Blog

  • Contracting out our foreign and defence policies – A Repost from 2 February 2017)

    The military and defence establishment and lobbies, both in Australia and the US are determining Australia’s foreign policy. The Minister for Foreign Affairs and her Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade are  sidelined. Locked into the US defence complex with its addiction to never ending wars we are forfeiting our ability to act in our own interests. (more…)

  • ALLAN PATIENCE. Towards a social democratic future for Australia.

    The neoliberal war on western economies is finally collapsing under its own contradictions. In Australia its attacks on public wellbeing have been devastating. Politicians in thrall to the neoliberal ideology have vandalized manufacturing industries. Productivity and wage levels remain static. Inequality has ballooned while CEOs have plundered profits to enrich themselves while depressing workers’ wages and returns to shareholders. Neoliberalism was the midwife of the Global Financial Crisis and is the ugly sister of alt-right extremism, populism and racism in all the advanced economies – witness Trump in the USA and Brexit in the UK. The good news is that its end is nigh. What, then, is the way forward? (more…)

  • LUKE FRASER. Is Sydney in thrall to an infrastructure cargo cult? (Part 3 of 3)

    In the first two posts, the vast scale of Sydney major transport projects was estimated at $85 billion – a figure larger than all European spending on transport public private partnerships for the last five years; the posts also examined apparent strategic flaws in Sydney’s Westconnex and Metro projects which threaten poor returns and unhelpful operational impacts.  How did Sydney get here? Can things be improved? (more…)

  • MICHAEL LAMBERT. Overweight and Obesity Part 1: A Global and Australian Perspective

    In part 1 of this two-part post Michael Lambert sets out the broad position on overweight and obesity as both a global development and the Australian situation, the costs involved and the case for national action . The second part of this post will focus on the position with indigenous Australians, its contribution to the health gap between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians and the need for action to target overweight and obesity in indigenous children and adolescents. (more…)

  • IAN McAULEY. Reframing public ideas Part 1: Leadership

    Leadership is the hard task of getting communities to make progress on difficult problems requiring adaptive change. It is not to be confused with authority. Beware of the call for a “strong leader”. (more…)

  • HANS-J. OHFF. Acquiring an orphan submarine. A REPOST from January 2017

    If the RAN holds firm to the concept offered by DCNS it will acquire an orphan no other Navy will contemplate commissioning into service. It will own a submarines that will be expensive to build, expensive to maintain and expensive to operate. It will be a class that has no equals — sadly for all the wrong reasons.   (more…)

  • MICHAEL McKINLEY. Australia and the wars of the alliance: fragments for a coronial inquiry – Part 2: United States strategy.- A REPOST

    Australia’s alliance wars – their respective causes, conduct, and consequences – are overdetermined by the politics and strategies of the United States. In general, though they consist of few battlefield successes, the overall record is one of failed campaigns informed by repeatedly failed – indeed, ‘dead’ – ideas that for various reasons maintain their currency.  The purpose of this and associated posts – Parts 1, 3, and 4 – is to conduct a coronial limited inquiry – that is, to establish just how the death occurred.  (more…)

  • CAVAN HOGUE. Let those who are without sin cast the first stone. A REPOST

    The USA is a complex place with its vices, virtues and differences. Despite its noble ideals and democratic institutions, it has a long history of aggression and of overthrowing democracies in the pursuit of American commercial or strategic interests. It does not have the moral high ground and its lectures to other countries can be counter-productive. It does not observe the rules it demands from others.. This does not make it any worse than other countries but no better either. Australia should judge it by the same standards that we apply to other counties. We cannot trust Chinese and Russian propaganda and intelligence but nor can we trust the Americans. It is very dangerous to put all our strategic eggs in the one basket especially when we don’t know what the threat will be and when the US has a president as unpredictable as Donald Trump. Let us be friends but not a client state. (more…)

  • GEOFF DAVIES. Score voting: a simpler, less distorting measure of voters’ will

    Score voting avoids the vagaries and gaming that are intrinsic to preference ranking systems. It is simpler and more reliably reflects the will of voters. You have probably used it if you have completed a survey. We should use it in political elections.  (more…)

  • JOHN TULLOH. Time for the ayatollah’s of Iran to reflect.

    ‘Every year thousands of students graduate, but there are no jobs for them. Fathers are also exhausted because they don’t earn enough to provide for their family’. Iranian protester.

     As unpalatable as it may be to the ayatollahs of Iran, increasing numbers of their countrymen are becoming unhappy after nearly four decades of theocratic rule. The BBC says the average Iranian has become 15% poorer in the past 10 years. Youth unemployment stands at 40%. Three million Iranians are jobless. The prices of some basic food items, such as poultry and eggs, have gone up by 50%. (more…)

  • STEPHEN LEEDER. Social causes of illness are not immutable: they are amenable to change.

