Blog

A vague and uncosted promise of tax cuts and a debate on religious freedom are Turnbull’s tactics to push serious policy issues off the Parliamentary agenda, and to distract public attention from the Coalition’s troubles. (more…)

The Queensland election has been a disaster for the Liberal-National Party. There is a risk that the Coalition will misinterpret the result and become even more alienated from the Australian electorate. (more…)

The government of Malcolm Turnbull has now transcended mere dysfunction – it has lapsed into anarchy, total chaos. (more…)

The Annual Report for 2016 of the Women’s Housing Company demonstrates solutions to the terrible and growing situation of older women facing homelessness. These solutions however continue to elude policy makers, the media and business, whose failures to recognise the size of the problem and its costs to the public purse inflict great damage on the human rights of poorer older women. (more…)

The only argument about housing prices seems to be whether they will crash or fall slowly.  Paul Keating warns of a possible “Minsky moment” – a sudden and spectacular crash. A paper published by Ben Phillips and Cukkoo Joseph of ANU, going into regional detail, finds that there is already an oversupply in some inner-city regions, but suggests that oversupply in itself is unlikely to reduce prices to any significant extent in the short term. Core Logic reports that auction clearance rates in Sydney and Melbourne have been on a noticeable downward trend over the last twelve months.

Wayne Byrnes, Chairman of The Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority has given a speech warning: “The broader environment of high and rising leverage, encouraged by historically low interest rates, requires ongoing prudence. It is easy to run up debt, but far harder to pay it back down when circumstances change”.  Those seeking a summary of Byrnes’ speech will find one by Clancy Yates, writing in the Fairfax Press.

Wage growth, or the lack of it, is in the news. The ABC has three related but separate stories: Carrington Clarke “Cost cutting hurting workers and the economy” summarising a speech by Reserve Bank Governor Philip Lowe; Stephen Letts and Michael Janda “Wage growth mired near record lows”, citing the ABS Wage Price Index; and Michael Janda “Australian workers gift $130b to employers through unpaid overtime”, based on work by Jim Stanford of the Australia Institute’s Centre for Future Work.

Ross Gittins points out that, as a source of economic advice, Treasury’s power has been waning, with more influence coming from the Productivity Commission and the Reserve Bank, institutions more in touch with the real world. Labor, if elected, would boost the influence of the Parliamentary Budget Office.

A Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation poll has found that those identifying themselves as “Christians” are far more likely than “non-Christians”  to blame poverty on individual failings rather than people’s circumstances: “46 percent of all Christians said that a lack of effort is generally to blame for a person’s poverty, compared with 29 percent of all non-Christians”.  Among “white evangelicals” 53 percent blamed the individual.

In defiance of media predictions that Labor would retain the seat of Northcote in a Victorian state by-election, the Greens had a convincing victory. With 45 per cent of the primary vote, against 35 per cent for Labor, they easily cruised through on preferences. The Liberals did not contest the election in a metropolitan seat that Labor has held for aeons,  but even though those who were disinclined to Labor or Green had the choice of another 10 candidates, they secured only 20 per cent of the vote between them. (Figures from William Bowe’s Poll Bludger.)

Richard Butler wrote in this blog that nuclear war is becoming ‘thinkable ,again’. This article shows a US Marines F-35 squadron is training to fight through nuclear war against North Korea – Business Insider.

Twelve Australians of the Year write an open letter to the PM on Manus Island.

Infographics in The Conversation show exactly what Adani’s Carmichael mine means for Queensland.

The owner of the Carmichael project can’t walk away from mine without descending further into distress, says an energy expert in The Guardian.

With the mining boom spent, the big infrastructure spend on the gas industry gone, and the east coast housing boom in its final phase, it seems there’s little ammo in the locker left to help fire up a wages lift any time soon – but there’s a silver lining, writes Ian Verrender. Read the full story

Richard Denniss explains that the coalition is unpopular because it has unpopular policies (Canberra Times)

Tim Hollo explains that Australia’s ageing constitution is past its ‘best-by’ date (Canberra Times)

When we contemplate the hopelessness of our national (and state) politics now, we are tempted, like John Menadue, to think that tinkering with the machine will turn a clapped out jalopy into a Roller. It is more likely the quality of the driver that is the problem. (more…)

The marriage equality survey has re-enforced the tribal type divides that now seem increasingly endemic in our socially defined political differences. Like most Western democratic nations, we are finding that the traditional views about voters as predictable blocs of left and right or class based voting groups are becoming increasingly less relevant. The growth of factions and fraction are displacing the comfortable labelling of party loyalists or simple categories. To add to the confusion, categories such as radical and conservative have also become less useful to define what people are thinking. (more…)

Even atheists, agnostics and humanists, as well as people of the great religious traditions, would likely welcome Pope Francis instituting a new World Day of the Poor. While a shallow and at times vulgar commercialism trivialises the profound religious meaning of Christmas, the World Day of the Poor highlights our God-given responsibility for all in distress. (more…)

John Menadue has offered a series of nine excellent practical proposals as to how the current two party system – which has virtually assumed monopoly status as a duopoly–might be converted into a multi-party system. This would seemingly reflect the real concerns of Australian voters whose voting patterns – by the increasing percentage of votes going to minor parties – show increasing support for a multiparty system. But can the very useful suggestion of “a professional and independent review of our parliament and the democratic renewal” really come to fruition and what would be needed to bring it into operation? (more…)

Adani’s lobbyists resigned recently after a job well done.

Key points:

• Lobbyists made 33 contacts with Queensland politicians or their staff for Adani
• 60 per cent of meetings the Queensland Premier held with lobbyists were for Adani
• Adani lobbyist played key role in Labor’s 2016 federal election campaign

(more…)

The respect for our politicians is at an all-time low. Voters of all ages, but especially the young, are turning away from the political discourse in disgust; The recent citizenship debacle and the same sex marriage plebiscite that wasn’t, have been new low points in a decade high on political drama, low on any kind of meaningful reform. In his book – Reboot – A Democracy Makeover to Empower Australia’s Voters (Melbourne University Press – 2017), Richard Walsh is tackling the core issues head on with some novel ideas on how we, the voters, may get the elected representatives that we deserve, rather than the party delegates who serve us so poorly today. (more…)