Category: Politics

  • IAN VERRENDER. Election 2016: Who would want to inherit this budget mess?

    This election isn’t one that anyone would want to win. The global economy is uncertain, our debt is rising, and it seems we’ll be relying on luck rather than management to avoid a recession, writes Ian Verrender.

    It was hardly the kind of message an incoming Prime Minister would wish to hear.

    Not long after he seized power late last year, Malcolm Turnbull met with senior econocrats to get a handle on the economy.

    His meeting with Reserve Bank governor Glenn Stevens did little to inspire confidence. Business confidence had been shattered during the Abbott/Hockey era, he was told, business investment was abysmal, wages were all but stagnant and the terms of trade were collapsing.

    This shouldn’t have come as a surprise, for Stevens was traversing familiar ground.

    For months he’d been issuing warnings to anyone who’d listen about the limits of monetary policy; that it was time for government to pull its weight. But the idea that the nation was on the cusp of a potential recession, particularly with a looming election, was confronting.

    Turnbull quickly flicked the optimism switch to overdrive. There never was a more exciting time to be an Australian. We would transform from mining to something else via the magic of innovation. The economy was already well into the process of transition.

    The rhetoric was fine. But that was as far as it went. While boosting confidence is important, it is no match for solid fiscal management. And so, in the process, the new Prime Minister missed a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to seize the moment.

    Australia’s economy is at an inflexion point. The boom days are gone but the tax rorts and the spending remains. Clamping down, right when the global economy was slowing, would have been tough, painful even.

    At that point, however, Australians were prepared to follow what appeared to be a dynamic leader, certainly an intelligent one.

    For that brief period, had the brutal truth been outlined along with a plan – where the pain would be borne fairly – to fix the nation’s finances, we may have been able to steer a course back to economic strength over the medium term.

    The one acronym missing from any political discourse, however, is the AAA, as in triple A credit rating.

    Just as Paul Keating’s “banana republic” call galvanised the nation, the electorate would have worn spending cuts and perhaps even a higher GST, had it all been balanced by closing the tax loopholes for the wealthy.

    Strong leadership was required. What no-one realised was that Turnbull had signed away his freedom, that he was a captive of the factions that had installed him, that wanted no change, just a popular leader who could win an election and maintain their jobs.

    At first, it appeared negative gearing, the capital gains discount and the exorbitant tax breaks for the wealthy via superannuation were all under investigation. But almost every policy, apart from superannuation, was jettisoned.

    Incredibly, the Prime Minister now has become the great advocate of negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount, just to have a point of difference with the Opposition.

    Rather than a grand vision for the nation and the economy, he has switched to an Abbott style three world slogan election campaign. Except that in place of the DDD (Debt and Deficit Disaster), we’ve reverted to the time-honoured BBH (Budget Black Hole) and now JAG (Jobs and Growth).

    That’s entirely understandable given the DDdebt has nearly DDdoubled since the Government came to power. No point reminding anyone of that. And Labor really doesn’t want to go there either.

    The one acronym missing from any political discourse, however, is the AAA, as in triple A credit rating. Each of the three major credit ratings – Fitch, Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s – has issued thinly veiled warnings that gold star rating is under threat unless action is taken to halt the deterioration in our fiscal position.

    As Fitch’s director of sovereign ratings, Mervyn Tang, said in an interview with Elysse Morgan on PM, Australia’s triple A rating is safe, so long as all the expectations about growth released in the recent budget are met and there are no unforeseen domestic or international shocks.

    That’s a couple of mighty big ifs. For starters, the budget, now barely a month old, carries a series of assumptions that at this stage are looking hopelessly optimistic.

    Iron ore last week was trading about $US10 a tonne below the estimate. Wages growth has slipped to its lowest since the last recession in 1992, to just 2.1 per cent in the March quarter, well below the 2.5 per cent budget forecast for the new financial year.

    If that persists – and there is every indication it will – tax revenue will fall well short of forecasts and we will see yet another deficit blowout in the December half year update, as has become tradition.

