Just when critics of neoliberalism are finding a seat at the table economists are mounting a counter-attack blaming society’s ills on political corruption. John Menadue summarises their argument under the heading of rent-seekers, regulatory capture and lobbyists. The neoliberal critics, of whom I am one, maintain that ideology is a major factor in the absurd situation in which we Australians find ourselves in relation to electricity, gas, housing, inequality and the dictatorship of multinational corporations. About political corruption only one point can be made with certainty. It is not a new problem. (more…)
Blog
-
ALISON BROINOWSKI. Back to the FutureAsia.
How can Chris Bowen ensure that engagement with Asia will be different this time? By convincing all Australians it’s important and urgent, and by getting Bill Shorten to endorse it convincingly. (more…)
-
LUKE FRASER. Congestion charging: – Stockholm, Melbourne and Turnbull’s legacy-a repost
On congestion charging. There are three lessons: first, congestion charges are devilish hard to put in place, even when they work demonstrably well; second, don’t try to implement this in a city where there is no serious traffic congestion, or people will smell it for the revenue grab that it is – and respond accordingly. A third, vital lesson: Stockholm needed more than one level of government support to implement the charge. (more…)
-
MUNGO MACCALLUM. Malcolm is sure of one thing: it’s all Labor’s fault.
Well it was not exactly water tight – or perhaps gas tight. (more…)
-
RAMESH THAKUR. Australia’s engagement with Asia should start at home with engagement with Asian-Australians.
Do we want to defend ourselves from Asia-sourced threats, be smarter in doing business with Asia, or be part of Asia? The Coalition seems to be pursuing the first, Labor is promising the second, but neither seems interested in the third. (more…)
-
IAN McAULEY. What Australia can learn from Germany’s election
At first sight the German election could be seen as a swing to the right, but it’s more about the continuing decline of traditional “left” and “right” parties, and the differing fortunes of Germany’s regions. In Australia we can learn from Germany about how to handle our own transition to a multi-party democracy. (more…)
-
PAUL MEYER and RAMESH THAKUR. Canada’s nuclear diplomacy is make-believe
The late U.S. senator and one-time ambassador to the United Nations, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, famously rebuked a political opponent: “You are entitled to your own opinion, but not to your own facts.” (more…)
-
HYLDA ROLFE. A Sydney icon is under threat – the creeping commercialisation.
In this blog on 20 September 2017 I (John Menadue) described how ‘the new squatters in our National Parks’ are being given commercial access to our ‘public commons’. In NSW and elsewhere National Parks are being deliberately under funded, resulting in park deterioration which will then be used as the pretext for sale or commercialisation.
A former mayor of Woollahra and now Secretary of the Sydney Harbour Association, Hylda Rolfe, in a letter to the Minister for the Environment and Minister for Heritage, Gabrielle Upton, sets out the perils the South Head National Park faces and the unhelpful attitude of the NSW government. (more…)
-
MARK OGGE. We have enough cheap, easy-to-export gas for 100 years. There is just one problem …
Hard to believe, isn’t it? But it’s true: in the last decade, tens of thousands of square kilometers of Queensland farmland has been covered in gas fields. The export gas rush in Australia is one of the largest and fastest expansions of a gas industry ever seen, anywhere in the world. We are awash with gas. The problem is we are allowing almost all of the cheap and easy-to-get-at gas to be sent overseas. (more…)
-
KELLIE TRANTER. Shortage of information about Iraq airstrikes
In response to criticisms from Amnesty International that the Iraq government and coalition carried out “disproportionate” and unlawful attacks to take back Mosul, a Senior British Commander, Major Gen Jones, said recently that ‘it is naive to think a city such as Mosul, with a population of 1.75 million, could be liberated without any civilian casualties while fighting an enemy that “lacks all humanity”. That pragmatic approach is what our government would have us accept in relation to our involvement in Iraq until now. (more…)
-
JOHN MENADUE. Is the Australian ‘cruise control’ in Asia going to end?
