Blog

  • ALLAN PATIENCE. Australia Day and all that.

    The moral basis of contemporary Australian society is being squeezed dry by political opportunism and contempt for civic virtue among our political leaders. The ignorance those leaders demonstrate about the insult Australia Day has become for many Indigenous people is evidence that Australia has become a morally backward society.   (more…)

  • BERNARD KEANE. If milk prices went up like private health insurance …

    The forthcoming round of private health insurance (PHI) premium increases — touted by the government as the lowest in a decade — will mean premiums have risen nearly 80% since 2008, far ahead of inflation and a good demonstration of why PHI companies have racked up big profit increases in recent years. (more…)

  • MICHAEL McKINLEY. Defence policies and alliances have become a new religion. Part 3 of 5 : Alliance Wars: Papal Prerogatives and Vaticanisation.

    Government pronouncements in Australia, especially in the fields of Strategy and National Security, it is claimed, are determined by scientific rationality and definitely not configured according to religious belief. This is both fraudulent and a dangerous conceit: religion, has not been banished; indeed, the present reeks of ecclesiastical history and religion (more specifically, its deformation, religiosity). Accordingly, the proposition is that a more politically accurate understanding of Australia’s mindset is to be afforded by an interrogation of five aspects:  the present state of world politics in history; the acutely deranged state of the present; the emergence of the Papal Presidency in the US; the religious state of the Australia-US Alliance; and White Papers and their like as religious documents. (more…)

  • The bomb for Australia? (Part 3)

    After the Cold War ended, the existence of nuclear weapons on both sides wasn’t enough to stop the US from expanding NATO’s borders ever eastwards towards Russia’s borders, contrary to the terms on which Moscow thought Germany’s reunification and the admission of a united Germany into NATO had been agreed. Several Western leaders at the highest levels had assured Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO wouldn’t expand even ‘one inch eastward’. In 1999, Russia watched helplessly from the sidelines as its ally, Serbia, was dismembered by NATO warplanes that served as midwives to the birth of an independent Kosovo. (more…)

  • ROBERT MICKENS. The pope’s bewildering inaction on sexual abuse

    Pope Francis has been away in South America this past week and, while in Chile, he drew only modest crowds of supporters. It was the frostiest reception he’s received on any of his 22 foreign trips — at least to those countries with a majority of Christians and certainly in the traditionally Catholic lands of Latin America. (more…)

  • MUNGO MacCALLUM. Captain Goodvibes Turnbull and political correctness.

    So even if we ignore the bunyip in the room – the invasion, the stealing of the land and the children, the destruction of the culture, the systematic trampling of the many nations which once made up the continent – there are copious reasons to question whether our national festival of nationalism and booze is, to use one of Turnbull’s favourite words, appropriate.   (more…)

  • JERRY ROBERTS. Change the date of the day by all means and change Australia

    Let’s change the date of Australia Day, not just for Aboriginal public relations, but to prove that we can do something – anything – to cast off the chains of our pusillanimous politicians and their little mates, the boofhead media commentators. (more…)

  • IAN McAULEY. Reframing public ideas Part 7: Capital

    Former Science Minister Barry Jones complained that we tend to think of “capital” in terms of stuff that hurts when we drop it on our toes. It’s too easy to overlook other forms of capital – human capital, social capital, institutional capital and environmental capital. (more…)

  • CERIDWEN DOVEY. The mapping of indigenous massacres in Australia [New Yorker]

    From New York to Cape Town to Sydney, the bronze body doubles of the white men of empire—Columbus, Rhodes, Cook—have lately been pelted with feces, sprayed with graffiti, had their hands painted red. Some have been toppled. The fate of these statues—and those representing white men of a different era, in Charlottesville and elsewhere—has ignited debate about the political act of publicly memorializing historical figures responsible for atrocities. But when the statues come down, how might the atrocities themselves be publicly commemorated, rather than repressed?
    • The remainder of this article about the project to map the massacres of indigenous Australians, led by historian Lyndall Ryan,  can be found in the New Yorker.

     

  • GEOFF MILLER: White Paper versus White’s Paper; some questions about Australian policies.

    The Foreign Policy White Paper issued late last year is based on its judgement that “the United States’ long-term interests will anchor its economic and security engagement in the Indo-Pacific”.  Is this right?  Hugh White asserts the opposite.  And whether it’s right or not, it seems we’re going to try to make it happen. (more…)

  • The bomb for Australia? (Part 2)

    As we consider whether Australia should obtain nuclear weapons, we need to ask who might subject us to nuclear blackmail. In the authoritative statement of China’s strategic vision in President Xi Jinping’s address to the 19th Communist Party Congress on 18 October last year, the three core elements of China’s vision of the new world order were parity in China–US relations; growing Chinese influence in writing the underlying rules and in designing and controlling the governance institutions of the global order; and more assertive Chinese diplomacy in that new international system. (more…)

  • MICHAEL McKINLEY. Defence policies and alliances have become a new religion. Part 2 of 5: The Acutely Deranged Present.

