The countries that have mastered the development of their resources, most notably Norway, worked out long ago that to truly prosper in the long run, the citizens who own these assets are entitled to share in the super profits derived from extracting their finite resource wealth. (more…)
Category: Politics
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How we can do better on education. (Jean Blackburn Oration)
When you do so little to require the winners from economic change to compensate the losers, and then, whether by accident or design, you have an influx of immigrants, you end up with Trump, Brexit and the resurrection of One Nation.
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NICOLE GURRAN and PETER PHIBBS. Housing policy is captive to property politics, so don’t expect politicians to tackle affordability.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s recent warnings that house prices would fall steeply under a Labor government confirm the underlying politics of housing policy in Australia. The default position for politicians is to sound concerned about housing affordability, but do nothing. (more…)
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MUNGO MacCALLUM. The Abbott geyser.
Unless Malcolm Turnbull is prepared to take the pretender front on, to attempt to blow him away in the manner he is trying to dispose of Shorten, he will continue to cop the wrecking, sniping and undermining that Abbott is so enjoying. (more…)
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NICOLE GURRAN & PETER PHIBBS. How the Property Council is shaping the debate around negative gearing, taxes.
We see their spokespeople quoted in the papers and their ads on TV, but beyond that we know very little about how Australia’s lobby groups get what they want.
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DOUG CAMERON. Commonwealth can, and must, do more on housing and homelessness
The failure of the market to provide housing for all who need it is compounded by several political failures. (more…)
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JOHN MENADUE. Medical specialists – high fees and poor accountability.
So much of the public attention is on care in general practice, but specialist healthcare has some very serious problems. The first is excessive remuneration of many specialists. In some cases it could only be described as greed. The second is the lack of accountability for care by many specialists and the unwillingness of their organisations to tackle the problem. (more…)
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DAVID JAMES. Trump’s pro-globalisation critics miss the key questions
The most pressing question: Is the global system there to serve people, or are people there to serve the global system? They also never address a central contradiction of globalisation: that capital is free to move, but for the most part people are not, unless they belong to the elite ranks. The inevitable backlash has begun. (more…)
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HAL SWERISSEN. Obesity: individual responsibility isn’t enough
When individual choices cost tax payers $5.2 billion in extra health and welfare services for obesity, the market has failed. When the market fails, it is legitimate for government to act. (more…)
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CHARLES LIVINGSTONE. South Australia’s gambling tax highlights the regulatory mess of online betting.
The South Australian government will introduce from July a “point-of-consumption tax” to claw back some of the gambling tax revenue it is seeing disappear over the border. The new tax is a reasonable response to a growing problem, and probably won’t send bookmakers to the wall. But it does highlight the current regulatory mess surrounding how we tax internet wagering in Australia. (more…)
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GEORGE BROWNING. Benjamin Netanyahu – Hero or Villain?
Benjamin Netanyahu is about to make an historic visit to Australia. Should he come and how should he be received? Having just guided legislation through the Knesset ‘legalising’ the illegal: settler outposts on private Palestinian land; he has seemingly set in motion an unstoppable movement which, taken to its ultimate conclusion, could deprive Palestinians of every inch of their ancestral land and establish Israel, a state devoid of morality or conscience. No wonder his President and Attorney General advised against it! (more…)
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JIM COOMBS. Do We choose reason and proportion or “Economic Reform” ?
So long as government vacates the field, the balance between rich and poor lurches further towards the rich. 8 individuals control half of the world’s wealth. Is that Balance or proportionate ? (more…)
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MUNGO MacCALLUM. Political morality and preference deals.
Turnbull, having told us that he is now an agnostic on energy policy – whatever works, by which he means whatever is good politics has now become an agnostic, even an atheist, when it comes to political morality. (more…)
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JOHN TULLOH. What will Malcolm Turnbull and Julie Bishop say to Benjamin Netanyahu?
It would be intriguing to know the position Malcolm Turnbull and Julie Bishop intend to adopt in talks when the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, visits Australia this week. It comes a week after Netanyahu had startling discussions with Donald Trump. The neophyte US leader on the Palestinian question did not seem too bothered what happened as long as both sides could reach ‘a deal’. Two-state, one-state, whatever! The two sides should work it out, he said, or perhaps get some of the friendlier Arab states involved, eh? (more…)
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PAUL BUDDE. Australia needs a proper NBN.
Regrettably it appears that on both counts – proper infrastructure plans and the need for affordable services – the government and the nbn company, despite spending something like $50 billion, have failed to come up with the right solution for Australia. (more…)
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WAYNE SWAN. Coalition energy policy.
It’s a lost decade we couldn’t afford on climate change and energy policy – but when the consequences are felt in years and decades to come, it’s incumbent upon us all not to forget the political opportunists and charlatans who led us down this path. (more…)
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MUNGO MacCALLUM. Malcolm Turnbull’s attacks.
