Energy policy is the issue to trump them all. We have already lost several Prime Ministers in its cause, and more will likely walk the plank before commonsense prevails. But the last few weeks have set new standards for national stupidity . (more…)
Blog
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KIERAN TAPSELL. University report lifts the lid on child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church
Researchers from RMIT University in Melbourne have produced a landmark report on the systemic reasons for child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. (more…)
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MUNGO MACCALLUM. Easier for Turnbull to deal with ‘Blackout’ Bill than ‘Abominable’ Abbott
ABC news flashed the headline last Thursday: “Abbott headbutted by SSM supporter.” For a delirious moment I thought that Malcolm Turnbull had finally run out of patience with his sniping, undermining, wrecking tormentor and replied to his latest provocation with a full blown Liverpool kiss. (more…)
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JOHN TULLOH. Through the Iron Curtain to Moscow and across Siberia 50 years ago.
Earlier this year, Pearls and Irritations ran an account of the 50th anniversary of my first major foreign news assignment, the Six-Day War. This is about another 50th anniversary assignment, the Russian Revolution. The centenary is next month. (more…)
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JIM COOMBS. The neo-liberal failure on energy
JIM COOMBS: The source of our current “economic imperatives” and crises, especially in the fields of energy, is that we can’t see beyond the “neoliberal” (does it have a meaning?) insistence that only a “market solution” answers economic problems. Surely, “economics” is better than that. (more…)
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SRIPRAPHA PETCHARAMESREE. The Rohingya exodus.
The most recent Rohingya exodus has been making headlines during the past few weeks. But just a week ago Daw Aung San Suu Kyi broke her silence. In her more than 30 minute speech addressing the Myanmar Parliament and diplomats on 19 September, the term Rohingya was not used. Rohingya continues to be “forbidden to name”. This explicit denial of the name not only works against the existence and human rights of Rohingya but also against any desire of the Myanmar government to work towards peace and harmony as well as to fulfil its international commitment to human rights and fundamental freedoms. (more…)
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MUNGO MacCALLUM. At last our national daily has finally come clean.
The Australian has now abandoned any pretence that the current plebiscite has anything to do with same sex marriage and instead embarked on a holy war to maintain, and if possible enhance, religious (by which it really means Roman Catholic) privilege. (more…)
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MAX HAYTON. The New Zealand Election: MMP will decide
The result of the New Zealand election on Saturday was inconclusive. On the night the leader of the Labour Party Jacinda Ardern said “MMP will decide” who governs for the next three years. MMP or Mixed Member Proportional elections usually create coalitions. It has done so again. (more…)
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CAVAN HOGUE. Mindanao and terrorism.
The situation in Mindanao is complicated by historical, ethnic, religious, criminal and social factors that are not easily unravelled. The introduction of Saudi Wahabism and foreign fighters complicates the mix even further. Separatism is not new but the arrival of foreign fighters which led to the taking of Marawi is a new factor. The Philippine Army has been battling separatists for many years but not forces stiffened by foreign fighters and weapons.. There is no simple solution and we may question what Western countries like Australia and the USA have to offer. (more…)
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LESLEY RUSSELL. Private Health Insurance – a low-value proposition?
Private health insurance has been allowed to undermine the universality Australian healthcare to the extent that international experts now downgrade the Australian system in comparison to those of similar countries because it is two-tiered. Growing public concerns about increasing premiums, unexpected out-of-pocket costs and inequalities have led to a focus on whether health insurance provides value for money. The focus should be widened to investigate the extent to which private health insurance supports low-value and low-quality healthcare services. (more…)
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OISÍN SWEENEY: Will the Coalition degazette the Murray Valley National Park and cement its anti- environment reputation?
Up to now, Australian Governments of both sides have largely honoured national park declarations made by each other. However, it’s now official National Party policy to degazette the Murray Valley National Park which would be a low point in Australian conservation history. Given the success of The Nationals in dictating NSW environment policy in the last few years, and the degree to which the Coalition has regressed on environment protection, this is something we need to be worried about. (more…)
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MAX HAYTON. NZ election, politics and leaks.
A dramatic event in the last week of the New Zealand election campaign looked set to destabilise the Government’s re-election plans. Although it was a major development which continues to disrupt the travel plans of thousands of visitors and New Zealanders, the Government’s polling looks firm. (more…)
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MICHAEL THORN. More about rent seekers and lobbyists.
There is nothing new in stories about ‘jobs for the boys’ .Both sides of politics are equally guilty. What is surprising is that the practice endures despite the frequent media stories and the public’s obvious disgust. Behind the appointment of a new leadership team at Tourism Australia by Tourism Minister Ciobo lies another egregious example of this; ‘you rub my back and I will give you a nice sinecure’ practice. (more…)
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WE ARE ALSO READING …
Pearls and Irritations provides the following links for weekend reading:
Dance of the elephants – Inside Story (Matthew Ricketson). When governments and Big Media dance together, it is not a pretty picture.
US Senate Democrats show off anti-religious bigotry – Washington Post (Michael Gerson)
Pope Francis Calls Out Trump, Accuses Him of “Pro-Life” Hypocrisy – Vanity Fair (Tina Nguyen)
Bangladeshis helping Rohingya: “I gave them shelter because I am a human being” – Aljazeera
Debate about energy needs to put people first – Pearls and Irritations Repost (Tony Maher). What coal mine workers think about the energy mess, by the National Secretary of the CFMEU.
Rooftop solar and storage, cheaper than subsidising old coal – RenewEconomy (Giles Parkinson). Coal is expensive, dirty and old hat!
