Where do you start? A total clean-out of the board and management of the Commonwealth Bank, a complete rethink of the role of our financial institutions, or a subjective investigation on the impact of new technology and whether it can replace human involvement? (more…)
Category: Politics
-
RICHARD BUTLER. Trump: A Sideshow? (This is a repost from 27 January 2017)
It is not only Trump that has assumed power in the US but also a set of deeply ideological and introverted Republicans. Both will shape US policy and actions. Australia should now review the conduct of its relationship with the US, and develop an independent foreign policy, freed from the dictates of internal US politics. (more…)
-
MUNGO MacCALLUM. A $30 million gift to the great rent seeker, News Corp.
Inevitably a scandal over $30 million of taxpayers money to Foxtel tended to get lost in the rush. But it remains a scandal nonetheless, especially when the government admits – no, boasts – that there is no record of the transaction; apparently the cash was simply handed over in a brown paper bag with a wink and a nudge. (more…)
-
John Menadue. Murdoch’s Media Tax. (Reposted from 29/12/2015)
Rupert Murdoch complains that he faces unfair competition from a taxpayer funded public broadcaster like the ABC and SBS. Yet in effect, he imposes his own consumption taxes on consumers. (more…)
-
JOHN MENADUE. Conservatives set the rules but they keep breaking them. (Repost from 7 February 2017)
Many people around the world are concluding that the system is rigged in favour of powerful insiders who bend the rules. The populists – Trump, Farage, Le Pen and Hanson are adept at tapping into that disempowerment and the sense that the system is rigged against them. (more…)
-
MICHAEL KEATING. Electricity Prices.
Electricity prices are a hot topic at present. Amidst the welter of claim and counter-claim as to what is the cause of higher electricity prices, there has been remarkably little use of the available evidence. (more…)
-
CHARLES LIVINGSTONE. Pokies, sport and racing harm 41% of monthly gamblers: survey
For the first time, the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey has turned its attention to gambling, revealing that around 1.4 million Australians are directly harmed by the activity. (more…)
-
China’s Maritime Provocations Are Nothing Next To America’s Adventurism A Century Ago
The message from the U.S. is that China should be more like us. But Americans should be careful what they wish for. (more…)
-
It’s high noon on the roof of the world
The territorial standoff in the Himalayas is a lose-lose proposition for both India and China. (more…)
-
MUNGO MACCALLUM. Time to take Bill Shorten seriously.
It is time, perhaps past time, to take Bill Shorten seriously. (more…)
-
IAN MARSH. Australia’s gridlocked Parliament. (Repost from 9 September 2016)
There is a structural contradiction at the heart of the new parliament. Two diametrically different political systems co-exist. Incentives and expectations are at cross purposes. Until this contradiction is addressed the prospects for major legislative change must be judged slight. (more…)
-
DUNCAN MACLAREN. The UK heads towards a cliff.
If Australia were the UK and heading for a suicidal plunge off an economic, social and cultural cliff-face, wouldn’t you be worried? (more…)
-
MUNGO MacCALLUM. Another fine mess the constitution has got us into.
We bar dual citizenship from the parliament, but the head of it – the Queen of England one who presides over ceremonial openings when she happens to be in the country, is not only a dual but a multiple citizen herself. (more…)
-
JOHN TULLOH. “Hell on earth” lies just across the Indian Ocean
If you travelled from Western Australia north-west across the Indian Ocean, the first country you would encounter has been described as ‘Hell on Earth’. You will find there civil war, famine, drought, refugees, destruction and a blockade for starters. Now it has a cholera epidemic. No wonder it has been called the worst story in the world which nobody is talking about. (more…)
-
JOHN QUIGGIN. People have lost faith in privatisation and it’s easy to see why. (Repost from 22 August 2016)
From the viewpoint of ordinary Australians, privatisation is a policy that has consistently failed but is remorselessly pushed by the political elite. It is little surprise that voters are turning to populism in response. (more…)
-
RICHARD BUTLER. Off With Their Heads
Article 44 of our Constitution defining who may or may not run for Parliament needs authoritative interpretation because it’s hopelessly out of touch with today’s Australia. This need not augur a grotesque Hansonite event reiterating that non-Christian barbarians are at the door. (more…)
-
WILLIAM GRIMM. Why have US Catholics turned right? And Paul’s epistle to the Fallopians
American Catholics have traditionally supported the Democratic Party, but a combination of episcopal intransigence, Democratic abortion policies and a primitive cast to US society have brought about a change. (more…)
-
GREG LOCKHART. What were we fighting for at Gallipoli, in Palestine and on the Western Front? (Part 5 of 5)
Part 5: Narrative Overview and Conclusion
The emphasis in our military history and remembrance on asking how we fought does not inherently preclude an interest in what we were fighting for. The two narratives could co-exist and interact. But not effectively in our culture – yet. We still lose sight of what our remembrance confirms: the interconnectedness of what we were and still are fighting for. (more…)
-
MAX HAYTON. New Zealand’s General Election, September 23 2017.