But the real flaw in Turnbull’s strategy is its sheer negativity. The great dominators of parliament – Menzies, Whitlam and Keating most notably – all had something to say: they were policy powerhouses, intent on changing the nation in their own images. There was plenty of attack, plenty of a invective, but it was all aimed at providing a genuine agenda. (more…)
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MICHAEL SAINSBURY. A shonky affair.
Here lies the exquisite dilemma for the Packer lobbyists: help push the Chinese side to get a better deal, perhaps an exchange program for their incarcerated staff, or strike another deal, leaving all those ill-gotten gains sloshing around Sydney and Melbourne and finding their way to the Packer gaming tables. (more…)
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SUSAN RYAN, OLIVER FRANKEL, JOHN MENADUE. Upcoming series on Making Housing Affordable.
After Easter, Pearls and Irritations plans to publish a series ‘Making Housing Affordable‘ addressing key aspects of the housing crisis and recommending solutions, with contributions from a range of experts and other key stakeholders, including economists, planners, demographers, housing providers and policy makers. (more…)
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OLIVER FRANKEL. Making housing affordable. Vancouver’s new “Empty Homes Tax”
Vancouver’s response to the housing affordability crisis, now includes a new Empty Homes Tax at 1% per annum of the value of each empty home covered. Australian reports suggest that there may be 90,000 empty dwellings in Sydney and 83,000 in Melbourne. (more…)
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CAROLYN WHITZMAN. States drag feet on affordable housing, with Victoria the worst.
Moral panic over recent increases in visibly homeless people in central Melbourne has brought to the fore the critical shortage of affordable housing across the metropolitan areas of Australia’s wealthiest cities. But living on the street is only the tip of the iceberg. Many more households are living in insecure and/or overpriced accommodation. Their plight is due to an undersupply of appropriately priced, sized and situated rental housing. (more…)
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ROSS GITTINS. Outlook for Australian politics and government in 2017.
The area of economic reform where the government’s performance has been most egregious is on policy to ease our transition to a low-carbon economy and honour our commitments at the Paris conference. Leaving aside Abbott’s role in our policy regression, Turnbull’s disservice to the nation was to swear off introducing a carbon intensity scheme. (more…)
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Resource Gaps Between Advantaged & Disadvantaged Schools Among the Largest in the World
Disadvantaged students in Australia are being denied equal opportunities to learn because they have less access to qualified teachers and material resources than advantaged students. The gaps in access to education resources between advantaged and disadvantaged schools in Australia are among the largest in the world. (more…)
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PETER PHIBBS and NICOLE GURRAN. Why housing supply shouldn’t be the only policy tool politicians cling to.
If politicians were serious about the affordability crisis, they would be trying to support the important but underfunded affordable housing sector. Better targeting tax breaks towards new and affordable rental housing, rather than fuelling demand for existing homes, would also help. But until our politicians can see past supply slogans we can expect very little policy change. (more…)
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STEVE GEORGAKIS and JADE WARD. The first week in February 2017: A Landmark for Women’s Football Codes
Histories are silent on any real influence that women have had on their respective sport. This is because involvement in these sports have historically emerged from the connotations that such sports were about providing opportunities for men to develop a masculine character. (more…)
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IAN VERRENDER. Coal-fired generators have no future in Australia.
From an economic perspective, it would be far more efficient to eliminate subsidies altogether and to put a price on carbon that reflected its true cost. Private investors then would be able to choose which technology was most efficient. (more…)
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MUNGO MacCALLUM. Cory Bernardi and the Liberal Party.
In less exciting times, many in the Liberal Party – probably most – would have viewed the defection of Cory Bernardi with more relief than dismay. Understandably, they regard the South Australian senator as a royal (or at least monarchist) pain in the arse. (more…)
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ALLAN PATIENCE. How Conservative or Populist is the Contemporary Right in Australian Politics?
Conservatism and populism have become two abused concepts in contemporary Australian politics. In fact they are now being used as a camouflage by certain political operatives to conceal a harsh political agenda that bitterly contradicts nearly everything for which traditional conservatism has ever stood while distorting our understandings of the true nature of populism. (more…)
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TONY SMITH. Media ignorance of disrespect for parliament and people
It is a shame that at a time when government is so hollow, only a handful of journalists can escape the cliché and find a basis for critical analysis of policy, which ought to be the basis for judging a government’s performance. (more…)
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MUNGO MacCALLUM. Malcolm Turnbull on climate change and coal.
Unfortunately the storms and the heat waves are making it clear to reluctant voters that climate change is not going to disappear. Sooner or later the message will filter through even to the recalcitrants of the coalition. But by then it may be too late for Turnbull – and, for that matter, the rest of us. (more…)