    Then there is the plunge in business investment. The March quarter figures, released last week, showed a whopping 5.2 per cent decline, far worse than expected.

    If this campaign has achieved anything, it has demonstrated the impotence of our political masters and just how beholden they are to the vested interests that deliver them to power.

    The problem is that we don’t have a balance sheet strong enough to cope with this kind of downturn. Australia historically has run large current account deficits, importing more than we export and financing the difference with debt and imported capital. That’s a problem in this environment.

    Government debt, meanwhile, continues to climb. It’s now at $435 billion, not far off the $500 billion ceiling, which will soon require lifting, or perhaps even a second storey addition.

    While our government debt is low by international standards, that’s not the full story. Our total international debt clicked over the $1 trillion mark late last year and has continued to rise.

    That’s because our banks have been borrowing like drunken sailors offshore to help pump up the dangerously inflated Australian property market. Given the federal government now guarantees Australian offshore bank debt, that bank debt is a taxpayer problem.

    Last week, the Reserve Bank calculated the guarantee effectively subsidised our big banks to the tune of about $4 billion a year because it allows our banks can borrow at cheaper rate.

    That has a two-fold effect. First, it places even greater strain on the AAA rating. And second, if the credit rating is cut, mortgage rates would rise immediately.

    Oddly, there has been nary a peep of this during the campaign. Instead, the Prime Minister is adamant that the best way to ease the deficit is to cut taxes to corporations and the wealthy; a counter-intuitive concept if ever there was one.

    If this campaign has achieved anything, it has demonstrated the impotence of our political masters and just how beholden they are to the vested interests that deliver them to power.

    Take the ludicrous debate over the proposed superannuation changes, announced in the budget. Rather than a retirement savings plan, superannuation has morphed into a tax effective wealth accumulation vehicle for the rich.

    The changes, bold as they are for a Coalition Government and long overdue, will affect a miniscule proportion of the population. From now on, rich superannuants will only receive tax free earnings on balances of up to $1.6 million. Earnings on anything above $1.6 million will attract just 15 per cent tax.

    The howls of outrage have been deafening. The usual lobby groups kicked into action, decrying the shift as retrospective. Except, no-one complained about the retrospective nature of Peter Costello’s decision in 2007 to make it open slather for the rich, when he eliminated all income tax from retirement earnings.

    And what about younger Australians, many with degrees and trades but no job security and no chance to buy a house, earning $60,000 a year? They pay tax. And it is their taxes that will pay for wealthy superannuants to live tax free in the palatial style to which they have become accustomed.

    This election is not one that anyone would want to win. The next three years will be hard going. The global economy is uncertain and the chances of recession are rising. We will be relying on luck rather than management to avoid a recession.

    Ian Verrender is the ABC’s business editor and writes a weekly column for The Drum. This article first appeared in The Drum on 30 May 2016. See link below:

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-05-30/verrender-election-2016-who’d-want-to-inherit-this-budget-mess/7457808

     

  • TIM SOUTPHOMMASANE. Bamboo ceiling and race relations.

    Many of us have good reason for thinking that the state of our race relations is under challenge. We frequently see stories about people being racially vilified on public transport, and our recent public debates are punctuated by controversies about race.

    We know racism is a reality in contemporary Australian society. About 20 per cent of Australians say they have experienced racial or religious discrimination of some kind.  About 11 per cent say they have been excluded from social activities or the workplace because of their race.  About 5 per cent say they’ve been physically assaulted because of their racial background. (more…)

  • EVAN WILLIAMS. Chasing Asylum. Film Review.

    I rate it among the best Australian documentaries ever made

    If you want to see Chasing Asylum, Eva Orner’s brilliant new Australian documentary, my advice is to hurry along. At last count it was showing on just two screens in Sydney, and when I went along to the Dendy in Newtown on a recent Sunday afternoon – usually a good time for ticket sales – I was directed upstairs to a little cinema at the end of a long corridor to find the place half full. The ads are promoting it as “The film the Australian Government doesn’t want you to see” – and that I can believe. But does anyone want us to see it? Not the distributors – there’s barely a mention in the ads. Not, apparently, the ABC or SBS, who should be seizing it with both hands for prime-time screening during the election campaign. Perhaps that’s the problem – the film is politically explosive, and everyone seems to be running scared, including, of course, our political masters. (more…)

  • FRANK BRENNAN. Asylum policies and the election.

