The new sanctions on DPRK will likely suffer the failure of so many such sanctions orders. DPRK policy and actions have their reasons. Those must be addressed directly, politically. Will the nuclear weapon states do it, or is it too close to their bones? (more…)
Category: Politics
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FRANK BRENNAN. We need a Bill of Rights
As Attorney General Lionel Bowen dedicated a lot of time and energy to a Bill of Rights. He introduced legislation which was doomed. But he outlined the principles for an Australian Human Rights Bill espousing the preconditions for the common good in contemporary Australia. He told Parliament: (more…)
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KOMALA RAMACHANDRA. Australia’s ‘Modern Slavery’ Proposal Falls Short
In mid-August Australia’s justice minister proposed a new law requiring the country’s biggest companies to report on their practices and policies to prevent forced labour in their operations and supply chains. The government wants to ensure that consumer products like food, electronics, and clothing – whether they’re made abroad or domestically – are not produced by people forced to work against their will. It is a laudable goal, but the steps they’ve taken are inadequate. (more…)
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MICHAEL MULLINS. Civil and religious marriage are best kept separate.
By conflating the civil law with religious ritual, we create confusion that makes it easy for the Church to claim authority that rightfully belongs to the state. In other words, the Church makes demands regarding sacramental marriage, which of course is OK. But it often weighs in on civil marriage as well, which is different. (more…)
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JENNY HOCKING. ‘Secret “Palace letters” not so secret after all’ and where is Malcolm?
The Federal Court case against the National Archives of Australia, seeking the release of the ‘Palace letters’ which are embargoed by the Queen, concluded in Sydney last week. The case centres on the critical question of whether these letters, between the Queen and the Governor-General, Sir John Kerr, at the time of the dismissal of the Whitlam government, are ‘personal’ rather than Commonwealth records. (more…)
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MUNGO MacCALLUM. An energy emergency after ten years!
Malcolm Turnbull assures us that he is concentrating on energy and its three pillars – cost, security and environment. Well, at least the first two; it must be said that the environment has not had much of a look in during the last frenzied week. (more…)
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CAVAN HOGUE. Our news media need less hysteria and more history
Australian reporting on international affairs leaves much to be desired as recent comments on the Philippines and Russia show. While the situation in Mindanao must be taken seriously, it is important to understand that only 20% of the inhabitants are Moslems and that most of the island is inhabited by Christian migrants. This doesn’t seem to be understood by some commentators. The threat is not to the island but to the south. Russia also gets superficial treatment which tends to descend into a goodies and baddies approach instead of a balanced one. (more…)
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FRANK BRENNAN. Developing an inclusive and sustainable economy (Speech launching the 2017 Social Justice Statement, 7 September 2017)
We’re here to launch Everyone’s Business: Developing an Inclusive and Sustainable Economy. 25 years ago, the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference published Common Wealth for the Common Good: A Statement on the Distribution of Wealth in Australia. Michael Costigan and Sandie Cornish who are with us this morning laboured long and hard over four years to produce that document 25 years ago. (more…)
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JOHN MENADUE. Are we stopping the boats to save lives at sea?
To justify its harsh refugee policies, the government has been telling us that its policies are designed to save lives at sea. The ALP also joins in this shabby chorus (more…)
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MUNGO MacCALLUM. ‘Come on chaps,I am right behind you’
It was not the end; it was not even the beginning of the end. But it was, finally, the end of the beginning. The High Court has at last fanned the long smouldering same sex marriage into flame, and now it has become a question of not if, but how, the inferno will play out and how many victims it will consume in the forthcoming holocaust. (more…)
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JOHN Menadue. It is scandalous how infrastructure spending escapes proper scrutiny
The gathering infrastructure mess in Australia requires open public inquiries, starting with the Sydney Metro. (more…)
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JOHN MENADUE. Abbott and Turnbull are the real culprits on the energy policy mess. (repost)
This is a repost of an article that was originally posted on 14 June 2017. I have reposted this in light of current controversy on extending the life of coal fired generators.
In his journal, The Constant Investor, Alan Kohler sheeted blame very directly to the Coalition and Malcolm Turnbull. He said
Those crises have now arrived in the form of blackouts, and they are not caused by too much renewable energy… it’s due to a lack of investment, in turn due to a lack of policy certainty and clarity. This is entirely the Liberal Party’s fault — not just Malcolm Turnbull’s, although he is a rather pathetic figure now. If he didn’t go along with the hoax, he’d be sacked and another PM would. By taking the low road in 2009 instead of the high road, and deciding to mislead Australians about the true cost of energy, the Liberal Party condemned the country to a decade of confusion and stasis on energy policy. That reached a nadir of absurdity last week with the Treasurer’s coal stunt. The rest of Australia’s leaders, in particular the CEOs of our largest companies, should declare now that enough is enough, and pull these idiots into line. (more…)
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JENNY HOCKING. The palace treats Australia as the colonial child not to be trusted with knowledge of its own history
It’s more than 40 years since the dismissal of the Whitlam government, but under instructions from the Queen the secret ‘palace letters’ are still embargoed. (more…)
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ROD TUCKER AND JOHN DE RIDDER. How to fix the NBN pricing model: An open letter to Bill Morrow.
