Category: Politics

  • GREG LOCKHART: Remembering the charge at Beersheba and forgetting the Balfour Declaration

    This week, as our $600 million Great War centenary rolled on, the Australian Light Horse charge at Beersheba on 31 October 1917 has come out of the culture in a tsunami of centenary excitement at home and abroad.

    Media enthusiasm for the charge has been unbounded in Australia, while talks in Tel Aviv between the Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu on defence cooperation in industry, intelligence and cyber-strategy lent a business-like touch to proceedings. At the same time, 2,000 descendants of light horsemen, many aged and wearing period costume, gathered near the Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery at Beersheba in Israel’s southern desert.  (more…)

  • The Manus Island agreement is a failure; Turnbull and Shorten need to accept that: Robert Manne, Tim Costello, Frank Brennan and John Menadue.

    There is now a humanitarian disaster on Australia’s doorstep. And it’s our responsibility. The refugees on Manus Island must be resettled promptly. After four years, all options other than Australia have come to nothing or have been rejected by our government. There is now no option but to resettle them in Australia.  

    There are 600 persons, most of them proven refugees, who are at risk on Manus Island. They were taken there under an agreement between the governments of Australia and Papua New Guinea. They have been there more than four years.

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  • GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND …

    In 1974 Rex Connor, Minister for Minerals and Energy in the Whitlam Government, had a vision of a national pipeline linking the gas fields in WA to the gas markets in the nation’s southeast. His attempt to raise funds for that project led to the so-called Loans Affair, which was central in the 1975 dismissal of the Whitlam Government. Come forward 43 years and Fairfax journalist Cole Latimer reports that ACIL Allen, in partnership with engineering firm GHD, has been contracted by the federal government to carry out a pre-feasibility study on a west-east gas pipeline to link the gas markets.

    Jack Waterford says his ‘bet’ is that the ultimate source of the AWU raids leak was the AFP‘

    Jake Adelstein in Forbes tells us that the anti-Korean prejudice of Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike is a big problem

    Oral testimony of an Aboriginal massacre now supported by scientific evidence – Pamela Smith and Keryne Walshe (The Conversation)

    Australia hijacks important Anzac victory at Bersheeba – Tony Wright (Newshub)

     

     

     

     

  • JOHN AUSTEN. Trouble in NSW infrastructure paradise, Part 2.

    This is a second instalment about the onslaught of NSW infrastructure puff pieces. (more…)

  • ANDREW FARRAN. Parliamentary eligibility – did the High Court get it wrong?

    The response to the High Court’s decision in the Parliamentarians eligibility case has been largely uncritical and disappointing. While Section 44 (i) of the Constitution allows for a simplistic literal interpretation the Court’s failure to transpose that provision into the social and political context of the present day, and have better regard for its historical antecedents, will create more problems than it has solved and does not sit well with our multicultural and regional realities. (more…)

  • FRANK BRENNAN. A mate’s take on Rudd’s call to arms.

    Kevin Rudd is back. Last week he was blitzing the country with a whirlwind book tour, having flown in from New York where he continues his post-prime-ministerial life as President of the Asia Society. He is promoting volume one of his autobiography entitled Not for the Faint-hearted. I caught up with him at Australian National University where he met in conversation with Stan Grant in front of a large crowd.  (more…)

  • JOHN MENADUE. We need to curb rent-seekers and lobbyists.

    In the series “Fairness, Opportunity and Security” last year I drew attention to the pervasive loss of trust in institutions. Essential Research revealed that the six least trusted institutions were: the news media, state parliaments, trade unions, business groups, religious organisations and political parties. The three most trusted institutions were all public: the ABC, High Court and Reserve Bank.  In light of Jacquie Lambie’s proposals to curb the ‘lobbying racket in Canberra’ I decided to repost an earlier blog on the collapse of trust with the growth in rent seeking and lobbying, with some up dating.  (more…)

  • JIM COOMBS. Doing right by our First Peoples needs a little understanding but a LOT MORE RESPECT.

