Blog

  • JOHN AUSTEN. Newcastle port – some progress in undoing a privatisation fiasco

    Pressure is mounting to overcome the ridiculous anti-competitive constraints on Newcastle port. (more…)

  • MACK WILLIAMS. Revisiting Australian strategic policy in the light of NDS18 – Where to start ?

    The new US strategic policy requires serious and urgent revisiting of our key strategic policy positions to identify implications it has for Australia. Any attempt to minimise differences for short term political gain could endanger the nation’s longer term future. (more…)

  • GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND …

    In an article in the Fairfax Press, Clancy Yeates points out that Australia’s big banks have “slashed loans to fossil fuel companies by almost a fifth in 2017, including a 50 per cent drop in their coal mining exposure”.

    On last weekend’s Saturday Extra, Geraldine Doogue interviewed Laura Dassow Wallis, author of Henry David Thoreau: A life. There is a common image of Thoreau as a hermit in the wilderness, but Wallis dispels this image. He was thoroughly connected with society, and was deeply concerned with the way, as capitalism advanced, public land was being taken from the community and enclosed. The appropriation of physical and metaphorical public space for commercial purposes continues to this day.

    On Saturday Extra this 3rd February Geraldine Doogue is discussing the unintended consequences of the government’s foreign interference bills on business activity and NGO’s with Elaine Pearson from the Human Rights Watch and Les Timar from the Australian Professional Government Relations Association; Lesley Russell, from the Menzies Centre for Health Policy discusses US business giants who have joined forces to form a company challenging the US health care system; as evidence is being collected of a Rohingya massacre from last August, Richard Paddock, foreign correspondent with the New York Times, traces the history of the Myanmar army and Geraldine Doogue travelled to Rwanda in January to see the silver back gorillas but also discovered a country reconciling the 1994 genocide, Geraldine speaks with Senator Apollinaire Mushinzimana and the head of the Rwanda Broadcasting Agency Arthur Asimwe.

    Many economists are predicting strong economic growth this year. But Ross Gittins, commenting on Australia’s stalled wage growth and the  diminished power of organised labour, writes: “Take away the real growth in wages and neither the economy nor jobs will stay growing strongly for long”.

    How Australia’s identity was militarised – Paul Daley in the Guardian.

    A former communist and a former Catholic activist combine forces to cast new light on the organisation that helped fuel the Labor split – Paul Rodan in Inside Story.

    “Qantas and other big Australian businesses are investing regardless of tax cuts” – the Conversation.

    We have entered the post-American era, writes Stan Grant

    Greg Jericho unravels the miracle of Roger Federer.

    Avoiding a US-Rissian military escalation during a hybrid war – Carnegie Moscow Center.

    A series of articles by blogger Umair Haque on why the American Dream is over.

     

  • JOHN MENADUE. We are joined at the hip to a country perpetually at war. Part 5

    Next week I will be posting articles asserting that we are running great risks in being tied to what Malcolm Fraser called “our dangerous ally”, an ally almost always at war.  The risks pre-date Donald Trump.  Think Vietnam and Iraq.  

    In recent issues of P & I I have posted many articles about the US and its almost perpetual involvement in war.  I repost an article below “American Imperium – Untangling truth and fiction in an age of perpetual war” by Andrew Bacevich.

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  • ACT private schools have the mother of all special deals

    The Turnbull Government promised to eliminate all special deals for private schools under its Gonski 2.0 funding plan. However, new data released through Senate Estimates reveal that the $58 million adjustment fund for ACT private schools announced last year is the mother of all special deals.  (more…)

  • JOHN MENADUE. It’s time for a Human Rights Act for Australia -A repost

    In Pearls and Irritations recently, Elizabeth Evatt (Why not protect all our rights and freedoms?) called for a Human Rights Act to protect all our rights and freedoms and not just freedom of religion. 

    The issue of freedom of religion is being examined by Phillip Ruddock and his ‘expert panel’. This issue is also being examined by a Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade.   (more…)

  • MACK WILLIAMS. China : “All the way with USA” ?

    The Turnbull Government was clearly caught flat-footed by the significant change in the Trump’s security strategy announced by Defense Secretary Mattis. Defence Minister Payne’s initial comment and background briefings had to be corrected quickly. All of which underlines the urgent need for detailed review of NDS18’s implications for Australian strategic policy.  (more…)

  • RICHARD BUTLER. The State of the Union: Pantomime, With Menaces

    Trump’s State of the Union speech was filled with menaces to enemies both foreign and domestic. US policy is now comprehensively militarized and in the hands of Trump’s Generals. It was a dangerous pantomime, with much cheering from Republicans who still seem to hope that no one will notice the Faustian bargain they have done with Trump and militarism.  (more…)

  • Shorten hails cheap wind and solar, but will he stop Adani

    You would have missed it, if you were relying on mainstream media, but Labor leader Bill Shorten did actually mention clean energy and climate policies in his scene-setting speech for 2018, which may well turn out to be an election year. (more…)

  • JAMES O’NEILL. When will the Australian Opposition and Parliament actually do its job over the Syrian war?