Dear Bill,
The NBN pricing model is in urgent need of repair. In this letter, we offer our thoughts on how an overhaul of the pricing model can solve a number of problems facing the NBN. (more…)
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GILES PARKINSON. Turnbull’s abject capitulation to the coal lobby is now complete
The kindest thing to say about prime minister Malcolm Turnbull’s absurd proposal to extend the life of the country’s oldest coal generator is that he is playing politics. (more…)
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KATHARIN R. LESTARI. Indonesia speaks up as global support for Rohingya grows
The Indonesian government has stepped up its support for ethnic Muslim Rohingya promising humanitarian aid and a new hospital in their homeland in Myanmar’s Rakhine State as the military continues to torch villages while battling homegrown insurgents. (more…)
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TEJSHREE THAPA. Watching Burma in Flames from Bangladesh
I stood at the edge of the Naf River on the Bangladesh border watching heavy smoke rise from a village on the Burma side. Bangladeshi border guards talked of fires all along the border targeting villages of Rohingya Muslims. (more…)
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PAUL FRIJTERS. It’s not about state versus markets.
It is said that all generals prepare for the last war. So too it often seems in ideology land, where the conflict with the Soviet Union seems to have left us with an obsession with state versus market. Just as we are not preparing for the cyber wars of the future by building obsolete submarines that would only have been useful in WWII, we are not addressing today’s economic challenges by thinking in Cold War economic terms either. (more…)
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RAMESH THAKUR. In the ‘Graveyard of Empires’, the US Military Presence Is on Life Support
As a private citizen, Donald Trump advocated for full US withdrawal. As president, he has chosen to perpetuate, prolong and expand the war, at further cost to US treasure and lives. (more…)
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MAUREEN TODHUNTER. Imaginations of the world, unite!
As news and other media apparently edge us toward a war-ready footing, we need to think critically about what informs our views, to imagine our way into more enlightened, more peaceful co-existence. (more…)
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K. HUSSAN ZIA. American Objective in Afghanistan
The Afghans are not a nation as such but a composition of numerous tribes. These form loose groupings based on ethnicity. Individuals owe their allegiance first and foremost to the tribe and after that to the ethnic group. Among the latter, Pashtoons constitute the dominant force and are the main element in the insurgency. They are divided into a number of tribes and sub tribes that have a common code of conduct known as Pakhtoonwali. There are more Pashtoons in Pakistan than in Afghanistan. They have traditionally treated the border between the two countries as informal and interacted with each other freely. (more…)
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MUNGO MacCALLUM. Turnbull has had a quiet week: is that because no one is listening to him anymore?
Turnbull has had a relatively quiet week in the parliamentary break. But whether he continues to appease the right in the Coalition, or reverts to the old Malcolm, he has a more basic problem – people have stopped listening to him. (more…)
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LAURIE PATTON. The Australian shoots the NBN messenger, as usual.
Three years ago, Internet Australia, the not-for-profit peak body representing the interests of Internet users, embarked on a mission to foster more informed debate about the National Broadband Network and its importance to Australia’s future.
It was – and is – the view of our board and members that we need something better than a network deploying ageing copper wires. (more…)
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RAMESH THAKUR. India and China provide rare glimmer of hope
A confrontation in the Himalayas could have turned violent, but mature diplomacy won the day. (more…)
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MUNGO MacCALLUM. Business people and trade unionists.
Not only has the debt and deficit emergency ballooned and productivity stalled, but the mantra of Jobs and Growth, which Turnbull still insists is not a slogan but an outcome, has signally failed to deliver. (more…)
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STEWART LITTLE. Titles registry sale a super storm.
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian will bequeath the state a financial disaster for millions of property owners thanks to her government’s leasing of Land and Property Information’s 150-year-old Land Titles Registry. (more…)
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FRANK BRENNAN. The Copenhagen breakthrough in the Timor Sea.
There has been an agreed breakthrough in the long running dispute between Australia and Timor Leste in relation to maritime boundary demarcation and control of the resources in the disputed area in the Timor Sea. The breakthrough came on 30 August, the 18th anniversary of the bloody referendum at which the Timorese voted for their independence from Indonesia. The terms of the deal remain confidential. But the Permanent Court of Arbitration which is overseeing the Conciliation Commission convening the two parties meeting in Copenhagen has issued a press release noting that they have ‘have reached agreement on the central elements of a maritime boundary delimitation’ and they have agreed to ‘the establishment of a Special Regime for Greater Sunrise’. (more…)
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IAN MCAULEY. Electricity discounts for some, price rises for others
If we follow the government’s suggestion that we should hunt around for cheaper electricity there will be no net benefits, just a re-shuffling of who cross-subsidises whom in the market. We have been brought to this absurd situation by a blind faith in privatisation and “competition”. (more…)
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JOHN MENADUE. ‘Faster economic growth demands better chief executives’. (Repost from 27 September 2016)
In the AFR today (1/9/2017) under a headline ‘The big end of town has no-one but itself to blame’, Laura Tingle said “Big business preaching against the rising tide of government is undermined by its own failures”. This was theme that I wrote about in September last year on the failures of our chief executives. This repost follows. (more…)
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PETER DAY. When Church leaders forget to tell the story that liberates.
Human sexuality is a complex and fragile thing; far greyer than black or white. It is best tended to by gentle, wise, and humble hands – religious leaders might like to consider dropping their megaphone diplomacy, then? (more…)