Norton of the Grattan Institute explains the government’s planned $ 2.2 billion cuts to university funding – cuts they can make without going through Parliament.  He explains how they will have their greatest impact on resource-intensive courses such as engineering and education, while leaving courses such as law and business largely untouched.

    “Under the influence of more than a century of relentless advertising and commercialisation its original significance as a religious holy-day has been submerged beneath an orgy of consumerism, materialism and over-indulgence” writes Ross Gittins in his Christmas message. He reminds us of the waste around our commercialised Christmas – food we don’t eat, clothes we don’t wear, unwanted gifts that we never use.

    The Climate Council reports that Hidden Pollution Data has been released, and it is not good.

    A gas shortage next year is unlikely, but that’s the only good news – The Conversation

    Heretics welcome! Economics needs a new Reformation – Larry Elliott in the Guardian

    A report on Burma’s Methodical Massacre at Rohingya Village

    Pearls & Irritations put together a Making Housing Affordable Series, organised by John Menadue, Susan Ryan and Oliver Frankel.  A copy of the PDF is attached. 2017-05-22 – Making Housing Affordable series.

    The Rohingya crisis has put lives in limbo – Lindsay Murdoch in the Age

    Brothers from male-only religious orders outnumber priests in historic child abuse allegations involving the Catholic Church. Despite the forensic efforts of the royal commission, the operations of the most prolific offenders remain shrouded in secrecy.

    Yanis Varoufakis writes on “Taking the Red Pill or the Blue Pill” in the Journal of Political Economy.

    Why Rupert’s Really Splitting Up the Family Business – Michael Wolff

    “People on low incomes are sacrificing basic goods to take out insurance” – the Conversation.

     

  • CLIVE KESSLER. Old enemies reconcile as Malaysian elections near.

    Malaysia’s fourteenth general elections are looming. This time, almost unprecedentedly, they will see the two great Malay political parties — the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) and the Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS) — working implicitly as allies, not rivals.  (more…)

  • JOHN AUSTEN: What will it take to kick off a serious enquiry into the Sydney transport mess?

    While readers relax over the Christmas break, Commonwealth advisers and politicians should be asking about the Sydney infrastructure mess.   (more…)

  • ALLAN PATIENCE. What is the Australia-America Leadership Dialogue?

    Founded in 1992 by former Cocoa-Cola Amatil executive and later Australian consul-general in New York, Phil Scanlon, the Australia America Leadership Dialogue (AALD), in its own words, “brings together Australian and American leaders from government, enterprise, media, education and the community to help review and refine the parameters of the Australian-American bilateral relationship.” The motivations of those attending these no doubt convivial gathers appear to be taken for granted. Should they? (more…)

  • JONATHAN PILBROW. IPAN on the link between war and refugees

    Human Rights Day, recently observed, is a very significant day, commemorating the UN General Assembly endorsement on 10 December 1948 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the right to seek asylum.  Human Rights Day is an important time to highlight that that wars create and exacerbate humanitarian crises and the conditions that lead to refugees, which raises critical issues about Australia’s continued involvement in U.S. wars. (more…)

  • MICHAEL KEATING. The 2017-18 Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook

    This Mid-Year review of the economic and fiscal outlook contains no new surprises. However, the balance of risks is  that the outcomes will  be worse than predicted. Clearly on the Government’s own projections, the nation cannot afford income tax cuts in the foreseeable future. Instead what this review reminds us, is just how threadbare this Government’s economic and fiscal strategies actually are. (more…)

  • MICHAEL MULLINS. Who really killed Confession?

    Most Catholics have stayed away from Confession for decades because the thought of it has made them feel small and unworthy. It’s not dissimilar to the dynamic of sexual abuse. It is part of what critics of the Church see as a power play that is designed to tighten the screws of the institution’s psychological grip on its faithful. But it needn’t be that way. Confession can offer a pathway to wholeness and growth. (more…)