     Government pronouncements in Australia, especially in the fields of Strategy and National Security, it is claimed, are determined by scientific rationality and definitely not configured according to religious belief. This is both fraudulent and a dangerous conceit: religion, has not been banished; indeed, the present reeks of ecclesiastical history and religion (more specifically, its deformation, religiosity). Accordingly, the proposition is that a more politically accurate understanding of Australia’s mindset is to be afforded by an interrogation of five aspects:  the present state of world politics in history; the acutely deranged state of the present; the emergence of the Papal Presidency in the US; the religious state of the Australia-US Alliance; and White Papers and their like as religious documents. (more…)

  • JOHN AUSTEN. Roads – another year of inaction and congestion-causing deficits

    Spending on roads continues to vastly outstrip road revenues, increasing our national debt. This easy access to funding is why we spend too much on the wrong roads and has stopped road reform – as stated in a post in Pearls and Irritations last year: . (more…)

  • ARTHUR STOCKWIN. Explaining one-party dominance in Japanese politics.

    In 1990 US scholar TJ Pempel edited a book titled Uncommon Democracies, which wrote about parliamentary democracies where a single party had been unusually dominant. These included Sweden, Italy, Israel, West Germany and Japan. Australia was also a candidate for entry to this group. Of the original members, Japan alone is left.  (more…)

  • The bomb for Australia? (Part 1)

    In this three-part series, I examine the counter-arguments that proponents of Australia obtaining nuclear weapons need to address before the nation contemplates such a move. (more…)

  • MACK WILLIAMS. New US National Defense Strategy: Back to the Cold War?

    The new US National Defense Strategy heralds a new strategic direction under Trump which significantly reduces the priority of counter-terrorism and confirms a return to global competition with China and Russia with the basic objective to “outspend” both in defence. All of which has some serious implications for Australia. The influence of the US ‘junta of generals’ is apparent. (more…)

  • MICHAEL McKINLEY. Defence policies and alliances have become a new religion. PART 1 of 5

    Government pronouncements in Australia, especially in the fields of Strategy and National Security, it is claimed, are determined by scientific rationality and definitely not configured according to religious belief. This is both fraudulent and a dangerous conceit: religion, has not been banished; indeed, the present reeks of ecclesiastical history and religion (more specifically, its deformation, religiosity). Accordingly, the proposition is that a more politically accurate understanding of Australia’s mindset is to be afforded by an interrogation of five aspects:  the present state of world politics in history; the acutely deranged state of the present; the emergence of the Papal Presidency in the US; the religious state of the Australia-US Alliance; and White Papers and their like as religious documents. (more…)

  • GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND …

    Canberra Times journalist Crispin Hull writes about the harm of growing inequality, particularly where it results from government policies to opt out of shared health and education services, through financial support for private schools and private health insurance, rendering public services as residual services for the poor and indigent.

    Esther Rajadurai of the McKell Institute has produced a major report – Mapping Opportunity – on widening wage and income inequality in Australia, with extensive analysis of the causes of widening inequality and fine-grained analysis of regional data. It stresses the need for policies to restore social mobility. Writing in the Fairfax Press Mark Kenny has a short summary of the report – emphasising inequality on internet access.  Sam Crosby also of the McKell Institute, drawing on the report’s findings, urges Labor to commit to attend not only to people’s immediate needs, but also to a sustained policy of reducing inequality, including measures  that ensure a fair go and improve social mobility.

    “When is a dollar not a dollar? When you receive it tomorrow”. Jennifer Duke, writing in the Fairfax Press, explains a finding in behavioural economics about our inclination to save. As is well-known, we all find it hard to put aside some of our current income to save for future needs. But when it comes to income we have not yet received – a pay rise (remember them?) or a Christmas bonus, we are more willing to commit such income to saving.

    Tesla’s South Australian battery has surpassed expectations – RenewEconomy.

    Australian wind-solar investment hits record high as the NEG threatens to push it off a cliff.

    The evidence for the Tasmanian genocide of Aborigines – The Conversation.

    US officials briefed Jared Kushner on their concerns about Wendi-Deng-Murdoch – the Guardian.

    An Ancient Greek idea could foil Brexit’s democratic tragedy – Nicholas Gruen.