    The following is an extract from a speech by Frank Brennan at the Yass Catholic Parish Pot Luck Dinner on Saturday 28 May 2016. The full text of the speech is in the link below. John Menadue (more…)

  • RICHARD BUTLER. Obama and Nuclear Weapons

    It is widely acknowledged by those who have had anything substantive to do with nuclear weapons that as long as they exist they will, one day, be used, either by accident or decision. Equally, it is acknowledged that any such use would be a catastrophe. Thus, the logical and human solution is to eliminate them.

    Three months after he assumed his office, President Obama publicly joined those who accept these truths when, in Prague on April 9th, 2009, he said: “ I state clearly and with conviction America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons”

    Further, he said: “ as the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon, the United States has a moral responsibility to act.”

    He said the US could not succeed alone in seeking the objective of a secure world without nuclear weapons, but would lead the process and include all nuclear weapons states in it.

    The Nobel Peace Prize Committee reacted to his Prague pledge by awarding him the 2009 Peace Prize. To some that seemed to represent a hasty judgment by the Committee, but the terms of Obama’s attitude towards the elimination of nuclear weapons seemed to constitute a major new policy commitment. In fact, there have been precedents.

    In his farewell speech in January, 1961. President Eisenhower had warned against the influence over US policy of a “military industrial complex”, and stated, above all, that nuclear disarmament was essential. His warnings came to nought and at the height of the Cold War, in the 1980s, some 70,000 nuclear weapons had been made, over 90% of which were held by USA and USSR.

    In October 1986, USSR President Michael Gorbachev and US President Ronald Reagan met at Rekjavick. They agreed, initially, to seek the elimination of all nuclear weapons because of their conviction that the danger they posed was unacceptable. Reagan had famously asserted that “nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought”. Their initial agreement foundered however, on Reagan’s refusal to suspend his proposed missile defense shield. But, they did agree to eliminate their intermediate range nuclear weapons in Europe and the resultant INF Treaty became the first instance of the elimination of a whole class of nuclear weapons.

    On May 27th, 2016, seven years after his speech at Prague, and eight months before he will take his farewell from office, President Obama visited Hiroshima becoming the first US President to do so, 71 years after that first use of a nuclear weapon.

    In his remarks there he said: “among those nations like my own that hold nuclear stockpiles, we must have the courage to escape the logic of fear and pursue a world without them…persistent efforts can roll back the possibility of catastrophe. We can chart a course that leads to the destruction of these stockpiles.”

    Somewhat characteristically, President Obama injected a philosophic reflection: “The scientific revolution that led to the splitting of the atom requires a moral revolution as well”, and, “ … what makes our species unique. We’re not bound by genetic code to repeat the mistakes of the past. We can learn. We can choose”.

    Two key nuclear arms reduction treaties were negotiated between the US and Russia, after the Prague speech, the Start I and New Start Treaties and today, the number of deployed warheads allowed under those agreements is: 1780 and 2080 for Russia and the US, respectively and the same figures for “other” warheads are 5720 and 5180.

    Overall, arms control agreements have led to a reduction by two thirds, in the number of nuclear weapons in existence, globally, from that figure of 70,000 of the 1980s.

    Clearly, there has been progress in nuclear arms control, a step back from the profound insanity of the nuclear arms race, which was the hallmark of the Cold War.

    But, there remains at least three Key problems, which have not been addressed, nothwithstanding Obama’s statements and commitments.

    First, in order to secure consent by the US Senate to New Start and the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, Obama has authorized a $1 trillion 30 year upgrade of the US nuclear arsenal. It is impossible to reconcile this action with his stated posture of wishing to lead the way to a secure world without nuclear weapons, and the consent he sought on CTBT has not been given.

