Used for weekly email
In 2020 the International Year of the Nurse and Midwife there has been a focus on nurses and nursing. Not the one planned, but nonetheless, nurses have been seen: by politicians and the public. But not by the medical doctors with their vested interests. (more…)
This week Sharri Markson exposed the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the British MI6 and others for a gormless bunch of gumshoes and naifs.
Racism, fear and lack of moral courage sees Australia tied to a declining America, suffering, as a result, a lack of self-respect, independence and a viable and progressive relationship with our largest trading partner.
We tend to forget that our military, political and other cultures were formed in the frontier wars of British imperial expansion in the 19th century. Because those wars were fought in the process of taking the land of Aboriginal and Maori peoples and of inflicting partial genocide en passant, they were always going to produce serious historical amnesia. Silence. (more…)
The Prime Minister has brushed off his failure to gain a speaking role at the Glasgow global warming summit as inconsequential. But the reality is that the Prime Minister and his government continue to fail us.
(more…)
The advertising of alcohol, gambling and junk food, especially in sport and during children’s viewing times, has been contentious. With summer upon us, cricket is again swamped with these ads, exposing millions of kids to them and threatening their health and wellbeing. The release of new drinking guidelines calls into question the future of this kind of advertising. (more…)
With workplace reform winging its way towards the Senate, the mainstream media’s coverage of the changes was predictably unbalanced.
As much as clothes, language has fashions. This month’s in-vogue expression is “walking back” – a metaphor for resiling from a position previously taken. And in these changing times, there is a lot of walking back about.
The federal Health Department has learnt a thing or two from Scotty from Marketing. It has just announced version seven of the aged care pandemic plan. Never mind that the previous six versions never existed. (more…)
It’s hard to escape the feeling that most of the heat and light generated by Scott Morrison’s fury at a cartoon by a middle-level Chinese tiger cub was designed for Australian, rather than Chinese, consumption. Regardless, it could be a dangerous strategy.
The enemy spin of the wheel begins when an Australian official or politician, pumped up with ‘Yellow Peril’ prejudices and US anti-China propaganda, sets out to condemn China and urge severe restraints on Chinese people working in Australia. (more…)
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.