    The US Secretary of Defence, General Mattis, recently announced that the US was intending to create a 30,000 strong “border force” to occupy a portion of northern Syria. This is territory in which the largest group are ethnic Kurds who in the past have been supported by the US, not on any principled basis but because they represented a group that may assist US geopolitical objectives. Those objectives are neither singular nor necessarily consistent. They include the often reiterated claim that the “Assad government must go”, a view echoed until recently by the Australian government; although the latter’s statements on anything related to Syria have been markedly muted.

    Given the silence of the government, the equally supine stance of the Labor opposition, the complicity of the main stream media and the complete absence of meaningful parliamentary debate about Australia’s foreign policy misadventures for and on behalf of the fading US imperium, it is difficult to discern quite what the Australian policy actually is.  (more…)

  • JOHN THOMPSON. Private health insurers discriminate against country people

    Private health insurers have asked the Commonwealth Government to prevent patients paying for public hospital services through their private health insurance (PHI).  This would be grossly unfair for those people in non-metropolitan Australia who are enticed into PHI through the Medicare Levy Surcharge, but have no private hospitals in their region. More basically, the Government should abolish its $10 billion subsidy to PHI, and direct the savings to funding private hospitals more efficiently and equitably.   (more…)

  • JOHN MENADUE. We are joined at the hip to a country perpetually at war. Part 4

    Next week I will be posting articles asserting that we are running great risks in being tied to the US, an ally that is almost always at war.  The risks pre-date Donald Trump.  Think Vietnam and Iraq.  

    In recent issues of P & I, I have posted many articles about the US almost perpetual involvement in war, the overthrow of foreign governments and a powerful military and industrial complex that depends for its profitability on continuing wars.

    I repost below an article by  Professor Tom Nichols ‘How America lost its faith in in expertise and why that matters’ It is a disturbing account about public ignorance in the US on the world and  foreign matter.   (more…)

  • SAUL ESLAKE. Defenders of housing status quo create ‘alternative facts’.

    The release last month of (albeit heavily redacted) Treasury advice to the Turnbull Government on the likely effects of the policies the Labor Opposition took to the 2016 election regarding negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount once again highlight the extent to which those defending the status quo in this area are willing to create their own ‘alternative facts’ in order to promote their arguments. (more…)

  • LAURIE PATTON. Supporting call for innovation push – highlighting the need for a focussed approach including a national smart cities and communities strategy

    We need our national innovation strategy to be targeted at solving identifiable problems and assessed according to its contribution to social benefit as well as economic outcomes.   (more…)

  • GEORGE RENNIE. The Revolving Door at the Infrastructure Club

    The revolving door of politics represents a particularly difficult problem for modern democracies. And when senior public servants leave their positions to work as lobbyists for the infrastructure industry – an industry that takes a lion’s share of government spending, and is afforded substantive protection from scrutiny by “commercial confidentiality” – that problem grows substantially.   (more…)

  • JOHN MENADUE. We are joined at the hip to a country perpetually at war. Part 3

    Next week I will be posting articles asserting that we are running great risks in being tied to what Malcolm Fraser called “our dangerous ally”, an ally almost always at war.  The risks, disasters and dangers pre-date Donald Trump.  Think Vietnam and Iraq.

    In recent issues of P & I, I have posted many articles about how America has never had a decade without being at war, how it has subverted and overthrown numerous foreign governments and has a military, industrial, and intelligence and political complex that depends on continual wars.  We have become part of that complex.  

    I repost below an article that I initially posted in July 2016 “Is war in the American DNA?”  
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  • DAVID JAMES. Welcome to the Matrix of materialism

    A visitor from before the 20th century would be stunned to see the extent to which the world is now dominated by materialism. It has many dimensions. (more…)

  • BRUCE THOM. King tides and extreme events

    Summer has been awash with extreme ocean water levels reaching positions rarely seen in the past along the NSW coastline. On two occasions the tide gauge at Fort Denison reached levels only exceeded three times since the more accurate self-recording tide gauge was installed there in 1916. Such events raise questions as to why these summer king tides resulted in exceptionally high water level events, whether similar events will occur more frequently in the future, and what are the long-term consequences. (more…)

  • STEPHANIE DOWRICK. Weapons of Moral Destruction

    A few days ago I drove with a friend from Sydney to Leura in NSW’s Blue Mountains. We were heading towards a meditation centre and on the way shared views about social justice and most especially peace activism. As long-time meditators, we were tossing ideas back and forth about how we can most effectively align political activity – sometimes driven by outrage – with personal peace of mind. (more…)

  • ROGER SCOTT. Postscript on Australian universities: ‘are we near the Kodak moment’? Part 3

    In March 2017, under a headline ‘Digital disruption lowers costs of pricy masters degrees’ the Australian Financial Review reported:

    A round of price-cutting has broken out in the market for high-priced masters degrees with four Australian universities offering students a pathway to complete part of their degree online at a steep discount. [Tim Dodd, AFR 18 March 2017]

    Are we near the ‘Kodak moment’ for Australian universities?   (more…)

  • JOHN MENADUE. we are joined at the hip to a country perpetually at war. Part 2

    Next week I will be posting articles asserting that we are running great risks in being tied to what Malcolm Fraser called our ‘dangerous ally’, an ally almost always at war.. The risks, disasters and dangers pre date Donald Trump. Think Vietnam and Iraq.