    Russia has also embarked on an expansion of the size and quality of its nuclear arsenal. Nuclear analysts have suggested that, in fact, Obama’s legacy upon leaving office will be a “second nuclear age”. Whether that perspective will prove to have merit, the postures and actions of Russia, on one side and the US and NATO on the other supports the apprehension that a new Cold War is underway.

    Secondly, there have been widely supported calls for the US and Russia, which together still hold at least 90% of nuclear weapons in existence, to take them off hair trigger alert. This would significantly reduce the possibility of accident or miscalculation, without eliminating their alleged utility in terms of deterrence.

    Thirdly, while Obama has spoken of the need for action with respect to all nuclear weapon States, of which there are 6 others (and an active contender in North Korea), there has been inaction. He seems not to have exercised the leadership on this that he promised. And, apart from the issues with Russia, there is the reality of the frightful dangers posed by the nuclear arms race between India and Pakistan, and by Israel’s nuclear weapons capability, in the miasma of Middle East politics.

    The International Court of Justice, unsurprisingly has pointed out that any use of nuclear weapons would violate customary international law, and with virtual certainty would constitute a crime against humanity. It has called attention to the fact that the Nuclear Weapon States identified in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (the Permanent Members of the Security Council) are obliged, under that Treaty to negotiate reductions in their weapons, without any further delay. And, some two thirds of the member States of the UN have called for the negotiation of a global Treaty banning nuclear weapons.

    In recent times Australian coalition Governments have sided with the US in voting against this proposal. Its neighbors, including Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and New Zealand have supported it.

    Where is the debate in Australia about the reality of the threat to our life, nation and environment caused by the continuing existence of nuclear weapons? Is it within our character and values to accept that the only way our survival, our life, is allegedly guaranteed is by the US being prepared to use, against others, weapons of mass destruction and radiation?

    Some say that to ask this question is hysterical. They assert that, clearly the US would never use its weapons but only threaten to do so, as a matter of deterrence. The notion of deterrence is, at best, a chimera, the failure of which would be a more than academic experience.

    President Obama resisted calls that he should apologize at Hiroshima, presumably because of the current dominance in the US of militant nationalism. But at Hiroshima, he did mention “mistakes”, and suggested that it is not necessarily in our human genus to be condemned to repeat them.

    The part of his remarks and reflections on which Australian leaders should act are those in which he acknowledged the need for the US to lead in efforts to end the servitude of nuclear weapons. That’s where we could and should help, politically and diplomatically. This would, of course, require us to demonstrate the “courage to escape the logic of fear”, to stand on our own feet, with a principled, aware, and independent foreign policy.

    Richard Butler AC, is former Ambassador to the United Nations and was appointed by PM Keating, in 1995, Convenor of the Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons.

  • CHRISTIAN DOWNIE, HOWARD BAMSEY. Election 2016: do we need to re-establish a department of climate change?

    With a federal election looming, Australia’s top mandarins will once again be turning their minds to the incoming government briefs, the so-called blue book if the Coalition is returned and the red book if Labor is elected.

    High on the agenda will be the organisation of the bureaucracy and it won’t get any trickier than climate change.

    A question for an incoming government will be whether to re-establish a Department of Climate Change?

    And if not, what should be done? (more…)

  • EVAN WILLIAMS: Who cares what the papers say?

    In the first week of Malcolm Turnbull’s interminable election campaign, the Murdoch press surprised its readers by advocating support for Labor. How’s that again? Had Rupert had a change of heart? Well, not exactly. But it certainly looked that way when his Sydney tabloid, the Daily Telegraph, under the headline “Save Our Albo”, urged voters in Anthony Albanese’s suburban Sydney seat to keep Albo in the job. It turned out that the Greens – an even greater threat to civilisation than the ALP – were threatening to unseat Albo in a preference deal with the Liberals. Luckily this dire plot was exposed in time. (more…)

  • MUNGO MacCALLUM: Rituals of irrelevance and distraction.