    Modifying our own behaviour in health-promoting directions is sensible but for sustainable, nation-wide change we need to take action of a different kind. (more…)

  • Resolution for 2018: persuade our political leaders to work harder on establishing an independent Australian foreign policy

    Australia’s foreign policy must no longer be formed by the interests of the US military/intelligence/industrial lobbies or the neuroses of US domestic politics.  (more…)

  • PHIL GRANO. A personal response to the marriage equality postal survey.

    At first I was angry and irked by Sydney Catholic Archbishop Anthony Fisher’s linking of an annus horribilis with the passing of marriage equality laws in Australia.  Now, a few days later, I feel saddened that the leader of the Catholic Church in Australia is incapable of reading the Spirit in our times, is so mean-spirited about love, the celebration of love and institutional support for love.  (more…)

  • Malcolm Turnbull’s new slogan has an ominous ring.

    Malcolm Turnbull’s New Year resolution is apparently to update his slogan – jobs and growth is so 2017, and thus is ready for a rejig. (more…)

  • ANDREW FARRAN. The Iranian demonstrations.

    There are few signs that the country is yet a tinder box for a counter-revolution requiring just a spark to set it off.  (more…)

  • MICHAEL McKINLEY. Australia and the wars of the alliance: fragments for a coronial inquiry – Part 1: History and politics. A REPOST

    Australia’s alliance wars – their respective causes, conduct, and consequences – are overdetermined by the politics and strategies of the United States. In general, though they consist of few battlefield successes, the overall record is one of failed campaigns informed by repeatedly failed – indeed, ‘dead’ – ideas that for various reasons maintain their currency.  The purpose of this and the subsequent posts – Parts 2, 3, and 4 – is to conduct a coronial inquiry – that is, to establish where, when and how the death occurred.  (more…)

  • JOHN MENADUE. Is war in the American DNA? -A REPOST from JULY 2016

    In his book ‘Dangerous Allies’ Malcolm Fraser warned us how we can be drawn into US conflicts that are of no concern to us. We have seen that in  following the US into disastrous wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan , Iraq and Syria. Malcolm Fraser spoke of  our ‘dangerous strategic dependence’.

    We are ‘joined at the hip’ to a country that is addicted to  permanent war. In recent decades most of Americas’ wars have been  failures for themselves and countless millions of innocent people.

    But the failure and torpor continues . Politicians and the military in both the US and Australia try to reassure us that it will be better next time or at least the time after that! As a  frightened country  we cling child like  to a declining,erratic and dangerous protector

    What disaster is necessary to force a fundamental rethink by  Ministers,the Opposition and all their senior advisers.?

    (more…)

  • HELEN CLARK. The health of future generations is at risk.

    The health of future generations is being mortgaged as a result of environmental degradation that threatens to reverse the health gains achieved over the past century, according to Dr Helen Clark, a global health advocate.

    Clark, formerly Administrator of the UN Development Programme and Prime Minister of New Zealand, told the recent launch of the University of Sydney’s new Planetary Health Platform that political will and leadership from civil society and the private sector are needed to tackle the major threats to planetary health – as well as collaborations across silos.

    Her speech is published in full below with permission, and is also available at her website.

    (more…)

  • JOHN CARMODY. Who is Joan Sullivan?

    Does the Fairfax slogan, “Independent.  Always”, really mean independent of truth, reliability and knowledge?  Or should my humble response to the extraordinary headline and story in the Sun-Herald of 31 December have been an admission that, even after an operatic obsession of more than 50 years, there might have been a great Australian singer whom I’d never heard of: “New Joan Sullivan theatre to hit high note”.  Worse still, the story that followed then wrongly mentioned that legendary name twice.  Talk about rubbing salt into wounds (not to mention the cliché of the headline, even if it were correct). (more…)

  • American Imperium – Untangling truth and fiction in an age of perpetual war

    In this article ANDREW BACEVICH says ‘Republicans and Democrats disagree today on many issues, but they are united in their resolve that the United States must remain the world’s greatest military power. This bipartisan commitment to maintaining American supremacy has become a political signature of our times. In its most benign form, the consensus finds expression in extravagant and unremitting displays of affection for those who wear the uniform. Considerably less benign is a pronounced enthusiasm for putting our soldiers to work “keeping America safe.” This tendency finds the United States more or less permanently engaged in hostilities abroad, even as presidents from both parties take turns reiterating the nation’s enduring commitment to peace.’