     

  • Unnecessary wars – A Repost from October 26 2017

    In a letter written in August 1855 to his colleague John Bright, the great free trade liberal, Richard Cobden, expressed his hostility to Britain’s involvement in the Crimean War.  ‘And yet I doubt’, he observed, ‘if there be a more reprehensible human act than to lead a nation into an unnecessary war’. Cobden clearly had in mind wars that could have been avoided and that were not the result of an immediate and direct threat to a nation’s territory or interests. (more…)

  • GRAHAM FREUDENBERG. His speech at the Graham Freudenberg Tribute Dinner- A REPOST from June 19 2017

    On 2 June, the NSW Branch of the Labor Party hosted a dinner for Graham Freudenberg, former speechwriter for federal and state Labor leaders, including Arthur Calwell, Gough Whitlam, Bob Hawke, Neville Wran, Barrie Unsworth, Bob Carr and Simon Crean. This is a transcript of his speech at that dinner – personal reflections and recollections of the people he has travelled with in his more than 40 years of service to the Labor Party and to Australia.
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  • JOHN MENADUE. The ongoing spin that Tony Abbott and the Coalition stopped the boats.- A REPOST from August 3 2017

    Peter Hughes and I posted two blogs in September 2015 (‘Slogans versus facts on boat arrivals’ Part 1 and Part 2) that pointed out first, that Tony Abbott kept the door open for tens of thousands of boat arrivals by opposing legislation that would have enabled implementation of the Malaysia Arrangement of September 2011. Secondly, we pointed out that Tony Abbott’s role in ‘stopping the boats’ was at the margins and vastly overrated.  (more…)

  • JOHN MENADUE. A Commonwealth Hospital Benefit to replace the $11b private health insurance subsidy.- A REPOST from October 18 2117

    The wasteful and unfair $ 11b  per annum cost to taxpayers of the subsidy to Private Health Insurance should be abolished and the savings used in two possible ways – part funding a Medicare dental scheme and/or part  funding private hospital care through a Hospital Benefit Scheme. In that Hospital Benefit Scheme, individuals could choose to access either a public or a private hospital in the same way that veterans do today.  (more…)

  • TIM HOLLO. Democracy is in crisis. Long live democracy!

    The consensus around liberal democracy is collapsing, in Australia and around the world, as citizens are being systematically disenfranchised and disconnected from our democratic role. Unless we radically reinvent and re-embrace much deeper forms of democracy, we stand to lose it altogether. (more…)

  • ANNE HURLEY. The Government just doesn’t get it when it comes to the NBN debacle

    As I was writing this article in response to Paul Budde’s speculation about life following the NBN roll-out in 2020, the Government released its response to the first report of the Joint Standing Committee on the NBN. Sadly, if predictably, the Government seems to still be clinging to the forlorn hope that somehow things will work out in the end.   (more…)

  • BOB DOUGLAS. Towards social and political transformation.

    British writer and columnist, George Monbiot, has recently published an important  book about national and global politics and the need for radical, cultural and political transformation. Entitled “Out of the wreckage: a new politics for an age of crisis”, the book boldly tackles economics, environmental threats, widespread voter alienation and the political corruption that pervades modern  democracies.   The author offers a  new narrative to replace neoliberalism, which he considers responsible for many of the crises that now confront humans everywhere. 

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  • Time ticks closer to nuclear midnight

    This week’s false ballistic missile warning gave the world its first glance of what the first 38 minutes of nuclear war might feel like as political tensions turned to real-life panic. As time ticks away, can catastrophe be averted?  (more…)

  • TED TRAINER. The Catalan integral cooperative … the Simpler Way revolution is well under way!

    Many would agree it is now abundantly clear that a just and sustainable world cannot be achieved unless consumer-capitalist society is basically scrapped. It involves levels of resource use and environmental impact that are already grossly unsustainable, yet growth is its supreme goal. The basic form the alternative must take is mostly small, highly self-sufficient and self-governing communities in which we can live frugally but well, putting local resources directly into producing to meet local needs … without allowing market forces or the profit motive or the global economy to determine what happens.

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  • SHIRO ARMSTRONG. More to Australia-Japan security than bilateral defence ties.

    Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is visiting Japan . Whatever else is said, at the top of the agenda in his discussions with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will be managing relations with the United States and China. These are the superpowers that determine and underpin economic, political and national security for Australia and Japan in Asia.  (more…)

  • MICHAEL KEATING. Tax Reform and the Need to Raise More Revenue- A REPOST from August 2017

    This article considers the future Budget outlook and argues that the key issue for tax reform is how best to raise the additional revenue that will be needed. The article builds on Ian McAuley’s recent post arguing that well-designed taxes can actually improve economic resource allocation, and this article further argues that if the additional revenue is spent on tackling inequality this can increase economic growth.   (more…)

  • GREG WOOD. The China Australia FTA Meets the All Controlling State- A REPOST from September 25 2017

    During Premier Li Keqiang’s visit to Australia in March, Australia and China signed a “Declaration of Intent” to accelerate a review of the provisions governing services trade and investment in the bilateral China Australia free trade agreement (Chafta).  So far the declaration hasn’t generated frenetic activity:  DFAT set a six month deadline for submissions from interested parties. Delay is a positive  Beijing’s decisions of late point to regress in its approach to foreign investment and Australia needs to take careful stock.  (more…)