    So we have at last reached a marker along the long trek to the election.

    The Pre-election economic and fiscal outlook (PEFO) was announced at the end of the second week, which is supposed to mean just where we and our political masters see the state of the nation.

    PEFO was, like all its predecessors, determinedly optimistic: there are problems, sure, but we can expect things to get better. Nothing to see, folks. But for once there is a serious caveat: it just might not work out exactly as the Treasury and Finance Department hope. And if it doesn’t, we are up shit creek in a barbed wire canoe without a paddle. (more…)

  • ALISON BROINOWSKI; Wisdom in hindsight.

     

    Leaders who have presided over policy disasters typically respond in one of three ways. Some of them leave office and retire to their well-feathered nests, where they hibernate in silence. Others spray the blame around, including at those who advised them against the original folly, refusing to admit responsibility for it, and yet still claiming that the outcome was better than if they had not committed it, and claiming that now, things have changed. Others again adhere to the ‘never apologise, never explain’ school of public policy, refusing to admit they were wrong, and suggesting they would do the same again, given the opportunity. (more…)

  • Obama and the absence of apology in Hiroshima

    ‘As President of the United States of America, I express my profound apologies for the sufferings inflicted on the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the atomic bombings.’ These, of course, are the words that we are not going to hear Barack Obama speak in Hiroshima on 27 May, when he becomes the first sitting US president to visit the city since the atomic bombings in August 1945. It is sad that we will not hear at least a version of these words. A simple but sincere apology might bring some peace of mind to the survivors and their families, and could have a profound effect on Japanese society. (more…)

  • MUNGO MacCALLUM: Tax – in the eye of the beholder.

    The dementors of Newscorps couldn’t believe their luck.

    When the hapless Duncan Storrer rose to ask why rich people were to receive tax cuts while the poor, like himself, did not, the man ticked all the boxes.

    He was obviously a victim, and presumably a whinger. And he was not only an invited guest of the one-eyed leftist ABC, but of its most unholy program of all – Q and A. And unsurprisingly, its gullible audience proclaimed him a hero. The man was born to be destroyed. (more…)

  • JOHN MENADUE. Is the Coalition better able to manage our borders?

    For many years senior journalists have been telling us, or at least accepting the spin, that conservatives are better economic managers. I don’t think there is evidence to back that claim as several writers have pointed out in this blog.

    The other area where many senior journalists have been even more gullible is the acceptance of the claim that conservatives are better able to manage our borders. Again I don’t think this view can be sustained.

    Journalists are now under-resourced to do their job properly, but on an issue so much debated as border protection, they should examine the facts. There are three key issues which senior journalists should reflect upon. (more…)

  • Did the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki end the war?

    Today, President Obama is visiting Hiroshima. He will be the first US President to do so since the bombing in 1945. He said that he will not be apologising for the dropping of the bomb and will not try and second-guess President Harry Truman’s decision.

    The widely accepted moral justification for the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was that they brought a quick end to the war which if continued would result in more widespread deaths and destruction.

    There is an argument that what the Japanese military feared most of all was not the bombing of civilians but the threat of Soviet occupation and perhaps partition of Japan. (more…)

  • PETER BROOKS. Mind the gap in doctors’ fees – it is all around us

    John Thompson reminds us of the total lack of transparency in fees charged by doctors in Australia. Surgeon’s report shows the ineffectiveness of private health insurers to control health costs Posted on 07/05/2016 by John Menadue

    So can we dissect this further. What is in a medical fee – well may you ask. When you go to your doctor you may see a fees schedule on the reception desk – or you may have received a letter from the receptionist / practice manager indicating that you will be responsible for certain fees over and above what you will get back from Medicare and ( possibily ) your Private Health Scheme . It is not unusual to be asked to pay something in advance before an appointment ( usually for a procedure – endoscopy ) is even made . Even lawyers don’t make you do that- do they . So there are at least three fees- what the Government pays the doctor – the Medicare fee , then there is the AMA rate – why this is different does not seem to be based on any scientific evidence , and then there is what the doctor actually charges you . Again not based on anything but what the doctor feels the market will support – and it usually does because effectively you have no choice .Do you ask for a second opinion ? do you have a discussion about the fee and why it is so much higher than the Medicare rebate or the AMA fee- when this person is going to put a new hip into you next week or open up your belly – I don’t think so . (more…)

  • BILL AND BARBARA CLEMENTS: Refugees and round-ups.