    In recent issues of Pearls and Irritations I have posted many articles about how America has never ever really had a decade of peace.how it has subverted and overthrown numerous governments and has a large military,business,intelligence and political complex that depends on never ending wars.

     Following the repost yesterday of an article by Andrew Bacevich I post below an earlier article by Jeffrey Sachs . THE FATAL EXPENSE OF US IMPERIALISM. Sachs argues that the scale of US military operations is remarkable and that the US has used force to influence who governs in dozens of countries.

     JEFFREY SACHS WRITES  The scale of US military operations is remarkable. The US Department of Defense has (as of a 2010 inventory) 4,999 military facilities, of which 4,249 are in the United States; 88 are in overseas US territories; and 662 are in 36 foreign countries and foreign territories, in all regions of the world. Not counted in this list are the secret facilities of the US intelligence agencies. The cost of running these military operations and the wars they support is extraordinary, around $900 billion per year, or 5 percent of US national income, when one adds the budgets of the Pentagon, the intelligence agencies, homeland security, nuclear weapons programs in the Department of Energy, and veterans benefits. The $900 billion in annual spending is roughly one-quarter of all federal government outlays. (more…)

  • ANDREW GLIKSON. 2.0 minutes to midnight on the clock of the atomic scientists.

    “The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to its close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences” (Winston Churchill).

    On 25 January 2018 the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the arms of its doomsday clock to 2.0 minutes to midnight, the closest it has been since 1953, with implications for humanity and nature. This is the closest the clock has been to catastrophe since detonation of the first hydrogen bomb on 1 November 1952 on Eniwatok Atoll in the Marshall Islands. By 2 March 2016 some 14,900 nuclear weapons existed, enough to eliminate a massive proportion of living creatures, as well as destroy human civilization as we know it. Underlying factors for the shift of the Atomic Clock to 2.0 minutes to midnight include rising expenditure on nuclear weapons, increase in accuracy and tactical “usability” of nuclear weapons, lateral nuclear proliferation, including by North Korea, absence of arms control negotiations and failure in effective measures to combat climate disruption round the world—amounting to crimes against the Earth.   (more…)

  • I have watched and mourned as NSW national parks have been run into the ground

    MICHAEL MCFADYEN. Over the past 40 years I have visited probably more national parks in NSW than 99 per cent of the population, both for work and recreation. (more…)

  • HENRY SHERRELL. Assessing the effect of recent 457 visa policy changes

    On 18 April 2017, the Turnbull Government announced the abolition and replacement of the 457 visa program. A number of new visa eligibility criteria were introduced immediately, and formal abolition will follow on 1 March 2018, when the 457 visa is set to be replaced by the Temporary Skilled Shortage (TSS) visa. (more…)

  • GREG WOOD. The TPP-11 : Discarding Australia’s Sovereignty

    The latest iteration of the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) now comprises 11 countries, the US not included given President Trump’s strongly stated, but not explained, aversion.  The agreement’s revised text won’t be made public until signature, scheduled to take place in Chile in early March. Wisely, the ALP Opposition in our Federal Parliament has said that it will make its judgement on it only after seeing that text. However it is clear that Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) provisions remain in the revised agreement, though apparently they have been tweaked.
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  • MUNGO MacCALLUM. Trans-Pacific Partnership.

    The TPP was never all about the economic gains, even for the most dedicated rent seekers. The strategic planners – especially in Australia, Japan and South Korea – saw the original TPP as a means of locking America involved in Asia as a permanent bulwark against the dominance of China, whose government was pointedly excluded.   (more…)

  • MICHAEL KEATING. Who Will Pay for Trump’s Wars?

    This article supports Hugh White’s conclusion that the US is unlikely to succeed in fighting China for primacy in Asia. The US has been living beyond its means for a long time, and has depended on foreign finance, and especially Chinese finance, to sustain its living standards. Challenging China would require sacrifices from the American public that they are ill-prepared to make. Accordingly, it is very risky for Australia to continue to base its foreign and defence policies on the presumption that the US can be counted on to maintain its position in Asia without substantial change. What country seeks to go to war with its banker? (more…)

  • JOHN MENADUE War and militarisation has become our new norm.

     War and militarisation has become ever present in so much of our public life. (more…)

  • JOHN TULLOH. Israel’s Manus/Nauru solution – Rwanda.

         How incongruous that a country born of the worst genocide in history should want to deport asylum-seekers seeking shelter to a nation synonymous with another genocide. That is the intention of Israel – send their unwanted visitors to Rwanda. Virtually all of them are Eritreans and Sudanese, both their countries ruled by harsh despots. Israel says they are not genuine refugees, but ‘infiltrators’ and mostly economic migrants. More to the point, the underlying rationale is that their numbers threaten Israel’s Jewish character.   (more…)

  • PETER BROOKS. Tasmanian Labor takes on the gambling industry

    The Tasmanian election on March 3rd will provide a watershed moment in public health not just in Tasmania but for Australia as well. (more…)