There’ll be no revolution this time. Polls show New Zealand voters are as contented as a herd of freshly milked cows. The election will produce a government that will be either centre-left or centre-right. Either way, the winner will probably need help from minor parties. (more…)
-
TIM LINDSEY. Jokowi’s dilemma: turning Islamists into civil rights heroes?
Indonesia’s emergency law, enacted in response to the growing disruptive influence of Islamist hard-liners, could be a blow to the open, liberal democracy that Indonesian reformers have been trying to build ever since the fall of Soeharto in 1998. And it has the ironic result of forcing civil society groups that are usually against the hard-liners into their camp. (more…)
-
GREG LOCKHART. What were we fighting for at Gallipoli, in Palestine and on the Western Front? (Part 4 of 5)
Part 4. A race strategy to save ‘White Australia’
Political manipulation of the society’s racially inflected anxieties was a major factor in the imperial ascendency over national defence policy in the Commonwealth in 1911. The secret implementation of a race strategy then determined our entry into the Great War. This information was not available to Australians until 1992. (more…)
-
JOHN MENADUE. Malcolm Turnbull – Mr. 300%. (Repost from 18 November 2016)
Malcolm Turnbull has announced a submarine building program that has an effective rate of protection of 300%. Yes 300%. That is the additional cost we will pay compared with buying at best price in the international market. (more…)
-
STEPHEN LEEDER. Review of the Medicare Benefits Schedule.
The Medicare Benefits Schedule, or MBS, is the basis for Medicare payments made for medical care in the community. It runs to over 900 pages and contains 5,700 items. Well over $2Ob pass through its ledger each year. It includes long and short clinical consultations and surgical procedures ($17b), pathology tests ($2.65b) and x-ray and other imaging ($3.2b) that form the bulk of out-of-hospital care, mostly but not entirely ($1b not) provided by doctors. (more…)
-
GREG LOCKHART. What were we fighting for at Gallipoli, in Palestine and on the Western Front? (Part 3 of 5)
Part 3. Empire over nation.
In 1914-18, the fight for Empire against Asia minimised independent Australian national interests. Ambiguous, interchangeable use of the terms ‘empire’ and ‘nation’ also protected that ‘imperial’ bias in our political culture. (more…)
-
LOUIS COOPER. President Trump’s 17-page list of changes to the North American Free Trade agreement [NAFTA] are causing some political problems for Canada’s Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau.
NAFTA came into force on January 1 1994. It replaced the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement. NAFTA’s basic premise was to ignore the international borders and reduce or eliminate tariffs for much of the trade between Canada, the United States and Mexico. For the most part, it has been beneficial to the North American economies and the average citizen, but harmful to a small minority of workers in industries exposed to trade competition. (more…)
-
JAMES O’NEILL. Germany’s Ostpolitik in the Modern Era
Germany recognises that there is a fundamental shift in the economic, political and military balance of power to the east. It is now flexing its political muscle to match its economic might.
(more…) -
JOHN AUSTEN. Road spending incurs billion dollar new debts annually – nobody notices (Repost from 27 June 2016)
It’s traditional that election time in Canberra brings out the road lobbies who ask for ‘all that extra cash’ which governments raise from fuel excise to be ‘put back into our roads’. The problem is that the facts no longer bear this out. Australia is spending more on roads than it collects from fuel excise and vehicle registrations. It is going into more and more debt to build roads. What is worse, it appears that official figures are being fudged to obscure this inconvenient truth from scrutiny – lest it get in the way of more promises for more and more multi-billion dollar road projects. (more…)
-
GREG LOCKHART. What were we fighting for at Gallipoli, in Palestine and on the Western Front? (Part 2 of 5)
Part 2. Empire against Asia
The ‘imperial’ nature of Australia’s involvement in the Great War was distinctively Australian and, it should be said, a sign of the doubt white settler society had about its survival as a remote outpost of the British Empire in Austral-Asia.
-
Big business influence wanes as public rejects ‘bizonomics’
In this article in the Fairfax media on 24 July 2017, ROSS GITTINS refers to the debate in Pearls and irritations about neoliberal economics. John Menadue
The collapse of the “neoliberal consensus” is as apparent in Oz as it is in Trump’s America and Brexitting Britain, but our big-business people are taking a while to twig that their power to influence government policy has waned. -
RICHARD WOOLCOTT. Government policies have made us less safe.
The establishment of an enlarged Department of Home Affairs under the ministerial control of Peter Dutton is an unnecessary mistaken policy. (more…)