    The Paris Metro station of Bir Hakeim, not far from the Eiffel Tower, serves both the Australian Embassy and a monument that was erected in 1994 to commemorate the mass round-up of Jews, brought to the Velodrome d’hiver (an indoor cycle track known as the Vel d’hiv) which formerly occupied the site. The Australian Embassy in Paris is built on railway yards across from that Vel d’Hiv site. (more…)

  • MARK GREGORY: Leaks from NBN were in the public interest. The response was designed to hide the NBN mess.

    The National Broadband Network (NBN) was meant to be a nation building project that positioned Australia as a leader in the global digital economy, but it has become a political football and as every day passes, Australia’s future prospects in the global digital economy are diminishing. (more…)

  • JOHN MENADUE. Attacks on refugees tell us more about Malcolm Turnbull than Peter Dutton.

    Power doesn’t always corrupt. Power can cleanse. What I believe is always true of power, is that power always reveals.’ Robert Caro.

    Peter Dutton has ‘form’, so his comments about refugees although disgraceful are not that surprising.

    The big disappointment has been Malcolm Turnbull who described Peter Dutton as ‘an outstanding immigration minister’. Instead of a firm rebuke from our Prime Minister, Dutton got praise and with his winsome way with words Malcolm Turnbull even suggested that Peter Dutton was being ‘demonised’.

    (more…)

  • JOHN KEANE. Money, Capitalism and the Slow Death of Social Democracy.

    In this article, John Keane speaks of the slow death of social democracy but suggests that there may be possibilities that social democracy could embrace Green movements, intellectuals and parties that have common interests. See extracts from article below and link to the full article in The Conversation. (more…)

  • DAVID STEPHENS. A review of Douglas Newton’s five articles that take us behind the scenes in the Great War.

    Douglas Newton confronts the really important questions about war

    David Stephens reviews five articles by Douglas Newton that take us ‘behind the scenes’ in the Great War (more…)

  • DAVID STEPHENS. Honest History’s Alternative Guide to the Australian War Memorial

    Questioning the received view: Honest History’s Alternative Guide to the Australian War Memorial

    Which word should we use to describe what happened on 25 April 1915: ‘landing’ or ‘invasion’? Why do we refer to dead soldiers as ‘the fallen’? Does the ‘freedom’ we are said to have fought for in our many wars include the freedom to have awkward views about how we should commemorate these wars? (more…)

  • MICHELE KOSASIH. Seven years on and still itching for change on the negative impacts of alcohol.

    2016 marks seven years for the Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education’s (FARE) Annual Alcohol Poll (conducted by Galaxy Research), and we continue to see Australia’s concern about the negative impacts alcohol has on the community. (more…)

  • SPENCER ZIFCAK. PNG Supreme Court Trumps Detention on Manus Island and Australia’s High Court too. It is regrettable that Australia does not have a similar Bill of Human Rights

    In the latest legal saga to beset the Government’s troubled offshore processing program, the Supreme Court of Papua New Guinea declared that the mandatory detention of asylum seekers from Australia on Manus Island was unconstitutional. The Court held that the detention of some 900 men on Manus violated the right to liberty guaranteed by PNG’s Constitution.

    A closer look at the decision discloses just how far the Australian and PNG governments have been prepared to go in conspiring to keep asylum seekers, travelling by boat to Australia, out of the country and incarcerated indefinitely offshore. (more…)

  • BOB KINNAIRD. Like earlier Free Trade Agreements, the new FTA with Singapore continues to waive labour market testing which has been designed to protect Australian workers and students.

