Used for weekly email
Like so many members of the security establishment Director of ASIO Duncan Lewis adopted the time-honoured tactic of implicitly saying to the public ‘trust us because we know things you don’t know and which we can’t tell you’.
China is much more powerful than Australia and no amount of criticism from us will change this. In a fight with China, we must lose. Calm analysis must replace jingoistic hot air. Why are they really attacking us and what can we do about it now? (more…)
A Royal Commission under the best leadership could shine an enormously powerful spotlight on the fact that NewsCorp grossly breaches our foreign interference laws on a daily basis. (more…)
Much of America is breathing a sigh of relief that, gracefully or otherwise, Trump will soon vacate the White House. Allies of the United States – not just governments but much of the commentariat – are expecting a less turbulent and more predictable international environment. That may be wishful thinking. (more…)
The revelation of war crimes by Australian soldiers has brought our focus on to Afghanistan, why we are there and why the special forces did what some of them did there. If the US pulls out so will we but, if not, we face difficult choices. We must wait and see what President Biden will do when he finally gets into the White House.
Our political leadership will never be the subjects of the Office of the Special Investigator or the Australian Federal Police, nor, therefore, will they ever be charged. Indeed, in their exaggerated innocence they will display only the inevitable hypocrisy of the failed war-maker: a passion for condemning others and a total unwillingness to accept responsibility for their role in their crimes. (more…)
No holds barred? Kid-glove treatment for the Prime Minister, climate change denial, Murdoch media appears desperate and breaches of hotel quarantine.
(more…)
After more than 500,000 people signed a petition launched by former prime minister Kevin Rudd raising concerns about the influence of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, the Senate is to hold an inquiry into media diversity.
(more…)
Joel Fitzgibbon’s resignation from the front bench does not change the policy of the Labor Party. nor its leadership. But it does change the mechanics. (more…)
Will Trump’s crazed attempt to steal the election wake up his enablers. They will need a plan to dispose of him if, as now seems likely, he loses the election. (more…)
After the unexpectedly strong showing by the State ALP, this question has been posed: “Why is there such a dramatic difference between federal and state election results?” (more…)
Some readers will recall the major marketing campaign in the 1970s and 1980s for a non-alcoholic drink called Claytons, which looked like and was packaged to resemble whisky: “the drink you have when you’re not having a drink” was the slogan. The term Clayton’s caught on to mean anything which is not the real thing, and that is ineffective. (more…)
In this extract from her new book, The Palace Letters, Professor Jenny Hocking reveals key entries from dissident Liberal Senator Alan Missen’s ‘highly confidential diary on the 1975 constitutional crisis’. Five Liberal senators had resolved to abstain from a direct vote on the government’s supply bills, which would have enabled the bills to pass, just days before the dismissal of the Whitlam government. (more…)
It is not a pretty picture. Bernard Keane writing in Crikey said recently: “Everywhere you look in the Morrison government, you see sleaze and self-interest, if not outright corruption. Merely itemising the current scandals on foot is an arduous task.” (more…)
Whoever wins the imminent US Presidential election, US-China relations will continue to be the most important geo-political issue for the world, and for Australia. (more…)
An energy transition is underway but it is too slow to avert a climate catastrophe and it ignores many other environmental and social challenges that need tackling now. Capitalism has got us into this mess but doesn’t have the tools to get us out of it. Perhaps ecosocialism and Extinction Rebellion provide some answers.
If the past few months have been like a long-haul flight, Victorians are now standing in the aisles waiting for the cabin door to open, a little groggy and disoriented but relieved. They have every right to be. No other place in the world has tamed a second wave this large. Few have even come close. (more…)
In the far-off innocent days before the spin doctors decreed that backbenchers should cease thinking for themselves and instead parrot the talking points devised to avoid saying anything meaningful at all, a few brave souls were prepared to respond to questions more or less spontaneously.
Crown profits from the hardship of problem gamblers, the banks refuse to stop credit cards for problem gamblers. Helen Coonan is chair of both Crown and bank ombudsman AFCA (Australian Financial Complaints Authority). It is a conflict that makes her position untenable. (more…)
Dear Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions, please demonstrate that the decisions whether or not to prosecute, and the decisions to continue the prosecutions of Collaery and K, are not influenced by possible political advantage, disadvantage or embarrassment to the Government. Please apply the Prosecution Policy to the facts in front of you, uninfluenced by what Porter and the Government so obviously want. Do your lawful duty! Drop the prosecutions! (more…)
In responding to my post (19 October) about the Morrison government’s plan to spend at least $90 billion on large submarines, Jon Stanford’s post (21 October ) argues that we should do what the Commander of the US Submarine Force wants with our submarines. (more…)
Spare a thought for the personal tragedy of Gladys Berejiklian, a genuinely hard-working and on the face of it a decent premier of NSW. Brought low because she formed a long-term personal relationship with a spiv, one whose general dishonesty and abuse of power seems to have extended to trading on her credit.
The most remarkable thing about the revelation of Gladys Berejiklian’s love life was that it was remarkable at all.
So much for Australian sovereignty. We are locked out of repairing key US components of our subs’ computer systems, and the Coalition has committed our submarine fleet to the extraordinarily dangerous role of helping the US conduct surveillance in the South China Sea. (more…)
Here is the big so important question. As we prepare to ease some restrictions, will we, in contradistinction to many communities in other countries, embrace the long-term behaviours that must be normalised to allow us to live as safely and productively as is possible in a Covid-infected world? We need to look closely at the efforts of those in many countries for their track record is dismal. (more…)
It is a truth universally acknowledged – our aged care system is in a tragic mess. It has become a badly regulated, provider-centric system focused more on limiting Commonwealth budget exposure than supporting the dignity and independence of older Australians. (more…)
Senior members of the Australian Defence Force (ADF) have been drip feeding us through the media with information about the alleged war crimes committed by the Australian Special Air Service (SAS) and other Special Forces in Afghanistan between 2005 and 2016. (more…)
In Part 1 of her three-part investigation, Michelle Fahy investigates the corporate influence on government policy and how weapons makers cultivate relationships with politicians and top officials in the public service. (more…)
The overwhelming evidence is that, after more than two decades, the private-for-profit market model has not resulted in the improvements that were expected – more competition, more choice, improved efficiency, improved access and so on. It is time to conclude that aged care should no longer be framed as a private market. If it has not worked until now, there is no reason to expect it to work in the decades ahead. (more…)