Last week, Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen gave a very encouraging speech outlining ‘a new comprehensive and holistic policy approach to Asian engagement which will be called “FutureAsia”’. After many false starts about our engagement with Asia, could this be the beginning of something important? Could it be as Gareth Evans has said in his memoir, Australia needs to be ‘more self reliant, more Asia, less US’. (more…)
-
JON STANFORD. Australia’s Future Submarine – Part 1: The problems
At the National Press Club in Canberra on 27 September 2017, Hugh White, Professor of Strategic Studies at the ANU, launched an independent report by Insight Economics on Australia’s future submarine (FSM). The report, Australia’s Future Submarine: Getting This Key Capability Right, was commissioned by Gary Johnston, a Sydney businessman and owner of the website, submarinesforaustralia. (more…)
-
BOB DOUGLAS. How will we change the human story?
What do we need to do to make it likely that our children and theirs will inherit a flourishing, rather than a collapsing human world? Our politicians must surely be starting to realise that large numbers of Australians are thoroughly fed up with the fact that the wellbeing of all (not just some) humans, and the health of the planet have become second order and neglected issues because of a widely shared ideology of endless, indiscriminate growth, unfettered markets, rampant individualism, small and impotent government and a key focus on competition. (more…)
-
RIC DAY. Community Pharmacists – Under-Utilised
Community Pharmacists spend too much time dispensing prescriptions and not enough time promoting the safe and effective use of their customer’s medicines. Reform is needed. (more…)
-
MUNGO MACCALLUM. Politics is an integral part of sport
“Keep politics out of sport.” No doubt this piece of graffiti appeared some two thousand years ago on the walls of Olympia, when the Roman emperors were accused of fixing the chariot race. Certainly it has appeared on and off ever since as conservatives pretend that sport is some sacred activity that can be divorced from the messy business of being part of the society in which it takes place.
-
DENNIS ARGALL. Not so scary under Korean skies
Australia has had yet another high level former US defence official breeze in, this time to warn that we might be attacked by the DPRK. Whether there is or is not a concerted plan to all this, the visits of the grave and famous and warnings about improbable threat serve a purpose of keeping us from wandering away from Uncle Sam’s skirt in these strange times. It is useful to step away from speculation and look at some things actually happening, taking the last few days as a slice of life. (more…)
-
PATRICIA EDGAR AND DON EDGAR. Aged care will be a different ballgame -the risks of commercialisation.
There is an obvious conflict of interests in any care industry where profits have to be made and returned to shareholders, rather than ploughed back into better care. Profit is never a good incentive for the common good. It’s easier to cut back on staff, food quality, proper supervision and social activity for those in care, while ramping up schemes that confuse people about entry and exit costs in aged care homes and deny families peace of mind and financial justice. Lack of enforcement of proper standards means the providers too often get away with it. (more…)
-
CAROL SUMMERHAYES. Another Trans-Siberian experience.
John Tulloh’s post brought back memories of my Trans-Siberian train journey, some twenty-three years after his. He was there in 1967, and not a lot had changed when I was there in 1990, travelling in the reverse direction. (more…)
-
ANDREW FARRAN: Korea – could nuclear war come out of clear blue sky?