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  • CAMERON MURRAY.  Game of Mates: How favours bleed the nation A REPOST

    Excerpt from Chapter 1 of Game of Mates: How favours bleed the nation. 
    Get the book via gameofmates.com. Follow author Cameron Murray on Facebook and Twitter. Come to the Brisbane book launch on 23rd May, 6pm at Avid Reader, West End (Details and RSVP link).  (more…)

  • LUKE FRASER. Good debt, bad debt: Poor infrastructure choices, no reform – and Lee Kuan Yew -A REPOST

    In the Fairness, Opportunity, Security policy series and the resulting book, Dr Michael Keating AC and I wrote of Australia’s out-of-control transport infrastructure spending that:

    ‘It is scandalous that this investment escapes proper scrutiny, while at the same time the proponents are calling for cuts in other government programs, including education and training programs that would actually increase productivity and participation’.[i]  (more…)

  • CHRIS SHEIL AND FRANK STILLWELL. Bad data collection means we don’t know how much the middle class is being squeezed by the wealthy

    There is a glaring need to reform Australia’s archaic wealth inequality statistics to make them commensurate with international practice. (more…)

  • GOOD READING AND LISTENING FOR THE WEEKEND …

    Ross Gittins says that we would be mugs to panic and cut our company tax rate.

    In his book review of Polanyi’s A Life on the Left in the New York Review of Books, Robert Kuttner argues that ‘Democracy cannot survive an excessively free market and containing the market is the task of politics.”

    In his book review on Inequality and the Coming Storm, Edoardo Campanella comments: “the super-rich are not all the same. Some are entrepreneurs or entertainers who create real wealth for society. Others run hedge fund, private equity firms or other rent seeking businesses who contribute nothing or little.” Inequality and the Coming Storm by Edoardo Campanella – Project Syndicate

    Laura Kipnis in the New York Review of Books says ‘Like  beauty contestants, women at Fox are hired on the basis of looks, then laminated into near mannequins…the optics at Fox make clear what’s expected from women’. Rupert Murdoch boasts his businesses reflect his values.

  • ALAN PEARS. Turnbull has politicked himself into irrelevance on energy and climate in 2018

    As we approach the end of the year, it’s useful to look back and forward. Now is an auspicious time, as two major energy-related reports have been released this week: the federal government’s review of their climate change policies, and a discussion paper from the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) on future energy paths. (more…)

  • RICHARD BUTLER. Turnbull and Trump: Everything Is Illuminated. – A REPOST

    In New York, for the Coral Sea commemoration, Turnbull pledged permanent Australian fealty to the US and expressed agreement to Trump’s concept of “fake news”. Rupert Murdoch presided over the ceremony. Greg Norman was present as a witness. Very illuminating.   (more…)

  • MICHAEL THORN. Countering vested interests A REPOST

    That corporations wield enormous power is not news. That this power is wielded to benefit the corporation and its agents is not news either. Neither is seeking to counter the power of these corporations by public interest organisations, like the Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education (FARE). (more…)

  • JERRY ROBERTS. Neoliberalism, Neoclassical Economics, Twinkle-toes Turnbull and a New Year’s Resolution

    We have put the gender issue to bed.  The priests have had their five years of infamy.  The electors of New England and Bennelong have told the High Court where to stick the dual citizenship clause.  Is there an opening for the Parliament and the press to consider the only issue that matters – the problem that causes all the other problems – the galloping inequality, the public squalor and private splendour of a neoliberal, deregulated capitalism? (more…)

  • ANDREW GLIKSON. The criminal dimension of climate change-a new book.

    “We’re simply talking about the very life support system of this planet.”  (Professor Joachim Schellnhuber, Director of the Potsdam Institute of Climate Impacts)

    The extreme rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) since the onset of the industrial age, reaching approximately 403 parts per million in 2017, and the corresponding rise in mean global temperature to +1.3 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperature, pose an existential risk for the future of civilization and nature.  (more…)

  • House prices are not necessarily correlated with changes in supply and demand

    A recent research report, Regional Housing Supply and Demand in Australia, by the ANU’s Centre for Social Research and Methods, has reignited the debate about the relationship between house prices and imbalances in the supply of and demand for housing.

    Few would dispute that steeply rising prices in some of our largest cities have made homeownership much less affordable in recent years.  This has been exacerbated by slow wage growth. Many disagree however on the causes of such rapid price growth, and on what is to be done to improve affordability.  The Federal and NSW governments put the blame firmly on inadequate supply.  Doubt thrown on this causality by the ANU Report is one of the reasons it has sparked such interest.
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