    As my Dad, “Nugget” Coombs, said in his Boyer Lectures years ago, though still ringing true, we are all demeaned by our treatment of our aboriginal people. Even back then, he implored our leaders to consult with, listen to and empower our first peoples to have not just some say, but some control over their destiny.  (more…)

  • PETER BROOKS AND ALEX WODAK. A response to the open letter from Crown Resorts on gambling.

    On Tuesday 31 October a rally to support Women against Gambling, coordinated by the Alliance for Gambling Reform ( pokiesplayyou.org.au), was held outside the Victorian Parliament. This was (amongst others) supported by Fiona Patten MLC to send a message to MPs not to weaken laws on gambling – which may occur  when Parliament returns next week.

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  • HENRY REYNOLDS. Beersheba and the Militarisation of Australian History.

    The commemoration of the centenary of the battle for Beersheba illustrates many features of the progressive militarization of Australian history. No other aspect of our past attracts the lavish funding provided by the federal government. The cost of the commemoration must be considerable given the abundant travel grants and the funding of the new Light Horse Museum. The attendance of the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition, and other prominent Australians, including the Ambassador to the USA Joe Hockey, further enhances the asserted national importance of the event. The uncritical reporting of the accompanying Australian media contingent provided little scope for sceptical assessment of the battle itself and its long term significance. (more…)

  • ROGER SCOTT. Personalities and Millstones in Queensland

    Personalities are increasingly significant in political contests, particularly as voters in all countries are abandoning the dominant parties. Politics in most Australian states are firmly controlled by capital city interests. Queensland has been slightly different, in this as in so many other ways. (more…)

  • JOAN STAPLES. Civil Society Highs and Lows

    Australian civil society has seen the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) win the Nobel Peace Prize, the High Court uphold Bob Brown’s challenge to Tasmanian protest laws, and the Coalition extend its attacks on NGO advocacy, targeting GetUp. (more…)

  • ANDREW FARRAN. Middle East World Cup – match schedule unravelling – a report.

    The Middle East World Cup should be advancing towards the Finals but the match schedule is in disarray due to disqualifications and suspensions. (more…)

  • GEOFF MILLER. Xi Jinping’s China: this too will pass?

    Xi Jinping’s first five years have produced a China in which the Communist Party is in more control of more things, and restrictions on dissent and the free expression of opinion have grown.  The recently concluded Party Congress seems to offer more of the same.  But how will this recipe stand with a population growing steadily more prosperous, better educated and more familiar with the outside world? (more…)

  • JOSEPH CAMILLERI. For our misdeeds in Korea we shall pay dearly

    The result of the recent snap election called by Shinzo Abe and Japan’s steady military build-up are a portent of things to come. The Korean crisis, which owes at least as much to Washington’s flexing of military muscle as to Pyongyang’s misguided nuclear antics, holds the key to many of these ominous developments. (more…)

  • ALLAN PATIENCE. Is Australia a morally backward society?

    Earlier this year a national conference of First Nation Australians at Uluru recommended that a Council representing all Indigenous Australians be enshrined in the Constitution. The purpose of the Council would be to advise governments on policies affecting Indigenous Australians. It would not have legislative powers; it would be a strictly consultative body, advising governments and making recommendations to improve the living conditions of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islander peoples. The decision of the Turnbull government to reject this extremely important recommendation is evidence that Australia is a morally backward society. (more…)

  • JOHN MENADUE. How a rogue organization operates.

    This week Crikey has been running a series, the Holy Wars on ‘How The Australian targets and attacks its enemies ‘This prompted me to recall my own experiences and earlier writing on how News Corp intimidates its critics and threatens and seduces governments.