A decision about joining in the Korean conflict at any point could be the most critical war decision ever taken by Australia. Parliament should be allowed the time to take it. Whatever, the decision must not be taken by the Executive alone [Editorial in the Bulletin of Australians for War Powers Reform (Issue #55 of 27th Sept, 2017)] (more…)
-
TOM IGGULDEN. Navy may be without submarine fleet for two decades due to replacement plan, experts say
The Navy could be left without a submarine fleet for up to 20 years because of a “wildly ambitious” schedule to replace the ageing Collins Class fleet, an independent report has found. (more…)
-
MICHAEL WEST. Tax base eroded by backdoor deregulation of Australia’s labour market and jump in foreign contract workers
The biggest failure of public administration since the formation of the Commonwealth of Australia in 1900. – Australian Tax Office insider
The result of having the wrong system where taxes are too high and a labour market which is over-regulated. – Liberal Party insider
We are talking about the broad, state-sanctioned, backdoor deregulation of Australia’s labour market, which has gathered pace as employers increasingly sign up foreign workers, not as employees, but as contractors. (more…)
-
WE ARE ALSO READING AND LISTENING TO …
Pearls and Irritations provides the following links for weekend reading and listening: (more…)
-
TIM LINDSEY. Watch out Indonesian democracy – Islamism, communism and Jokowi’s Neo-New Order?
On 16 September, police broke up an academic discussion at the offices of renowned activist NGO the Jakarta Legal Aid Foundation (LBH). The topic was the killings of alleged leftists in 1965 and 1966 in the wake of the failed coup that brought former president Soeharto to power. (more…)
-
RAMESH THAKUR. APLN Group Statement on Nuclear Threats
On Tuesday 26 September 2017, 55 Asia–Pacific political, diplomatic, military and civil society leadership figures, who are members of the Asia–Pacific Leadership Network for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament (APLN), signed a statement urging that nuclear crises are best resolved diplomatically, not militarily; and that internationally negotiated deals to resolve nuclear crises should be respected by all parties. (more…)
-
JOHN MENADUE. The submarine mess that Pearls and Irritations has high lighted for 18 months.
At the National Press Club yesterday Mike Keating and Hugh White again drew attention to the very serious problems of our proposed submarine purchases. We will be following their addresses further.
The following is a repost from December 16 last year.
For eight months in Pearls & Irritations, Jon Stanford, Michael Keating, myself and others, have drawn attention to major problems with the proposed build of the Shortfin Barracuda submarine in Adelaide by the French company, DCNS. With the exception of Brian Toohey and Michael Pascoe. I cannot recall one journalist who has seriously examined the problems of our future submarines. Yet those problems are screaming out for careful analysis.This post highlights the background to the submarine decision and the serious lack of public debate.
(more…) -
HENRY REYNOLDS. Thinking about memory and monuments.
The controversy about confederate monuments in the southern states erupted in May this year while I was in the United States. I was impressed by the extent and the vigour of the debate. In the back of my mind I wondered if a similar controversy would eventually emerge in Australia. It did and with a speed that surprised me. But it was not simply a matter of reactive emulation. There are interesting similarities between American and Australian history and the way it has been remembered. And on the other hand there are instructive contrasts. (more…)
-
MICHAEL MULLINS. Proper scrutiny will expose ‘traditional marriage’ as dangerous.
Pope Francis has confirmed his resolve to dump Pope John Paul II’s legacy regarding marriage and the family. He will replace it with his own more inclusive vision, which he outlined in a speech in October last year. This suggestion of openness has obvious implications for Australia’s Marriage Law Postal Survey ‘no’ campaign, which presents traditional marriage as a virtuous institution that is beyond question and beyond change. (more…)
-
MACK WILLIAMS. Muslim Mindanao: once more into a quagmire?
We need to be very careful in not overhyping the IS activity in Marawi and soliciting an invitation to military involvement without a comprehensive Australian review of the complex issues at stake in Mindanao and our wider relationship with the Philippines and the US. (more…)
-
ANDREW FARRAN. Not the time to deny natural justice to the Kurds.
Will the revived march of the Kurds for an independent homeland be the time when the Sykes-Picot agreement, which amidst the chaos of the First World War divided the Arab world between British and French influence and control, becomes finally unstuck? (more…)
-
ELAINE PEARSON and JOHN BLAXLAND. Myanmar Rohingya crisis: Australia needs to stand up and help as the situation worsens
The world seems to be sitting on its hands as the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar descends into what the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has described as “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing”. (more…)