    Prime Minister Turnbull announced the Australia-Singapore ‘Comprehensive Strategic Partnership’ (CSP) on 6 May last, just a few days before he called the 2 July election.

    Cynics will suspect the timing and also see the Singapore announcement as something of a consolation prize. The much bigger FTA fish for the Turnbull government was the elusive agreement with India. This was originally promised by the end of 2015 but Special Trade Envoy Mr Robb this week said only that a deal is now possible around mid-2016. (more…)

  • WAYNE McMILLAN. Is there any difference between Labor or Liberal coalition governments when it comes to economic management?

    There is much political rhetoric spouted by both sides of Australian politics when it comes to economic management and the truth generally lies somewhere in between the myths and the half-truths. To make matters even worse, so-called economic experts from the financial and business sectors, shock jocks and news media outlets tend to centre discussion narrowly on surpluses, deficits and government debt taken out of any meaningful, economic context. The language or terms used in the news and in political debate, often gives an inaccurate or incorrect picture of what is really happening. The political pundits and the commentariat tend to give the impression that the process of preparing budgets and guiding an economy to prosperity is a simple, straightforward process and only requires a good measure of common sense. (more…)

  • IAN McAULEY. The more we examine the Coalition’s ‘plan’ to cut corporate taxes, the more is revealed of its economic shortcomings.

    The more we examine the Coalition’s proposal to cut corporate taxes, the more is revealed of its economic shortcomings.

    Many have commented on the inequity of cutting corporate taxes while tightening eligibility for disability support, reducing benefits for new welfare recipients, freezing Medicare rebates, and inadequately funding health and education. (more…)

  • JOHN MENADUE. Bamboo ceiling and the old boys club. Our business sector is not equiping itself for our future in Asia.

    For three decade James Ruse High School in NSW and similar high schools around Australia have been dominating Higher School Certificate results. And according to the NSW Education Department 80% of these top students come from a background other than English with most coming from Asian Backgrounds

    But despite this remarkable record few of these students make it to the top in business, political or academic life. They may be regarded as intelligent and hardworking but what is holding them back in mainstream organizations in Australia? (more…)

  • GEOFF HISCOCK. Asia’s easy opportunities overshadow Indian business ties. Australian businesses lack enthusiasm for Indian opportunities.

    At the Australia India Business Council forum in Sydney earlier this week, Indian diplomats wondered why Australian businesses lacked enthusiasm about engaging with an economy that is destined to become the world’s third largest within the next two decades. (more…)

  • CARMEN LAWRENCE. When in doubt, rewind to the politics of fear.

    Peter Dutton now makes no distinction between asylum seekers and refugees who come through regular or irregular channels. He now demonises all refugees. John Menadue.

    It has been an article of faith for the Coalition that “real” refugees from UNHCR camps dotted around the globe deserve our compassionate support while the “illegal” asylum seekers who try to arrive by boat are little more than cashed up opportunists who deserve to be exiled in remote camps; object lessons to other would-be intruders. (more…)

  • JOHN MENADUE. Never underestimate a survivor, but Peter Dutton obviously under estimates refugees. They may be ‘takers’ in the early years, but they become great contributors.

    The following are extracts from a blog I posted on 27 June 2013.  John Menadue

    As responsible members of the human family, we have a strong moral case to provide protection for refugees who are the victims of persecution and violence.

    There is also a strong case in our own self-interest Refugees are almost by definition risk-takers and entrepreneurial. It can be argued that refugees are amongst the most highly motivated and determined in the Australian community. (more…)

  • ARJA KESKI-NUMMI. Peter Dutton should know better – rather than demonise refugees we should stand tall and proud of what we have achieved over the past 70 years.

    The problem with refugees and asylum seekers is that they are not us – so it is OK to demonise them. Dutton is not dog whistling when he puts people into boxes describing them as “these people”, asserts that they are barely literate or numerate in their own languages, can’t speak English and at the same time says they would take Australian jobs and at the same time assert that they will languish on the dole and Medicare! You can’t have it both ways Mr. Dutton. (more…)