    The way News Corp operates must be traced to Murdoch himself for he has told us that ‘for better or worse (News Corp) is a reflection of my own thinking, my character and my values’.   (more…)

  • GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND …

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  • ROGER SCOTT. Hanson and Queensland Politics – Explaining the Phoenix

    Pauline Hanson has been a magnet for the media and for academic analysts since she burst on the scene in 1996 as the federal member for Oxley and her party won eleven seats and potentially the balance of power at the 1998 state election.  Now, like the legendary phoenix, she seems to have suddenly risen from the ashes. (more…)

  • RAMESH THAKUR. Multiple risks and limited options on the Korean peninsula

    By 2020, North Korea will either be a post-atomic wasteland; an active war zone; or a de facto nuclear-armed state with a fully developed intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capability, and grudgingly accepted as such. To paraphrase Churchill’s familiar bon mot on democracy, learning to live with that reality would be the worst outcome, except for all the alternatives. (more…)

  • MICHAEL WEST. BCA investigation: power of the business lobby in Australia

    This is part in a series of investigations by Michael West into Australia’s most powerful business lobby groups and rent seekers. To begin, we have selected the Business Council of Australia, the most elite and influential peak body of them all. Among the findings, the nation’s premier corporate lobby group has broken the law at least 11 times in 20 years. (more…)

  • ALLAN PATIENCE. Base politics or incredibly clumsy policing?

    Police raids on political parties or associated institutions at any time should raise concerns – and the hackles – among democratically minded citizens. The recent raids on AWU offices in Sydney and Melbourne, seemingly in search for “dirt” on Bill Shorten’s time as head of the Union, should be ringing alarm bells. Are the police acting independently, as our weak Prime Minister claims? Is this an attempt to silence one of the country’s most effective political advocacy groups – to wit, GetUp!? Are the federal police seeking to curry favour with an incumbent government by going after the Leader of the Opposition? Is it all of the above? Or is it simply Canberra’s latest bureaucratic SNAFU?   (more…)

  • GEORGE RENNIE. Senate crossbenchers take the first steps on lobbying reform – now to ensure it succeeds.

    The suite of codes, statements and laws governing lobbying are failing Australian voters. Yet, for decades, the two major parties have been unwilling to meaningfully improve them. But, having recognised the seriousness of the problems with lobbying and corruption in Australia, the Senate crossbenchers – along with lower house independents – have finally begun the process of deciding how lobbying reform should occur. Into this space, the Jacqui Lambie Network has released a policy that has become the starting point for negotiations on one of Australia’s most important policy challenges.  (more…)

  • JOHN TULLOH. Seven days in Peking, 40 years ago.

    Pearls and Irritations has printed memoirs of mine to mark the 50th anniversary of two notable news assignments: one was the Six-Day War, the other was a trip across the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War. This one marks the 40th anniversary of my first trip to China – to Peking, as Beijing was still known in 1977. It was a couple of years before the great transformation into modern China began.  (more…)

  • LAURIE PATTON. Smart people make smart communities.

    Many of my friends and colleagues have remarked on how my new role as inaugural CEO of the Australian Smart Communities Association (ASCA) is a natural extension of the work I’ve been doing promoting the need for #BetterBroadband. Connectivity is the cornerstone of Smart Communities. Innovation cannot occur without it, and innovation is key to creating more intelligent cities and enriching their communities.  (more…)

  • JIM COOMBS. An energy crisis? My Hat!

    The present ‘energy crisis’ is symptomatic of our nation’s leaders to obfuscate the truth to avoid doing what should be done. (more…)

  • NAISHAD KAIN-REN. Saudi Arabia’s Footprints in Southeast Asia

    Saudi Arabia’s increased influence in Muslim-majority countries will have wider ramifications for ASEAN. (more…)

  • PAUL BUDDE. And so the NBN blame game starts

    It has taken four years for the government and the nbn company to finally admit what many people have been warning for since the very beginning of the change in NBN plans from FttH (fibre to the home) to FttN (fibre to the node). (more…)

  • EVAN WILLIAMS. Mobile addiction: the new scourge of our time

     

    “That stupid woman!” my wife exclaimed, looking out through the front window of our house onto the street below.  We were listening to the news, and at first I thought my beloved was referring to some blunder by Julie Bishop or Theresa May.  But the object of her scorn was a woman wheeling a baby in a pram down the centre of the street and studying her mobile phone while cars edged past on either side.  (more…)

  • MARK BEESON. Western Australia and the resource curse

     The failure of successive WA governments to tax the resource sector effectively has meant that much of revenue generated by the most recent resource boom was appropriated by the multinational corporations that dominate the sector – more than 80 per cent of them foreign owned, by the way. 

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