The life my brother never had because he was gay – Canberra Times (David Kirby). David Kirby writes about his brother, Michael.
We’ve turned our universities into money-grubbing exploiters – Ross Gittins. It’s not just the current government’s assault on university funding. Commercialisation of our universities goes back at least 30 years and has left academics with the dismal choice of a crippling workload or a lowering of teaching and research standards.
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EVAN WILLIAMS. Nanny state? Bring it on!
Among conservatives, the term “nanny state” is enjoying a new vogue. And its use is by no means confined to a handful of loony libertarians. Any action intended to protect personal safety or curb anti-social behaviour is now seen as evidence of the dreaded nanny state taking over our lives. Gun-control laws, mandatory helmets for bike riders, plain packaging on cigarettes, compulsory vaccination for kids – all are part of a sinister left-wing plot to destroy capitalism. (more…)
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RAMESH THAKUR. Mr President, the United Nations is not a New York sub-office of the State Department
On Tuesday, Hurricane Trump made landfall at UN Headquarters in Turtle Bay. What had been feared as a category 5 storm had weakened to category 3 – which can still cause considerable destruction. Trump invoked Biblical language in justification for the harsh rhetoric against the ‘scourge of our planet’ today: ‘If the righteous many do not confront the wicked few, then evil will triumph’. (more…)
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GEOFF MILLER. North Korea: see you, and raise.
Trump’s apocalyptic speech to the UN, combined with Mattis’s comments, are designed both to daunt Kim Jong Un and to alarm China and Russia into putting more pressure on him. (more…)
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IAN McAULEY– Private Health Insurance – let’s make the young pay.
Private health insurers are losing their most profitable members, younger people whose contributions subsidise older members. Rather than forcing young people back into private insurance, the government should break private hospitals’ dependence on private insurance and let private insurance go the way of other high-cost industries.
The media and the PHI lobby consistently understate the taxpayer subsidy to PHI. It is not $6b per annum. It is $11b pa (more…)
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HENRY REYNOLDS. Citizenship and English proficiency and indigenous people.
So we have the anomalous situation of a projected citizenship test which large numbers of indigenous people could not pass. (more…)
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FRANK BRENNAN. Same sex marriage and freedom of religion.
NZ Prime Minister Bill English was being interviewed by Fran Kelly on ABC RN Breakfast on Monday morning. Fran asked him about same sex marriage which is now law in New Zealand. He stressed that freedom of religion is important. She observed: “You voted ‘No’ in 2013 but you’ve said if the vote was held now, you would vote ‘yes’. Does that mean that the New Zealand experience of marriage equality has been a positive one for your country?” Prime Minister English replied: “It’s been implemented. There are a number of people taking advantage of it. We haven’t had quite the same challenges around free speech and religious freedom as here but I think it’s really important that that’s maintained. But it’s a pretty pragmatic approach really. It’s in law. I accept that that is the case: we have same sex marriage in New Zealand and we’re not setting out planning to change it.” (more…)
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JOHN MENADUE. Principles to guide housing policy and programs.
Housing policy should be based on three important principles. First, we should value housing for its use-value, not its exchange-value. Second, housing policy should be part of community and neighbourhood building. Third, housing policy should promote social mixing and sharing, rather than stratification. (more…)
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CHRIS BONNOR. Gonski is back, but who noticed?
The Government has called for submissions into the “Review to Achieve Educational Excellence in Australian Schools” – aka the “second Gonski review”. Gonski was about money and equity, this review is about what schools should do. (more…)
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TONY SMITH. The farcical appeal to ‘family values’
Some opponents of marriage equality have resorted to spurious arguments about ‘family values’. The record of arch-conservatives on war, overseas aid, asylum seekers, Indigenous affairs, the social safety net, free market capitalism, the working poor and the monarchy suggests that the reference to family values is a hollow and hypocritical rhetorical device. (more…)
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PAUL BUDDE. Smart energy – or tilting at windmills
After more than 15 years of industry initiatives aimed at smart energy, the government has successfully frustrated and/or stopped such initiatives and is actively working against the solutions preferred by the industry (smart grids, gas, renewables, batteries). (more…)
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JOHN MENADUE The new squatters in our National Parks
The new squatters on public land are being given a leg-up as they were in the 19th Century to seize and occupy public land. By deliberately underfunding National Parks commercial friendly governments are putting commercial interests ahead of the public interest. (more…)
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JEAN PIERRE-LEHMANN. The Clouds of Imminent Trade War Are Looming
In the conclusion of her outstanding book on the First World War (The War That Ended Peace) historian Margaret MacMillan asks whether, as many have argued, war in 1914 was inevitable. She refutes this view; the final sentence of the book contains these four words: “There are always choices.” (more…)
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MUNGO MACCALLUM. With Turnbull, hope is all we’ve got.
Malcolm Turnbull is doing something about the energy crisis he has manufactured. (more…)
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RICHARD BUTLER. The Alliance: The Facts and the Furphies
A review of how we conduct our alliance relationship with the US is urgently required, not simply because it has elected a President who is unfit for his job, but because of the US’ attachment to war. (more…)
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PAUL BUDDE. Digital media and media diversity
The changes recently proposed to the Broadcasting Act will allow for a further concentration of media power in Australia. (more…)
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JAMES O’NEILL. The South China Sea and the risk of war: a summary.
It is self-evident that the risk of war is not confined to the South China Sea. In fact, the risk of war there is probably less than in other significant flash points around the world. (more…)